Here’s a ballad from the very obscure album ‘Friedrich Gulda at Birdland’. Gulda, of course, was known to many largely within the Classical realm, yet this album shows him to be competent, if not exceptional, within the language of straight-ahead bop.
I have a feeling that the title of this tune points towards the fourth movement (‘Entrückung’) of Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2, which opens with the soprano singing the inimitable line ‘Ich fühle luft von anderem planeten’ – ‘I feel air from another planet’. This movement marked some of Schoenberg’s first explorations with atonality, and – this is just a hunch, of course – its not impossible to suggest that Gulda may have felt a similar sense of artistic breakthrough with this, one of his first jazz albums.
Harmonically Gulda does not approach anywhere near the complexity of Schoenberg’s music, but nevertheless there are some interesting things going on. The A section is largely based around conjunct movement of major 7th chords with sharpened 11ths, while the B section makes prominent use of the minor 9th with added major 7th.
I think there may be some more motion occurring in the harmony than what I’ve transcribed, particularly towards the end of four-bar phrases – but the changes i’ve written will work with the melody regardless, and perhaps make things a bit easier to read.
Air from Other Planets – Full Score
Wallpaper Jazz 