You are welcome to listen to my ➡️ playlist⬅️ of recordings of this song by Evans. When he recorded the same tune without bass in duet with Tony Bennett, the key was Bb, which seems to support the story since ➡️ the singer would not likely mind which of the two adjacent keys were chosen. You can listen to their rehearsal tape on which they try various keys. One theory is that he chose this key to allow the bass to use open strings thereby creating a more resonant sound, but I don’t know whether this was the reason. It stayed in his repertoire a long time.īill Evans chose to play this tune with his trio in the unusual key of A major. Versions by Bill Evansīill Evans recorded it in 1961 with his trio and later with Tony Bennett in 1975. These moves above seem to be the only harmonic interest in the original song and both might go unnoticed without the finesse of Evans described below. Another song that uses bVI7 is Out of Nowhere.Īs shown by the Roman numerals and arrows, secondary dominants are used to propel us to II, IV, V and VI. In the original 1950 Jenkins recording, one chorus uses Gb7 (from Cb major, Bb Locrian) and another uses Gbmaj7 (from either Bb harmonic minor or Bb natural minor, Aeolian). This can be viewed as modal interchange (M.I.), being borrowed from another mode rooted on Bb. At bar 26 (second bar of the C section) there is a bVI (Gb) chord.This modulation is not common one of the few other standards I can think of that do this is Stella by Starlight, also by Victor Young. The difference is so subtle that many might not notice it. In bars 13-15 there is a genuine modulation to key V.In my opinion, the only two interesting things about the original harmony are also both quite weak: The harmony is conventional, even boring, in the main, but we need to know it so that we can understand the magic that Evans performed in his arrangement. If you are new to harmonic analysis, read my overview article which explains the techniques and gives a further reading list. I’m going to put all changes in the key of Bb for ease of comparison, though the recording is in E and Ab. It’s a song of two halves, the form is ABAC (8-8-8-8). I don’t have the original sheet music and Real Books are notoriously prone to ‘group think’, so I went to the most successful early recording by the Gordon Jenkins Orchestra in 1950 and transcribed the chords. Bill Evans replaced the boring harmony to make it a jazz standard to die for. My Foolish Heart was written by Victor Young in 1949.
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