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

[David J. Severance]

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001, Charles Neuman wrote:

> 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
> 
I won't quibble with that and didn't mean imply that only serial music can
be atonal.  Check your page numbers, that definition is on page 733(5th
edition) in my Grout and Palisca