Hidden Pockets – Peter Bernstein

For more complete musical notes, please click on the next album cover (Let Loose).

This live version is faster than the studio version recorded a year later; it also lacks the rubato intro chorus. The eight-measure intro/interlude section begins the song, right on the downbeat with no pickup. The melody in the last two measures of the B section is different from the later studio recording. Instead of ending the out melody at the end of E, this version uses the interlude yet another time as a coda, adding D♭7♯5(♯9) as the final chord.

As with the studio recording, there are two choruses of guitar/drums trading which are not preceded by an interlude. The trading form is the same, and this time it's followed by an open drum solo. Drummer Gregory Hutchinson sets up the out melody by playing the rhythmic figures of the interlude.

Note: the lead sheets available under each album cover are identical.

This song has no unifying key center, but each section suggests a tonality, mostly through cleverly placed melody notes. The changes contain a lot of chromatic root motion as well as minor third key relations; the chromatic parts of the A and C sections focus on a single melody note to tie the chord qualities together.

There is an eight-measure intro with a mostly ascending melody; the changes also generally ascend, starting with G♭ major and then resolving to D, F, A♭, B, and again D major. The A section changes rise and then fall chromatically; the B section mostly continues the downward motion, introducing the first major chords of the head. E♭ major at the start of the B section leads to D♭ major, then however to B7 and E major—an interesting allusion to the minor third modulations in the intro. The C section is the same as A, and D is similar to B modulating downwards to an E section that starts in F and, like the intro, climbs both harmonically and melodically to D major.

Each section is eight measures long, and the intro reappears as an interlude before each solo. D♭7 at the end of the form leads both to G♭ major for the interlude and to C7 for the start of the next chorus.

The melody is really what holds the song together, highlighting a lot of common tones between the chords. The A and C sections have stop-time hits on the head, but this rhythm section activity is not vital to the song. It would be equally valid as a ballad; on the recording, Peter first plays the entire head rubato with piano accompaniment before launching into the intro and in head.