MR. SKINNY LEGS

This slightly absurd title is a dedication to my young cousins Jack and Freddie. When Jack was approximately 3, I was playing with him in the garden when he suggested hunting for ‘Mr. Skinny Legs’. I was completely bemused, but decided to go along with it anyway. After a few minutes of crawling around in hedgerow, Jack said “Look! Mr. Skinny Legs!” Upon looking towards the thing he was pointing at, I was absolutely overjoyed to find out that this was the nickname he had given to spiders. It’s quite often that I find inspiration in the beautiful simplicity of children’s descriptions. I mean, how many better ways are there of describing an animal with eight extremely thin legs?

 This is the oldest of the compositions, dating back to when I was still at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I was playing around with this Vince Mendoza composition idea that was passed on to me by Malcolm Edmonstone. The basic idea was to find a four-note chord as a starting point and then try changing one note at a time until you find which shifts in harmony most attract your ear. This is a really good way to create a sequence and the skeleton of a melody, as it relies solely on where the ear takes the composer, rather than using any analytical processes or relying on a grasp of jazz theory. This makes it suitable for people of any age or standard, and can be a great way of teaching people how to create coherent and honest pieces of music. The main theme (A) was composed entirely in this manner and I think it has a nice harmonic and melodic flow because of this.

The minor (flat6) vamp that comes at the end of this melody becomes quite pivotal later on, but we’ll get to that! First, I wanted to allow exploration on the chords of the first theme so it returns to (A) for a guitar solo. This continues until reaching the minor (flat 6) vamp again. This vamp shifts between 5/4 and 4/4 time, so essentially is in 9/4 if you imagine the whole phrase as one bar. The exact same phrase is repeated, though the drums now begin to suggest compound time (9/8) and the 9/4 phrase fits into two bars of 9/8. The rhythmic hits provided by the top notes  of the vamp bass line then are transferred into a rhythmic figure in the piano. This provides a link back to the first theme whilst the harmony and melody progress into a completely new form.

Theme 2 provides a more melancholic atmosphere to Theme 1, thought the rhythmic figure from the first vamp still provides a link to the former section. On the repeat of Theme 2, the Guitar enters with a counter melody. This was inspired by the writing of British composers such as Stan Sulzmann, Kenny Wheeler and Scott Stroman who have an incredible ability to create simultaneous melodic lines that work beautifully together as well as holding their own played separately.

The 9/8 grinds to a halt via some pause chords. A bass line in the original tempo then starts up, percussive and unsettled harmonically. This then launches into a fresh chord sequence that the saxophone is left to explore. I wanted the final section to unravel in the opposite direction to Theme 1, so I started with a solo before bringing in the tune. Little is the listener to know that the chord sequence fits with the original theme until it arrives with the sax and guitar from the last moments of the solo. The composition up until this point thus works almost like a palindrome, though with slight alterations and twists along the way.

The piece finishes with a repeated phrase from the main theme. It is dragged through increasingly darker re-harmonisations until a climax is reached with help from improvised piano interjections and intense driving drums. No resolution is attained, however, as the very first statement of the tune is used to finish the composition on an unsettled chord.