Autumn Leaves

TEXT: Doug McKenzie
TEXT: [email protected]
MARKER: First chorus - bass in '2' - piano leaves lots of space
MARKER: No sustain pedal used
MARKER: LH jabs chords in more or less regular pattern just before '1' and just before '3'
MARKER: 'Surround' tones on A (the 9th) then finally on G (root) then D (5th)
MARKER: On F7 - play from F chromatically up to tritone (B) back a m3rd (Ab) up a tritone (D) etc
MARKER: Many melodic phrases are chord tones  'enclosed' with upper and lower neighbors
MARKER: This is just an arbitary pattern - can be imposed on any chord -as long as it resolves smoothly
MARKER: Typical Bill Evans-ish arpeggio like pattern on BbMaj 7 to EbMaj7
MARKER: Simple melodic phrase can be enhanced by repeating each note in a regular rhythm
MARKER: 4 note pattern repeats moving down (more or less) in scale steps
MARKER: Basic triad chord tones played rhythmically
MARKER: Same melodic/rhythmic idea repeated diatonically  on another chord
MARKER: Same rhythm begins the next chorus, but seamlessly moves into other melodic ideas
MARKER: Rhythm section maves away from '2' feel - bass walks more regularly
MARKER: The note C is used as a 'pivot' tone repeated  betwwen other notes
MARKER: the F7 is played as a #9 chord
MARKER: Same for Bbmaj7 - is played as Bb7#9
MARKER: On D7, the notes of an E triad are used melodically
MARKER: Diatonic thirds up the keyboard - volume increasing
MARKER: Black notes under some chord tones can be used to slide into the chord
MARKER: Next chorus back to '2' feel
MARKER: Chord tones enclosed by neighbors weave around for this longer phrase
MARKER: On this F7, a brief switch to E Major pentatonic adds a bit of spice!
MARKER: A simple 3 note phrase is repeated with increasing intensity
MARKER: More of the chords 'dirtied up' a bit with black note lower neighbors
MARKER: Another brief move into unrelated pentatonic (E) then quickly resolved back in key
MARKER: Another more or less arbitary pattern unrelated to the underlying harmony
MARKER: 2 notes (more or less chord tones) play in regular rhythmic pattern
MARKER: Another chromatic type phrase is shifted down in scale steps
MARKER: Octave tremolo is effective to sustain a note and give it 'character'
MARKER: Some wrong notes (an E triad) add spice
MARKER: This phrase's integrity comes just from its strong angular shape ...
MARKER: ..... and its final resolution strongly in key
MARKER: Small clusters of notes and the note below are played in a strong rhythmic pattern
MARKER: Increasing intensity and volume
MARKER: Same idea as at measure 26
MARKER: Out chorus - melody played fairly simply this time with chords
MARKER: 'Tag' ending - a bar of Gm11 alternaates with a bar of Fm11
  • Path: Disklavier Jazz 1/020-Autumn Leaves.mid
  • Size: 52 KB
  • Updated: January 31, 2026

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For older generations of Disklavier using floppy disks or Nalbantov USB emulators, see my article on converting MIDI files to E-SEQ and creating PIANODIR.FIL.

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