Two Letters – Herbie Nichols

Two Letters is Herbie Nichols at his most lyrical and romantic. This song has a particularly wistful sound, partly through its harmonic structure which goes back and fourth between relative major and minor key centers. This mood is enhanced by the melodic rhythm: the ends of many phrases are drawn out to unexpected lengths, creating an eloquent pause in the song’s motion. The end of the song is especially poignant with an unresolved cadence, heading toward C minor though the beginning of the chorus is in E♭ major.

This song has a non-repeating, irregular form, 38 measures in total: 8-measure A, 10-measure B, nine-measure C and 11-measure D sections. D starts the same as A, but is completely different from the fifth measure to the end.

The lead sheets for these previously unrecorded Herbie Nichols songs are taken directly from his manuscripts, which have no tempo indication. Though this song certainly appears to be a ballad, at the beginning of C the melody phrasing suggests a medium-slow swing feel. This is how Helen Sung interprets the melody in her solo piano recording, playing the rest of the head rubato. Her version really leans into the song’s bittersweet mood. She adds a few reharmonizations such as D♭7 in the seventh measure instead of A♭ to B♭7. The form is also a little different from our lead sheet: in both the head and solo choruses (which also go back and forth between swing and rubato ballad), Helen shortens the D section to only the first six measures before the start of the next chorus. She plays the rest of the written D section on the out head as a coda.

Click on Historical Notes to hear Frank Kimbrough playing the head as written, from the Herbie Nichols Piano Summit.