Andrew Hill - 1965
‘Erato’ by Andrew Hill was recorded in 1965 but Blue Note didn’t release the song until 1975 on the excellent compilation album “One for One”. It was released again in 2006 on an album called “Pax”.
This hauntingly beautiful piece is in some ways the reverse of many of the songs we have been looking at between 1955 and 65. Other pieces might have advanced harmony with melodies and/or bass lines that “tame” the progressions giving them an aural logic. ‘Erato’, on the other hand, has a fairly straightforward harmonic structure with an unusual melody and a very unusual bass line.
The composition is in C minor – three flats with the seventh degree sometimes ‘natural (b flat) and sometimes raised (b) (we have left the piece without a key signature so it is easier to read). Example 1 labels the changes without 9-11-13 extensions. Hill leans on the VI chord more than the I chord. I think this is one of the ways the piece maintains a searching quality. Bar two uses a tritone substitution of the I chord and then employs two remote V-I changes before returning step-wise to the original key. The rest of the piece stays in C minor.
Example 2 first shows the bass movement. It is primarily made up of 4ths, 5ths and tritones. This is another way the song maintains its searching, uneasy feel. The example then shows the bass/melody shell. Lastly is the left hand by itself which uses Bud Powell like “shell chords”. The piece is actually very playable for anyone familiar with these shells.
