A Quick Analysis of "Joy Spring"

...And in record time, I've found a surefire way to alienate all three people who might read this!

I'm part of the Premiere Jazz Ensemble at New Haven's Neighborhood Music School. As part of our "curriculum" (we function during the school year) we're required to appear at so many community performances. One of our annual gigs is coming up this Monday, the MLK celebration at the Peabody Museum. In preparation we ran through some tunes at tonight's rehearsal, one of which was Joy Spring by Clifford Brown. Aside from being one of my favorite standards, I became painfully familiar with this song after using it at my Berklee audition last month. The reason I chose it, though, is due to its interesting harmonic structure (and technical complexity on the bass guitar), and since everyone has to be nerdy about something, that's what I'll be discussing now.

The head is an AABA form, really A1 A2 B A1 if you take into account the key changes. It starts with a I7 vi7 ii7 v7 progression in F, then foreshadows the modulation with I7 ii7 iv7 and the addition of an Eb7 which prompts the use of the F dominant scale. Bars six and seven go chromatically back to ii7 (F/A, Abdim7, Dmi7) and finish off the V7 I7. But instead of staying on I for the last bar of the phrase, the key change is anticipated a bar early with ii7 V7 in the key of Gb. This brings us into A2 which repeats the exact same progression in the new key. This is slightly more obvious if you look at the melody, which is the exact same thing moved up a half-step.

The B section is interesting. In keeping with the pattern so far, the B section uses ii7 V7 in G to modulate up another semitone. Rather than repeat the melody again, which by now would be cheap trick on Mr. Brown's part, the progression becomes a cycle of fourths. Simplified (since there are a few "flair" chords tossed in): Gmaj7, C7, Fmaj7, Bb7, Ebmaj7, Abmi7, Db7, back to the familiar Gbmaj7 from B2, and... wait for it... ii7 V7 I7 in F! The final A section is a well-deserved resolution, going back to the original key and finishing out our first chorus.

Joy Spring is not intended to be a complex arrangement (the harmony is enough to handle!) so the solo section simply flows right through the head changes. The out chorus brings us to a coda which plays with the half-step modulation for a couple bars before ending on a nice F9 chord. All in all a good exercise for the novice player, since the overall structure of the changes within each key is diatonic. Recognizing and anticipating the modulations while soloing is what gives this piece its challenge and its character. As my mentor Jeff Fuller would say, "If Brownie writes a tune, you better play it!"