Fair Weather – Kenny Dorham

Kenny Dorham never recorded this song professionally, but there is a private recording of him playing it on piano and singing, made by Norwegian critic Randi Hultin in 1964.

The first issued recording of Fair Weather was Chet Baker's vocal version in 1985. This Nicholas Payton version, from his debut as a leader, was the earliest instrumental recording. Payton loves the music of Kenny Dorham, as is evident from his recording.

Don Sickler: "In 2002 my company Second Floor Music published a book called Sing Jazz! (Leadsheets For 76 Jazz Vocals) (available at ejazzlines.com and halleonard.com). The lead sheet for Fair Weather, like almost all of the other lead sheets in the book, was transposed to a "female friendly" key—my logic being, there were (and still are) a lot more female singers out there than male singers.

Once the book was in print, I decided to embark on a project of creating one-chorus rhythm section tracks minus the melody, so singers would have audio to learn the songs and practice with. In early 2003 I took Cecilia Coleman (piano), Tim Givens (bass) and Vince Cherico (drums) out to Rudy Van Gelder's studio and started laying down tracks. All musicians were in their individual booths, and I was in the big part of the room with my trumpet, playing the melody very softly with a mute so there would be no leakage into the rhythm section mics. At the end of the sessions, I ended up with what I wanted, tracks minus the melody for singers.

Now I'm spending a lot of my time, and my jazzleadsheets.com staffs' time, preparing product for our jazzleadsheets.com website. Our Minus You editions and tracks are a very important part of the website for me. Realizing I had all of the great rhythm section tracks that hadn't been commercially released, and with the great isolation offered by the Van Gelder Studio, I decided to create complete full tracks from what I had. I picked up my trumpet or muted trumpet or flugelhorn and put on the headphones, and recorded, in this case, my interpretations of the melody.

I knew for the start, however, that this was going to be a different recording experience for me, because the piano accompaniment was already recorded; Cecilia wasn't going to be feeding me her accompaniment to my treatment of the melody, but rather, I was going to have to always be listening to her, and actually feeding off of her accompaniment! It had to sound like we were all recording together, even if that wasn't the case."

Don Sickler: "I love this rhythm section. They have done a lot of projects for me over the years.

Pianist Cecilia Coleman has a great ballad touch and is a master ballad accompanist. I can remember how hard it was for me to just cool it and interpret the melodies pretty straight. I love playing ballads with Cecilia and feeling her accompaniment to my expression of the ballad, but that wasn't what this Minus You session was for.

Besides the recording I had two more requests for Cecilia, which she gladly agreed to do. She thought Fair Weather was an amazingly beautiful song to accompany. She played so marvelously! First I asked her to transcribe her comping track so I could issue it separately. Students, expecially, can learn a lot by studying and playing it. Then I wanted her to do another edition of just "footballs" (harmonic rhythm voicings). I think both of these new editions are fantastic, and I'm sure students and pianists will enjoy them."

Check out the melodic movement in Cecilia's comping, as shown in the transcription. It could almost be another song by itself—a contrafact on the changes of Fair Weather.

Exclusive Minus You audio track Our Minus Melody version [clip] is only one chorus long. Melody instrumentalists have an opportunity to work on their expressive interpretation of a composed melody, though they can also improvise for some or all of the chorus. The track has a three-measure piano intro, based on measures 5-7 of the D section. Both the intro and the rubato piano fills at the end are notated in our lead sheets.

Minus Piano CLIP and Minus Bass CLIP tracks are also available, with the same format; these editions feature Don Sickler playing the melody on muted trumpet, an octave higher than the full trio track on flugelhorn. Like the Minus Melody track they are one chorus long; the Minus Bass edition keeps the piano intro, but the Minus Piano edition starts right on the head.

Don Sickler: "I ended up recording two different melody tracks with Piano and Bass accompaniment: one on flugelhorn, and another one, an octave higher on muted trumpet. That's the complete track that is available for sale."

For more about this choir recording, check out our notes for the vocal version of Fair Weather. This session was one of our first with bassist Daryl Johns, who was only 13 years old at the time.

The minus melody track for this recording CLIP is a unique opportunity to work on playing fills around not just one vocalist but a choir. Don Sickler's fills from the full track are included in our melody parts; you're encouraged to use them as inspiration for your own improvised fills. The arrangement is two choruses long, with a four-measure intro setting up the in head; the fills start right at the beginning. On the second chorus you solo on A and B and continue fills with the choir for the out C and D melody.