Love We Had Yesterday – Pamela Baskin-Watson

A haunting ballad in a blues mood, this song has plenty of subtle harmonic and melodic detail that give it a unique depth. Check out the first measure: though this song is in the key of E♭ minor, the third note of the melody is G♮, the major third. When a G♭ finally appears two measures later, this note is made that much more meaningful by its delayed appearance.

The changes in the A section of this 32-measure AABC song start with an unusual cadence, reflecting this major-to-minor shift: F7sus to Emaj7 to E♭m7. Though this song's changes are logical and tonal, there are many unexpected moments. There is no B♭7 anywhere in the song; the final cadence is A♭m7-D♭7-E♭m7. The bridge implies a relative major tonality, but without a single G♭ chord.

Our lead sheet comes from Pamela's manuscript. We show a whole note below the staff in the first measure to indicate that the piano or other chord instrument should start right on the downbeat, as the melody begins with a rest. Check out Bobby Watson's recording to really get a feel for this expressive melody. A few details are slightly different on this recording, such as the placement of certain chords on beat 3 or 4; Bobby plays a different melody on the coda, which "tags" the last phrase one more time.

Bobby Watson plays the melody throughout the head of this quintet recording. Terell Stafford on flugelhorn adds a second part through the A and C sections, consisting mostly of long notes behind the melody but harmonizing the last phrase of these sections. Our guitar, trumpet, alto sax and tenor sax second parts show the melody in smaller notes above, including on the bridge. These parts are essentially transposed condensed scores for this arrangement. The Trombone second part does not have the melody: at pitch it would have too many ledger lines, while if the melody were written an octave lower it would be confusingly close to the harmony notes.

These parts reflect the ending from this recording. Here the last melody phrase is tagged four more times, with a double-time swing feel written twice as fast in cut-time. Bass rhythms are shown under the staff.