Listening Assignment #3

"Diggin' for Dex" by Count Basie and His Orchestra

[1]

I chose to expand my horizons a little on my listening assignment today and stray from the bluegrass sound.  I chose this piece piece for its liveliness; it makes me want to dance in my chair as I sit listening to it.  The form of this song actually confuses me a bit.  At first I thought it was AABA, and then it threw me for a loop.  But I'm going to say that in my opinion it is in AABAB form with several B sections tacked on the end, broken up by a solo and a key change.  Each section of the chorus is actually just 4 measures long.

The intro, a couple measures long, introduces to us a hopping piano sound and rhythm percussion.  In the first A section, the saxophones start in on the main melody and converse back and forth with the trumpets. There is possibly a little clarinet in the background being overpowered by the brass.  But at the very end of the second A section the clarinets speak out and continue smoothly into the bridge while the trumpets start to get sassy.  Here, I think I hear a bari sax sound mixed in with trombones on the off-beats of the trumpets.  Then another A section repeats followed quickly by a bridge once more, breaking the pattern.  In the following two A sections,  the saxophone takes the melody again but with more improvisation and the piano accompaniment as the trumpets fade somewhat into the background.  Here a single trumpet lazily pulls through the next bridge  with just the company of the piano and rhythm percussion.  The saxophone soon takes over the melody again in another A section then the brass section blares two bridge sections.  After this point, the piano takes a solo and this is where I can actually hear the upright base and a guitar in the background strumming to the rhythm alongside the drummer on the cymbals.  Tired with the solo after only 4 measures, the piano steps down a few notes to signal another bridge section and the entire band comes back in.  There is a quick, 2-measure interruption where the trumpets and clarinets talk each other into a key change.  The trumpet aims high and a new exciting bridge forms from the whole band, only to be repeated again.  A single saxophone takes a solo; the trumpet steals it away; once again it is stolen away but this time by the drummer actually using his whole set.  But no time for dilly-dallying; the bari sax steals the show on an almost forgotten about A section with trumpet licks in each gap and then there is finally a full-out drum solo with a short vamp ending in a brass shout.

Obviously there is a lot of talent in this band.  Each musician had his or her own characteristics or "bag of tricks" they brought to the table, like Alfred said in class today.  I agree that it is certainly dancing music, and I'm guessing that Count Basie and His Orchestra could have easily extended this song often with more solos and bridges until they got tired of it.