Precious Love – Norman Simmons

A medium swinger with Norman Simmons' signature lyricism, Precious Love has a 32-measure form with no repeating sections. The melody starts quite simply, with a rising three-note theme; this is developed throughout the form, at first diatonically and building into more complex lines that reflect the shifting harmonies. The changes are mostly II-V7s; the first half of the song stays mostly in A♭, going to D♭ and back in each of the first three 4-measure phrases. On the last two measures of B, what appears to be a tritone substitute V of V (Bm7-E7-Em7-A7) is used to modulate to D major at the beginning of the C section. This section has descending changes that eventually end up in F major, modulating back to A♭ for the last 8 measures.

The audio clip starts with the eight-measure intro, featuring a bebop-ish melody phrase that shifts chromatically up and down; the fifth and sixth measures have a bass solo fill. At the end of the head there is another bass fill leading to an eight-measure coda; this starts with a bluesy "walk down" before repeating the last four measures of the head and ending on an unresolved G7(♯9).

On the recording, the piano and guitar play the melody in octaves on the intro. The tenor sax joins them for the melody at the beginning of the head, doubling the guitar in the lower octave. At C the tenor has the melody alone; piano and guitar join on the melody for the last four measures as well as in the coda.