She Insists – Herbie Nichols
A subtly tricky song due to its open-ended harmonies and unpredictable phrase lengths. On David Kikoski's solo piano recording for our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project, he re-interprets the melody a bit; as the songs in this project have not been recorded before, we also have an audio clip by pianist Jake Sasfai showing the head as written.
- Recording: Herbie Nichols - The First 6
- Recorded on: December 15, 2019
- Label: jazzleadsheets.com (JLS 1058)
- Concert Key: C
- Style: Swing (medium)
- Piano - David Kikoski
Video
- Check out our teaser video showing excerpts for the first 6 songs we're releasing that were recorded and filmed for our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project - a solo piano recording project featuring 23 gifted pianists playing 24 previously unrecorded compositions by Herbie Nichols. Order of pianists and Herbie Nichols songs (excerpts) on the teaser video: Jeb Patton - The Afterbeat Frank Kimbrough - Blues No. 1 David Berkman - Games And Codes David Kikoski - She Insists Frank Kimbrough - Tell The Birds I Said Hello Micah Thomas - Van Allen Belt
She Insists is a subtly advanced song, full of the quirky melodic and harmonic structures that define the Herbie Nichols style. The tonic chord is C7♭5, giving this song an open-ended sound accentuated by the long notes at the end of the A and C sections. As we interpret it on the lead sheet, the form is AABBC with two 12-measure A sections and two eight-measure B sections. C starts the same as A but goes in a different direction in the 10th measure, extended to a total of 17 measures. The B section is a classic Herbie Nichols bridge, with slinky melodic lines over circle-of-fourths changes.
David Kikoski recorded this song for our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project. His version CLIP is very personal in his own style; some of the melody phrases are a bit different from our lead sheet. As this project consists of songs that have not yet been recorded, we wanted to present the songs as written as much as possible. Our main audio excerpt is a separate recording by pianist Jake Sasfai, a former student of Don Sickler's at Columbia University, playing the head as it appears in our lead sheet which comes directly from Herbie Nichols' manuscript.
David Kikoski plays his own eight-measure intro (not in our clip) based on the chord progression of the last eight bars of the melody. His exuberant solo doesn't stick to the head form, instead largely based on the B section changes.
Herbie Nichols' original manuscript has no chord symbols in the second ending (last two measures) of the B section. These measures are open for interpretation; the same chords as the first ending, E9 and D♭9♭5, work for the melody and these are what Kikoski plays here. Jake Sasfai plays E9 through both measures in his version.
David Kikoski recorded this song for our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project. His version CLIP is very personal in his own style; some of the melody phrases are a bit different from our lead sheet. As this project consists of songs that have not yet been recorded, we wanted to present the songs as written as much as possible. Our main audio excerpt is a separate recording by pianist Jake Sasfai, a former student of Don Sickler's at Columbia University, playing the head as it appears in our lead sheet which comes directly from Herbie Nichols' manuscript.
David Kikoski plays his own eight-measure intro (not in our clip) based on the chord progression of the last eight bars of the melody. His exuberant solo doesn't stick to the head form, instead largely based on the B section changes.
Herbie Nichols' original manuscript has no chord symbols in the second ending (last two measures) of the B section. These measures are open for interpretation; the same chords as the first ending, E9 and D♭9♭5, work for the melody and these are what Kikoski plays here. Jake Sasfai plays E9 through both measures in his version.
Don Sickler: "Asking David Kikoski to be involved in this project got him into checking out Herbie Nichols' recordings. He loved Herbie's energy with his "go for it" attitude, and that's the way David approaches She Insists."
Frank Kimbrough's Herbie Nichols Piano Summit demonstration of She Insists CLIP is quite different from what David Kikoski came up with at Van Gelder's. Dave's interpretation is laid back, Frank hears it as a more energetic swinger. Jake Sasfai's melody (main clip above) is in between the two approaches, tempo-wise. In the second ending of the bridge, Frank plays E7 through both measures.
Check out all of "The First 6" titles released January 3, 2024.
The date on Herbie Nichols' certified letter containing the original manuscript for She Insists is March 7, 1957—eight months before his last recording session as a leader, "Love, Gloom, Cash, Love" for the Bethlehem label.
Frank Kimbrough's Herbie Nichols Piano Summit demonstration of She Insists CLIP is quite different from what David Kikoski came up with at Van Gelder's. Dave's interpretation is laid back, Frank hears it as a more energetic swinger. Jake Sasfai's melody (main clip above) is in between the two approaches, tempo-wise. In the second ending of the bridge, Frank plays E7 through both measures.
Check out all of "The First 6" titles released January 3, 2024.
The date on Herbie Nichols' certified letter containing the original manuscript for She Insists is March 7, 1957—eight months before his last recording session as a leader, "Love, Gloom, Cash, Love" for the Bethlehem label.
- Recording: Allison / Cardenas / Nash - Tell The Birds I Said Hello
- Recorded on: April 8-9, 2023
- Label: Sonic Camera (SC 2401)
- Concert Key: C
- Style: Latin (Bossa)
- Tenor Sax - Ted Nash
- Guitar - Steve Cardenas
- Bass - Ben Allison
As this trio version shows, She Insists also works well with an even-8ths bossa groove. The form on this recording is slightly different from the original, with no repeat on the A section. This arrangement adds a two-measure intro based on the first ending of B, and a few rhythmic guitar and bass figures that complement the melody—most notably in the 12th and 13th measures of C. A few chords are different from those in Herbie Nichols’ manuscript; for example, Gm7 is added in the fifth measure of A as a passing chord between A♭7 and C7. E7 is played through the second ending of B in this version, as in our demo recording by Jake Sasfai (click on the first album cover to hear this version).
She Insists is the first track on “Tell The Birds I Said Hello”, the fourth trio album by Ben Allison, Steve Cardenas and Ted Nash. The eight songs on this album are all Herbie Nichols compositions. Two of these, Swan Song and Enrapture, had previously been recorded by the Herbie Nichols Project (including Nash and Allison) in 1999 and 2001. The remaining six, including She Insists, had not come out on a recording before jazzleadsheets.com's solo piano versions were released as part of the Herbie Nichols Centennial Project (click on album cover left). We chose these as the first six of 24 songs to release on jazzleadsheets.com due to their appearance on “Tell The Birds I Said Hello.”
Herbie Nichols
January 3, 1919 – April 12, 1963
Don Sickler "On January 3, 2019, we were at the Van Gelder Recording Studio celebrating Herbie's 100th birthday with his family and pianists Frank Kimbrough and Glenn Zaleski. Both Frank and Glenn each recorded a previously unrecorded Herbie Nichols composition, on the same piano Herbie played for his Blue Note sessions. These were the initial recordings that started my new project, the Herbie Nichols Centennial Project, which debuts January 3, 2024. Read more...