Blue Friday – Kenny Dorham

A simple minor blues riff in a mellow, subdued mood. Though this song has no specific rhythm section arrangement like many Kenny Dorham compositions, there's still a bit of K.D.'s signature depth in the changes. In the fifth and sixth measures the melody goes up a fourth relative to the first phrase, but the chord here is G♭7 instead of the expected E♭ minor for both head and solos.

The bass plays 2-feel on the head, going to walking for the solos. We have a transcription of Paul Chambers' bass lines from the recording; click on Bass Corner for more details.

This later live version is clearly Blue Friday, with the same melody riff as the original recording. However, this one is a fifth higher in the key of F minor. The melody and changes are also slightly different in several places. Most notably, in the fifth and sixth measures the melody is the same as the beginning rather than transposing up a fourth; however, the chord here is B♭ minor, the IV chord unlike the first version. Kenny Dorham phrases the end of the melody differently in both choruses of the in and out heads. In our lead sheets based on this recording, there are four endings which reflect these choruses.