Kenny Dorham - 1955
Kenny Dorham’s ‘Prince Albert’ premiered on the first Jazz Messengers album. It’s modelled after the chord changes of the standard ‘All The Things You Are’. The piece skillfully modulates through a number of Key Centres.
This is a good piece to invent your own accompaniment as you go. The audio example is a very simple left hand using 1-7 and 1-3 structures.
Each line in Example 1 is 4 bars long. The head has three sections: A (16 bars), B (8 bars) and A2 (12 bars). The example focuses on the modulations.
The first 8 bars move from Ab Major to C Major. The modulation pivots on a Major IV chord switching to minor III of the new key. The next 8 bars begins with a similar pivot back to Ab. The same pivot is used to move to G Major, but this time the I chord moves to the minor II chord of the new key.
The B-section stays in G Major for 4 bars and then moves to E Major without a pivot.
The final 12 bars repeats the A-section but adds a Coda. The Coda sets up with a chromatic passage to the II chord.
Example 2 is an approximation of Horace Silver’s introduction.
