Herbie Nichols - 1956

‘The Gig’ by Herbie Nichols was released on the album “Herbie Nichols Trio” in 1956. It’s a good example of “Advanced Harmonic Form” with Pitch Centres rather than tonics (Link).  

The Gig
The Gig

When we looked at ‘Step Tempest’ by Herbie Nichols (Link) we saw an example of “Delayed Resolution”. With ‘The Gig’ he seems to go one step further away from “Destionational Harmony” by employing “Pitch Centres” as points of rest rather than tonics as points of resolution. The four bar intro seems to rest on the F7#9 in bar 2. The piece rests again on F in bar 12. The A-section rests again at bars 16 and 20 both times on an ‘A’ chord. 
The B-section lands on  ‘C’, ‘Eb’ and ‘D’ in bars 24, 28 and 32 respectively. Notice that all the resting places occur at points you would expect resolution in a more traditional piece which helps give the song “Traceable Movement” therefore an Aural Logic (Link).

Another interesting observation is that beginning in bar 26 the melody uses the notes found in the Phrygian mode.