Blue – Marc Seales

For a detailed description of this song, click on the second album cover ("American Songs"). This version by New Stories, with guest Ernie Watts on tenor sax, has a slightly different quartet arrangement. A condensed score is available for this recording as well as a tenor part. This arrangement stays in time, with no rubato at A. The piano doubles the tenor melody in this section; there are drum fills in both the in and out heads. At B the tenor has the melody alone; the piano adds octaves in the right hand to the left-hand voicings. The third and fourth measures of C add piano chords not played in other versions.

D is again a piano solo; the tenor plays the background only on the last time. The tenor is the second soloist; though we show the same bass line at 1 as on the "American Songs" version it is interpreted more freely here. After this solo the tenor cues E (the interlude); the piano joins in the third measure with unison melody plus chord voicings.

On the out head B is repeated, going to the coda the second time. The coda starts with piano and tenor trading eight measures each of the vamp; they play the melody together the last time only.

Not a blues! Blue is an open-ended song, more harmonic than melodic with no obvious key center. The melody winds around chromatically, but becomes momentarily lyrical and wistful; these latter sections suggest an A minor tonality. The harmonies are impressionistic and colorful; in some places with shifting piano chords over a bass vamp, we show no chord symbol.

The form has several contrasting sections. The two eight-measure A sections alternate two measures each of 3/4 and 4/4, the latter having single long chords with fills. An A bass pedal introduces the 16-measure B section; the melody comes in on the fifth measure. The C section, played once on the in head only, is seven measures long with the bass doubling the melody.

Solos are on an eight-measure section based on the last four measures of the B section. A chromatic rising line in whole notes is played as a background here—on this recording a guitar background for the piano solo. This leads to a guitar solo over A pedal in the bass. After the last solo there is an interlude (over the same pedal)—the only part of the song with a somewhat bluesy melody. This leads back to the out head: two A sections and one B, vamping the last four measures to end.

A condensed score is available which reflects this recording. The A sections of the in head in this version are rubato, with piano and guitar fills together; on the out head these sections are in time with drum fills instead. The piano and guitar generally play the melody in octaves; on the ending vamp they alternate between playing the melody and soloing.

Yet another arrangement of Blue, combining elements of the other quartet recordings, 20 years after the first recording. At A of the in head, only the rhythm section plays in the 3/4 measures; the tenor plays fills on the 4/4 measures. This section is not played entirely rubato, but the chords under the tenor fills are held out (shown in our Condensed Score with a wiggly line rather than a fermata). On the out head A has the same format as on the "Speakin" Out" recording (first album cover), with tenor melody and drum fills.

The piano and tenor double the melody in octaves at B, which is played twice in and once out. Marc Seales plays the same rhythmic fill in the seventh and eighth measures each time, which is shown in our score. There are no piano chords at C.

The solo format is the mostly the same as on "Speakin' Out," but with the tenor playing the backgrounds twice at the end of the piano solo. At E the piano doubles the tenor again, with a few more chord hits. The coda starts with piano and tenor melody in octaves; they then trade 4s and play the melody once more to end.