Bitonality, Part 1
While Pepper Adams was a great lover of classical music and techniques like bitonality, the idea of two unrelated keys being juxtaposed against one another, his own pencil-to-paper compositions don’t seem to generally express these ideas, a fact which becomes markedly less confounding when we consider the role of composition in jazz (at least in Pepper’s kind of jazz). Given the improvisation component critical to the ultimate performance, his tunes are written more as a jumping off point than a complete representation of the breadth of his musical affinities, such as his interest in bitonality. In Pepper’s words to Ben Sidran in 1986, a bitonal approach can be used “for various effects. It can be for drama, it can be for humor, poignancy….” (Interview can be heard on this page. Quote from the 3rd or 4th segment of four.)
Bitonality is defined as music being played in two distinct key centers simultaneously. Due to this, bitonality supersedes the limits of “scale theory” which correlates a bespoke scale with any given chord (like C half-whole diminished belonging to C7 b9 with a natural 13 versus C altered belonging to C7 b9 with a lowered 13). However, it might be better described by what it is not. It is certainly not diatonicism, nor is it chromaticism, meaning non-diatonic combinations of notes, which could mean the chromatic scale, the harmonic minor scale, the whole tone scale, etcetera. This broad definition often leaves the door open for interpreting an excerpt as simultaneously bitonality and something else.
I raise the fact of Pepper’s interest in bitonality as a plausible mode of analysis for an intriguing piece of writing from one of his most artistically profound and individualistic compositions. “Reflectory,” the title track recorded in summer of 1978 for Pepper’s first of two albums for Muse, “beings with an ominous vamp”, writes Sy Johnson in the liner notes. Said vamp consists of two chords: C major 9 over Ab (Cmaj9/Ab) followed by Db9 over G (Db9/G). The second of the two is a clear G altered dominant, a fully extended tritone-sub V7 chord in C, a common sound in jazz. However, the preceding tonic C chord is underpinned by George Mraz’s cavernous Ab bass note, creating a sort of a bottomless effect without the support of a diatonic note.
Excerpt of Pepper Adams’ handwritten lead sheet for Reflectory
Let’s look at a few ways to take this chord. At face value, you could imagine an Ab major 9 #11 chord wherein the fifth and ninth, pillars of stability in a typical major chord, have been raised, destabilizing it and evoking that characteristic feeling of ominousness. But, for that matter, one could also imagine an A minor 11 with a lowered bass note, A to Ab. Or, perhaps most functionally useful of all, you could see it as a typical Ab7 #5 #9 save for a raised seventh, G in place of Gb, making this vamp a modification on a typical minor key bIV-V7 b9 progression, much akin to Charlie Parker’s classic introduction to All the Things You Are, which in this case resolves deceptively to C major.
The suggestion that this is a bitonal chord implies that it could be divided up into two parts that could be analyzed in their own key center. Let’s separate the top and bottom of the slash to achieve this. Looking at the top side, we can understand the C tonic chord perfectly well. Looking at the bottom side of the slash, we have a noteworthy hang-up, that being the B pickup note that precedes both chord and which creates a minor third (augmented second, yes) with the Ab and a major third with a G. Since we have a major key in the treble part and the three notes in bass part do not exist in any major key together, the parts cannot be transposed to fit together. To me, this rules the phrase out as bitonality. Ultimately, I think my favorite explanation is the one previously mentioned that ties Reflectory together with bebop history and Pepper’s idol and friend Charlie Parker. The mysterious chord on its own really implies a “harmonic major”, if you will, where you have a flattened sixth (Ab) in a seven-note scale.
I want to introduce one more way we can elect to hear this chord, that being as a very tall Lydian-derived extension. Let us think of C major 7th with a 9 on top. Observe the C triad and G triad simultaneously present (triads a fifth apart). Add an F# to the chord (C major 9 #11). To that G triad we have added a 7th, so we have C major 7 and G major 7 at once.
Now add an A. Observe the simultaneous C, G, and D triads (stacked in fifths). What if we add to the D triad a 7th as well? This would give us an actual C#, not Db, on a C chord that also includes a D. I refer to this as C Lydian #15. Roll this chord out on a piano and gauge the viability of this sonority for yourself. This viability, which I insist on, is a lynchpin in the understanding of this concept of an “extended Lydian”.
The chord at hand can also be looked at as C major 7 with D major 7 on top (stacked in 9ths), cutting out the middleman G chord. We can choose to go one step further and put an E major 7 on top of this. It is a beautiful, rich sound and it straddles scale theory and outright juxtaposition of keys, sitting somewhere in between via a theory of vertical harmony. It can be used as a method to achieve and analyze bitonal type sounds but is not strictly bitonality per say.
It should be noted that this alternative analysis when looking at the C major 9 over Ab (which is a reduction of Ab major 7 with Bb major 7 atop and C major 7 atop that) that is merely one way to hear/understand it and not one I have ever heard Pepper make any verbal/written reference to.
To close out, I would like to provide an example from Pepper’s “bag of tricks” that counts squarely as bitonality. This one does not come from his own composition but rather one which he made very much his own in the way that many great artists do (think Monk’s ballad Ask Me Now as performed innumerably by Joe Henderson) through routine inclusion in his sets. The tune in question is Sonny Rollins’ Oleo (derived from the root word oleomargarine and a vintage moniker for modern margarine. YUM!), not an obscure selection by any means. In fact, to use a part of Pepper’s own criteria as stated in the originally cited 1986 Sidran interview, its ubiquity as one of the most recognizable melodies in jazz is what makes his application of bitonality so striking and effective.
In any given performance of Oleo (included below is an especially good one), you can find Pepper transposing the melody by a minor third, either up or down, creating any number of the marvelous effects he outlined to Ben in that 1986 interview. Drama, humor, poignancy; three adjectives that I think define the music of Pepper Adams in totality.
Please enjoy this display of improvisational mastery and thank you for your time.
