Dave Brubeck said, early in his career, that he wished to fuse the traditional jazz vocabulary with polytonality. His composition lessons with Milhaud are the likely impetus for this life-long interest in polytonality. This technique is found throughout his output, where it plays and increasingly prominent role. This paper will explore polytonality in Brubeck’s works spanning the composer’s long career. The main goals of this study are to explore the various means Brubeck used to achieve polytonality and the methods by which polytonality is incorporated into his works. Included in the discussion of the latter goal is an analysis of the means by which Brubeck is able to move from a polytonal to a tonal phrase. One of his favorite devices, one found in both The Duke and In Your Own Sweet Way, is to exploit the overlap between high tertian sonorities that characterize the traditional jazz vocabulary and polychords. This overlap allows him to use certain sonorities as “pivot” chords, ones that sound polytonal and carry a tonal function at the same time. Finally, this study also introduces a new analytic system for the identification of the relative dissonance of polychords in order to reveal the manner by which Brubeck is able to create directed musical motion and cadential gestures in a polytonal context.
“Early Bitonality in Jazz: The Superimposition of the Submediant”
When the term bitonality is applied to jazz, it often connotes such composers as George Russell and John Carisi, whose harmonies were inspired by twentieth-century concert music. However, application of bitonality is not necessarily intentional, nor does it occur only in classical and jazz modernism. As I demonstrate in this talk, early forms of bitonality can be found in the classic jazz styles preceding bebop. The melody of a jazz improvisation or song can imply a tonality different from its underlying harmony. In particular, I will focus on melodic superimposition of the submediant key.
In an article entitled “Why So Sad, Pres?,” from Jazz: A Quarterly of American Music, no. 3, Louis Gottlieb has made the observation that: “Lester (Young) was fond of elaborating the submediant harmony in major keys, the chord based upon the sixth degree, superimposing it upon various other chords, mainly the tonic.” In addition to analyzing this phenomenon in the improvisations of Young, I present similar examples in the improvisations of Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong. Further, I also explore songs associated with jazz performance. Examining the implications of submediant superimpositions as two keys helps illuminate structures in these pieces that are hidden when viewed through a single tonality.