Dark Beauty – Kenny Drew, Sr.

Full of both nostalgia and pathos, Dark Beauty is deeply emotional and haunting. The ballad is formed of alternating composed and improvised sections—we've notated the beautiful improvisations Kenny plays, except for the sixteen bars of open solo in the middle of the form. The combination of intricate improvisation and simple, lyrical composed melodies yields a complexity that makes Dark Beauty such a powerful ballad in this trio performance. Another way to approach this composition in a trio or quartet context would be to play from the lead sheets found with the "For Sure!" album as your starting point.

We've also made Kenny's original piano manuscript edition available (labeled Solo Piano Arrangement), so you can see how he wrote out these marvelous B sections, giving you yet another way to approach them. With this edition, Kenny has actually also created his own Solo Piano Arrangement.

Both of our trio and quintet audio excerpts start with the melody. To set the atmosphere for the melody, Kenny adds an introduction of four arpeggiated fermata piano chords, which is also the way each recorded arrangement ends.

Here, Kenny Drew's powerful ballad is performed in a quintet context. Both this quintet version and the trio audio excerpts start with the melody. To set the atmosphere for the melody on the complete recordings, Kenny added an introduction of four arpeggiated fermata piano chords, also the way each recorded arrangement ends.

This quintet version has a Condensed Score edition (all counter melodies and hits notated—a valuable resource for rhythm section players). The lead sheet editions also double as first part editions if you have a quintet (see our second part editions).