André Previn's Tonal Excursions
In its musical approach, André Previn’s 1967 solo piano record All Alone bears comparison to Keith Jarrett’s The Melody at Night, with You in more ways than one. Like Jarrett’s famed album, All Alone seems to be stripped to its melodic essence, mostly disregarding the widely apparent blueprint of theme and variations in Jazz. Consequently, there is an inherent sense of restraint to this approach that could too easily be mistaken for a lack of musical depth. And while this record doesn’t necessarily reveal itself fully on a first listen, there is great beauty hidden in its candor.
Straightforward as All Alone might seem, Previn is an undeniable master of his craft, marked by his prolific –and undeservingly overlooked– output in the world of Jazz. In terms of raw talent, he was an anomaly amongst anomalies, excelling as a pianist, conductor and composer in both Jazz- and classical music. Truly holding one’s own on both sides of the fence is such a rare feat that only Friedrich Gulda and Keith Jarrett come to mind as contemporary equals.
Like Jarrett on his aforementioned album, Previn displays his prodigious talents on All Alone not by means of virtuosity, but by economic restraint, omitting most superfluous musical gestures. Showing that restraint doesn’t necessarily have to mean basic, I transcribed 5 beautiful tonal excursions hidden just below the surface of All Alone’s seeming simplicity.
Excerpt from How Deep Is The Ocean (2:34–2:42)
In its final act, Previn’s arrangement of How Deep Is The Ocean makes beautiful use of tonality’s outer limits by use of chromaticism. 8 bars into his solo over the song’s A section, Previn skips right ahead to the C section while quoting its original melody. Simultaneously, a chromatic scale is crawling up and down with little regard to the form and its chords, while sweeping left-hand arpeggios outline the song’s harmonies. By use of this ever impressive three-hand effect (a technique perfected throughout the age of 19th century bravura pianism), the resulting texture is sonically dense, but at the same time firmly rooted in tonality. When outweighed by tonal elements, chromaticism –no matter how foreign to the harmony– merely adds color to an established tonal structure.
Excerpt from Everything Happens To Me (0:00–0:20)
This tonal juxtaposition can also be heard in Previn’s treatment of Everything happens to me. Here, its intro is built on a massive three-part polychord, growing increasingly outlandish by a slow cycle through Ebmaj7, F#m7 and G#m7 (hence the dubious 8th note beaming in its example). Previn continues by interweaving this arpeggiated polychord with the song’s original melody in mm. 5-6, completely disregarding its harmonic implications. By use of the song’s tonic as a pedal point (Eb), and its familiar melody, Previn is able to drift in and out of harmonic focus without losing track of the song’s structural integrity.
Excerpt from When Sunny Gets Blue (0:00–0:15)
Being in the key of F, the right hand anticipates the melody of When Sunny Gets Blue by repeating its first phrase in diatonic parallel thirds. Contrastingly, the left hand makes use of a D major add#9 chord, hinting at some type of altered scale on D. While this chord conventionally resolves to G minor, Previn obscures its obvious dominant function by simultaneous use of these two key centers, making for a peculiar intro.
Excerpt from You Are Too Beautiful (0:31–0:39)
A denser approach can be heard in the repeat of the A section of You Are Too Beautiful. Straying into the realm of atonality, Previn harmonizes its simple diatonic melody with inverted major chords in the right hand, combined with root position minor chords a half step away in the left. Note how the second to last chord resolves into C#dim over Em by use of inner voice movement, leading us back to a sense of tonality and functional harmonic movement.
Excerpt from More Than You Know (0:00–0:08)
Bitonal triads make a similar appearance in Previn’s arrangement of More Than You Know, ambiguously moving towards the tonic over the course of its intro. However, a sense of structure can be found in the continual chromaticism of the right hand, building towards a tonal resolution in mm. 3. The left hand seems to act more erratically, zigzagging through various intervallic relationships with the right.
As long as there is some form of structure –be it melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic–, our ears tend to be quite forgiving to short flourishes of atonality within a tonal environment. Even more so, Previn shows that they can provide beautiful and complex harmonic shades extending beyond the familiarity of tonal dissonance, notably useful in more adventurous approaches to composition or reharmonization.