A Child Is Born Tutorial
In this lesson we are going to create a solo piano arrangement of the jazz standard A Child Is Born, written by legendary trumpeter and big band leader Thad Jones with lyrics added later by Alec Wilder. The original version of the song was performed by the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra on the the 1970 album Consummation which included a long intro by pianist Sir Roland Hanna.
Notable Recordings
Since the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis recordingA Child Is Born has been performed and recorded by numerous musicians including Tony Bennett, Stanley Turrentine, Bill Evans, Richard Davis, Kenny Burrell, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Helen Merrill.
Related Lessons
The secondary dominant, or 5 of 5, is one of the fundamental extensions of the basic 2-5-1 progression in jazz harmony.
We can always play the last 4 or 8 bars of the tune as an intro. In this lesson, we will explore other ways to create introductions for any tune.
Minor harmony is much more complex than major harmony and so the minor 251 progression takes much more time and patience to master.
Practice Tips
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The main theme of this piece (i.e. the melody in the first two bars) is very strong and is repeated and developed over the course of the tune. This makes it a great device as a starting point for improvisation - see if you can improvise your own variations on the theme.
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There's many opportunities to work on melodic minor harmony in this tune - the Ebm6 in the second bar (Eb melodic minor), Am7b5 - D7b9 (C melodic minor and Eb melodic minor), Gm7 - C7 (G melodic minor) and others!
- The harmony can be repetitive in this tune. If you're improvising on it try to vary chord voicings and search for some different colours to add interest.
