more on this temperament thing (12-tone jazz tune, "atonal" vs "serial")

[Charles Neuman]

From: "David J. Severance" <severanc@mail.wsu.edu>
Subject: Re: more on this temperament thing
 > Bill Evan's 12 tone tune is the only atonal jazz composition I can
 > think of if there are more please let me know.  Again I think you are 
 > confusing modulation with tonality which has a very specific meaning. 
  > Atonality is a compositional technique that was developed by Arnold
 > Schoenberg and is the systematic avoidance of permitting any single
 > pitch to sound as a tonal center.

Here's another 12-tone Jazz piece: Kenny Barron's "Row House". A great 
recording of it is on Bill Barron's album "The Next Plateaux". The late 
saxophonist Bill Barron was Kenny's brother. Kenny plays on this album.

What's especially great about this tune is that while the melody follows 
  12-tone principles, the tune is a blues and sounds as much like a 
blues as any other jazz tune in blues form. So, it's a tonal 12-tone 
piece! (See below.) Even the title of this piece is clever ("row" 
refering to the rows of 12 tones used in 12-tone composition, and "row 
house" of course referring to an urban architectural style). I used to 
study with Bill Barron, who himself made many innovations in jazz 
composition, and he once commented that "Row House" was such a great 
tune that he wished he had written it!

As for the term "atonal" referring only to serial music, I'll quote from 
Grout and Palisca's _A History of Western Music_ (p. 850):

"Atonal" as currently used refers to music that is not based on the 
harmonic and melodic relationships revolving around a key center that 
characterize most music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centries. The 
term is no longer applied to music that is built on serial principles, 
such as twelve-tone series. ...Twelve-tone music ... need not be atonal.


Whether or not the term can apply to serial music, I think the person 
who originally used the term in this discussion meant "not based on 
harmonic and melodic relationships revolving around a key center".

Charles Neuman
PTG Assoc
Nassau County, NY