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"Desafinado" by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Newton Mendonça and Jon Hendricks
There has been a healthy dose of Latin songs that have made their way into the Great American Songbookafter allCentral America and South America are every bit as "American" as the United States. Among the composers of Latin jazz standards, the inimitable guitarist/composer, Antonio Carlos Jobim (1927-1994), stands tall. Jobim composed a great many enduring songs that jazz musicians have latched onto as essential Great American Songbook gems. Newton Mendonça wrote the original Portuguese lyrics, after which the vocalese master, Jon Hendricks (b. 1921), created an English version. The resulting work is an interesting study in both lyrics and music. The Portuguese word "desafinado" essentially means "out of tune," which justifies Jobim's pointed use of dissonant intervals and non-diatonic melody notes. The pathway followed by the song explores various tonal centers in search of consonance, and the lyricists beautifully captured this essence.
Jobim's use of motives plays a strong role in this melody's originality, as does his playing with dissonant tones outside the diatonic scale. Predominant motives include the opening four steps up the diatonic major scale in the very first bar. This melodic and rhythmic motive appears in both forward and retrograde varieties (retrograde in m. 9, with variation at m. 13, then retrograde in sequence with a downward step progression at mm. 57-58). A second motive Jobim employs is the rocking whole step, first cleverly introduced at m. 29 ("like the bossa nova, love should swing."). He features this motive in the last four bars of the first major section of the piece, anticipating and announcing the next large section's primary motive. At mm. 33-48 (the D theme), Jobim combines both motives in an alternating, smoothly flowing pattern, showing his mastery of creating motivic and melodic unity. Hendricks mirrors the more consonant music in this section by using text reminiscent of bygone happy times ("We used to harmonize two souls in perfect time..."). The motive in the final twelve bars, a repeated tonic pitch, successfully makes the composer's point of finally attaining concordance (there is nothing more concordant than a unison pitch) following a melody peppered with dissonant leaps and unexpected tonal shifts. Hendricks' response here reinforces the music with an idealized text depicting two hearts and souls at last abiding in perfect harmony.
Form and Melody
The form of this song departs from the common AABA and ABAB, thirty-two bar forms. The eight-bar A theme (measures 1-8) is comprised of two four-bar phrases, each mostly stepwise (walking up a perfect fourth) and shaped like a double arc, ending on the flat 5 of the V/V chord in m. 3 and on the flat 5 of the iii7(b5) chord in m. 7). A is followed by an eight-bar B theme (mm. 9-16). B can also be divided into two phrases, and begins with a quick interval of an ascending seventh starting on an offbeat, which leads directly into a descending line, first stepwise, then involving leaps that highlight dissonances. The A theme reappears in the next eight bars (mm. 17-24) before a C theme (reminiscent of B for only the first bar) serves as a transition into a new key a major third higher than tonic (mm. 25-32). A new section begins (D at mm. 33-40) and is melodically characterized by a major second stepping back and forth between scale degrees 5 and 6 in the new key, after which a transposition of the new melody motif (the E theme, up a minor third from the D theme) carries the song to the original dominant (V) to bring the listener back to the A theme in the tonic key. This A statement ends a bit differently, creating an arc of energy at the apex of the second phrase, so it is called A' (A-prime). This modification of A is often a very useful songwriting strategy, as it creates interest and variation, bringing the song around to a fresh ending having a touch of new material. This new material begins with a four-bar phrase of descending stepwise melodic sequences ("We're bound to get in tune again before too long,") which connect to another eight-bar melodic group characterized by tonal repetition of the tonic pitch. Jobim utilized a type of cadential extension here, creating a twelve-bar final theme instead of the expected eight. This final twelve bar segment resembles a coda or "tail" built right into the piece (F theme). When one steps back, one can see that Jobim utilized a loose sonata form hereABAC represents the Exposition, D and E are the Development (a transitional section), A' clearly represents the Recapitulation (return of A) and the F theme functions as an obvious coda.Jobim's use of motives plays a strong role in this melody's originality, as does his playing with dissonant tones outside the diatonic scale. Predominant motives include the opening four steps up the diatonic major scale in the very first bar. This melodic and rhythmic motive appears in both forward and retrograde varieties (retrograde in m. 9, with variation at m. 13, then retrograde in sequence with a downward step progression at mm. 57-58). A second motive Jobim employs is the rocking whole step, first cleverly introduced at m. 29 ("like the bossa nova, love should swing."). He features this motive in the last four bars of the first major section of the piece, anticipating and announcing the next large section's primary motive. At mm. 33-48 (the D theme), Jobim combines both motives in an alternating, smoothly flowing pattern, showing his mastery of creating motivic and melodic unity. Hendricks mirrors the more consonant music in this section by using text reminiscent of bygone happy times ("We used to harmonize two souls in perfect time..."). The motive in the final twelve bars, a repeated tonic pitch, successfully makes the composer's point of finally attaining concordance (there is nothing more concordant than a unison pitch) following a melody peppered with dissonant leaps and unexpected tonal shifts. Hendricks' response here reinforces the music with an idealized text depicting two hearts and souls at last abiding in perfect harmony.