Early Bird Gets The Short End Of The Stick – Donald Brown

This dramatic composition is a great example of Donald Brown's signature style. It's packed with dynamic contrasts, tense harmonies, and unpredictable, stop-and-start phrases. Though much of this song is built on single-chord vamps, there is no obvious key center. The opening vamp, which grows out of a solo piano intro, is based on a D♭ diminished chord—perhaps an unlikely tonic. Another chord quality that appears several times is a major 7th with a sharp 9th and sharp 11th—a chord from the sixth mode of the harmonic minor scale.

The piano sets this song up with an eight-measure intro, vamping on a repeated double note (D♭ and E♭). The drums, with brushes, come in for the A section, in which the piano adds a sparse melody over the vamp for eight measures followed by a two-measure melody break for the horns. The eight-measure B section has more active melody and harmony, with a bass phrase extending from the last two measures into the beginning of the next section. C is otherwise the same as B but is only 6 measures long, leading into eight-measure D which vamps on Dmaj7(𘁋9♯11). The only melody in this section is a harmonized tutti figure in the last two measures. E is the same as A but adding horns on the melody, with the last melody note extended for an extra 6/4 measure. Solos are on a simplified version of the head changes, and the out head starts from the intro and finishes right at the end of the head with just the horns, very much an unanswered question.

We are making this song available as a quintet arrangement, essentially as recorded with Full Score and parts. Donald Harrison plays C-melody sax on the recording, but the part he plays is within range for alto sax so we have an Alto Sax 2nd part instead. The horns play mostly unison, harmonizing at D and E until the last unison phrase. Our rhythm section parts have detailed cues for notable melodic rhythms.