Skyscraper Blues – Herbie Nichols

A rare blues head from Herbie Nichols. This one works best at a medium-slow swing tempo as demonstrated by Pete Malinverni for our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project.

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Recording: Herbie Nichols - The Fourth Six
Recorded on: December 11, 2019
Label: jazzleadsheets.com (JLS 1064)
Concert Key: B-flat
Vocal Range: , to
Style: Swing (medium slow)

Piano - Pete Malinverni

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Herbie Nichols - Skyscraper Blues (Pete Malinverni)

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A swing-to-bop blues head built on a subtly angular riff. Most of this melody could work over standard blues changes (with a basic V-IV-I turnaround), but in fact there are many passing chords throughout—that subtle layer of harmonic detail that defines the Herbie Nichols style. Further bringing this song into bebop territory is the way the melody lands on E♮—the flat 5th of B♭7—in the fourth measure as well as chromatic approach II-V7s in the eighth measure.

These previously unrecorded Herbie Nichols songs had no tempo indications on the manuscript. However, the phrasing of Skyscraper Blues is particularly suited to a medium-slow swing tempo, and this is where Pete Malinverni takes it for his solo piano recording. He keeps up a stride-like (but single-note) quarter note pulse in the left hand behind the melody.

Herbie Nichols’ manuscript for Skyscraper Blues was included in a certified letter he sent to himself on November 1, 1961, as with Such A Crazy Fox and Van Allen Belt. At this late date in his career, he was still writing songs in a classic swing-to-bop style alongside his more adventurous compositions.

At the Herbie Nichols Piano Summit, Frank Kimbrough [clip] played an expressive version of Skyscraper Blues. His left-hand accompaniment is mostly half-note chords as opposed to the quarter-note pulse in Pete Malinverni’s recording.

Pete's father was a construction worker, making this song particularly appropriate, and meaningful, to him.

Also check out the rest of "The Fourth Six."

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...

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Skyscraper Blues – Herbie Nichols

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