Coleman Hawkins' 'Picasso'

[chazzer95]

Hello Folks,

I'm new here. A friend of mine calls this forum his "favorite jazz forum". Thanks for having me.

Now to business, be prepared, 'cause my question is a tough one:

Since Hawk's unaccompanied tenorsax-solo Picasso is based on the changes of Body and Soul, I was always wondering why it is in the key of ... well, that's one of those mysteries: it's somewhere located between E-Major, F-Major or even Eb-Major, depends on which LP-issue you have.

This seems to be an odd thing, because Body and Soul is usually played in the key of Db-Major, everywhere on the planet.

Please: Has someone of you a clue? Has this variety of keys something to do with the pitch of the shellack-masters or the transfer from them onto tape? By the way, I played it just for fun on my turntable in the "right" key of Db-Major, and it still sounds pretty reasonable.

Another mystery is the date of the recording: Picasso was either recorded in New York around 1947/48 or even earlier, in Los Angeles in 1945. There are two other unaccompanied solos of Hawk, called Hawk Variation (part 1 & 2), recorded in LA, 1945. I could provide sound-samples for comparison if requested.

Thanks for an enlightening answer,

Saxpet

Edited March 16, 2009 by Saxpet

[fasstrack]

Hello Folks,

I'm new here. A friend of mine calls this forum his "favorite jazz forum". Thanks for having me.

Now to business, be prepared, 'cause my question is a tough one:

Since Hawk's unaccompanied tenorsax-solo Picasso is based on the changes of Body and Soul, I was always wondering why it is in the key of ... well, that's one of those mysteries: it's somewhere located between E-Major, F-Major or even Eb-Major, depends on which LP-issue you have.

This seems to be an odd thing, because Body and Soul is usually played in the key of Db-Major, everywhere on the planet.

Please: Has someone of you a clue? Has this variety of keys something to do with the pitch of the shellack-masters or the transfer from them onto tape? By the way, I played it just for fun on my turntable in the "right" key of Db-Major, and it still sounds pretty reasonable.

Another mystery is the date of the recording: Picasso was either recorded in New York around 1947/48 or even earlier, in Los Angeles in 1945. There are two other unaccompanied solos of Hawk, called Hawk Variation (part 1 & 2), recorded in LA, 1945. I could provide sound-samples for comparison if requested.

Thanks for an enlightening answer,

Saxpet

I believe you answered your own question: probably it was speed differentials or shellac erosion. Just a guess, and hardly 'enlightening', but I bet that's it............

[chazzer95]

I believe you answered your own question: probably it was speed differentials or shellac erosion. Just a guess, and hardly 'enlightening', but I bet that's it............

Thanks.

Yep, that's what I thought too. But it's a very large step from F-Major down to Db-Flat. These guys were professionals, and the transfers of 78-rpm shellacks recorded in a studio, are usually done accurately.

Let's wait for more replies of ... some Hawk specialist perhaps?

[fasstrack]

Well, whatever key it's in, or wound up in , it's a MF for sure. Like going Body and Soul one better. And that was pretty snappy itself. Should be studied, both of them. Learned like a graduate course, after the ABCs, etc. (way after other H.W. is done first) They probably are, in better schools. I bet Sonny Rollins wore out a few of those pressings....

Edited March 16, 2009 by fasstrack

[AllenLowe]

"the transfers of 78-rpm shellacks recorded in a studio, are usually done accurately."

this is really wrong - there are many speed errors made from that era -

[jazztrain]

Saxpet:

Are you certain that Picasso is based on the chords of Body and Soul? My recollection is that some have argued either that it may be based on another tune ("Prisoner of Love" or am I confusing this with something else?) or on no tune at all. I think Chilton said something about this in his Hawkins biography. Let me see if I can find it...

OK. Check out pages 260 and 261 of John Chilton's "The Song of the Hawk." He argues that "the improvisations are not based on any standard harmonic progression." Here's a link that may or may not work:

http://books.google.com/books?id=54EX2a-kf...esult#PPA262,M1

It might be intstructive to check out the liner notes to the expanded, CD reissue of the "The Jazz Scene" to see what, if anything, is said there regarding the basis of Picasso. I don't have access to that at the moment.

Hello Folks,

I'm new here. A friend of mine calls this forum his "favorite jazz forum". Thanks for having me.

Now to business, be prepared, 'cause my question is a tough one:

Since Hawk's unaccompanied tenorsax-solo Picasso is based on the changes of Body and Soul, I was always wondering why it is in the key of ... well, that's one of those mysteries: it's somewhere located between E-Major, F-Major or even Eb-Major, depends on which LP-issue you have.

This seems to be an odd thing, because Body and Soul is usually played in the key of Db-Major, everywhere on the planet.

Please: Has someone of you a clue? Has this variety of keys something to do with the pitch of the shellack-masters or the transfer from them onto tape? By the way, I played it just for fun on my turntable in the "right" key of Db-Major, and it still sounds pretty reasonable.

Another mystery is the date of the recording: Picasso was either recorded in New York around 1947/48 or even earlier, in Los Angeles in 1945. There are two other unaccompanied solos of Hawk, called Hawk Variation (part 1 & 2), recorded in LA, 1945. I could provide sound-samples for comparison if requested.

Thanks for an enlightening answer,

Saxpet

[Lazaro Vega]

I've heard that, too, that it is not based on Body and Soul, that it is original and almost "free."

Edited March 16, 2009 by Lazaro Vega

[Larry Kart]

After quoting from Chilton, Brian Priestley's notes for "The Jazz Scene" reissue add: "Even nonmusicians, however, have often compared it to 'Body and Soul,' for the simple reason that the implied chordal background of 'Picasso' is a chorus and half of the 1931 song 'Prisoner of Love' (itself very similar to 'Body and Soul' but with a different key for the channel)."

[AllenLowe]

that would explain the key change -

[fasstrack]

After quoting from Chilton, Brian Priestley's notes for "The Jazz Scene" reissue add: "Even nonmusicians, however, have often compared it to 'Body and Soul,' for the simple reason that the implied chordal background of 'Picasso' is a chorus and half of the 1931 song 'Prisoner of Love' (itself very similar to 'Body and Soul' but with a different key for the channel)."

I have to listen to this now. I was talking from memory. I think Prisoner goes into the minor a major third up, if I remember correctly. (Em if it were in C Maj.). I know lots of tunes, but don't play happen to play that one. Guess I'll learn it now. Nice melody.........I can hear B's recording in my head.

Now that I think about it, I don't think the A section changes are exactly the same as Body and Soul . (Dm7////G7////). Body & Soul, in the same key for argument's sake, is usually played (Dm//A7b9//Dm//G7). Also, now that my memory is jogged, the last few changes in the last 2 bars is also a little different in each. To confuse things even more, Hawk's famous record of Body, I'm pretty sure from memory, eliminates that common usage A7b9 (like a 5 of 2).

Edited March 16, 2009 by fasstrack

[jeffcrom]

Just listened to "Prisoner of Love" (Billy Eckstine, 1945), "Picasso," and "Hawk Variations" back to back. "Picasso" certainly seems to match up with "Prisoner of Love," but "Hawk Variations" puzzles me. It was two sides of a French Selmer 78, but the two sides are jammed together as one track on the Swingtime LP Hawk Variation. The first side sounds like a familiar chord progression that never goes to a bridge, but side two is minor and seems to be based on a descending bass line (i, flat vii, flat vi, V). I didn't check the key of any of them. Maybe "Hawk Variations" is a freer improv. Someone with better ears can certainly correct me.

The Hawk Variation album is a pretty cool collection of rare Hawkins, by the way. And thanks for sending me back to listen to this stuff again.

[Late]

Here are Brian Priestley’s 1994 notes on “Picasso” from the 3-disc Jazz Scene set:

From many points of view, the pièce de résistance of the original Jazz Scene was “Picasso.” As it turns out, Coleman Hawkins had already recorded an unaccompanied solo a couple of years earlier (“Hawk Variations” was done for a tiny label run by the Selmer saxophone company). But “Picasso” was the one that became famous and eventually inspired lots of follow-ups, from Sonny Rollins to Anthony Braxton. It also benefited from considerable preparation, according to Granz:

“When we recorded this side, Hawkins sat down and for two hours worked it all out on the piano. He then recorded it on the tenor for another two hours. Always the perfectionist, he still wasn’t satisfied; so a month later we recorded the piece again, and finally, after another four-hour session, got the take we wanted.”

Needless to say, none of these other tenor takes survive — otherwise they would be here. As to what Hawk was so painstaking about, there are two schools of thought. The piece is, according to Gunther Schuller (in The Swing Era), “a free-form, free-association continuity” consisting of phrases, according to John Chilton (in The Song of the Hawk), “unconnected by harmonic progression or tempo.”

Even nonmusicians, however, have often compared it to “Body and Soul,” for the simple reason that the implied chordal background of “Picasso” is a chorus and a half of the 1931 song “Prisoner of Love” (itself very similar to “Body and Soul” but with a different key-change for the channel). Any doubt about this explanation will be dispelled by listening to Hawk’s 1957 version of “Prisoner of Love” for Verve, which is — by no coincidence — in the same key and at roughly the same speed as his performance here. Indeed, although it begins out of tempo, you can snap your fingers to most of “Picasso,” at about seventy-eight beats per minute, in order to feel the underlying tempo and appreciate the soloist’s rhapsodic departures from it.

[Late]

And here's our previous discussion on "Picasso."

The track that I want to hear, but haven't yet, is "Dali," which I believe is also an unaccompanied solo. (Is it?) Haven't been able to find the disc though. If anyone can help (even just with that track), please PM!

[EKE BBB]

I don't have the Stash disc handy, neither have I my discographies here at work, but IIRC Lord lists only two recorded performances of "Dali", one being here:

Dali (Stash)

Recorded live from clubs of Bruxelles and Washington between '59 and '62

[Lazaro Vega]

Blue Lake has a copy of Dali at the radio station. I can play it on the air sometime tonight, probably just before 11 p.m.

[chazzer95]

Hello folks,

Thanks a bunch for all your cool answers to my question. Maybe I better sit down and transcribe it myself. When I was talking about the "accurate 78-rpm-shellack-to-CD/vinyl-transcriptions", I was more thinking of the official studio recordings and their re-releases on the major labels like RCA, Columbia or Clef/Verve. I know that there are a lot of wrong-pitch-cases on many reissues of live-recordings, sometimes quite a happy mess there, or with reissues on labels like Joyce etc., mostly on vinyl.

Thanks for hinting me to Prisoner Of Love. I will check that out. There's indeed much similarity between Body And Soul and the latter song. Here's a solo-transcription of Body And Soul.

See ya later,

Saxpet