McCoy Tyner - 1967
‘Passion Dance’ is from McCoy Tyner’s essential 1967 album “The Real McCoy”. It has all the elements of “Open Form” with its “Paired Base Camps” (Link) and Tyner’s signature arpeggiated right hand figures. It’s a great workout if your trying to get that percussive figure independence Tyner was known for at this time.
The structure is straightforward: a F pedal-drone in the A-section and a Bb pedal-drone in the B-section (Paired Base Camps). Some lead sheets call the chords “suspended 4ths” but technically the third of the chords are used in both cases which makes them F7,11 and Bbm7,11 respectively. The scale for the B-section is the Phrygian mode (Example 1).
That said, it is important to note, a distinguishing feature of Tyner’s approach at this time was combining an indeterminate let hand with a more “directional” right hand. In other words, he would often play chords built on 4ths or 5ths, avoiding the chord-defining 3rd (as does the sus4) while the right hand was free to play arpeggiated 3rds.
The first eight bars of Tyner’s solo is included. We have another solo sample with a brief discussion here: Link.