12 Comments
Jun 15Liked by Michelle Mercer

I'm a sucker for jazz waltzes -- I hadn't even realised, till a musician friend made fun of me for it. My favourite is probably Chick Corea's 'Windows' (the version with Hubert Laws on the flute)

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Jun 13Liked by Michelle Mercer

"Better off Dead," Elton John

"Half a World Away," R.E.M.

"Chorégraphie des âmes," Klô Pelgag

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Jun 12Liked by Michelle Mercer

Thanks for this very informative and inspiring article !!!

Some of my favorites :

„Emily“ - Johnny Mandel

„Sno Peas“ -Bill Evans

„Cravo e canela“ - Milton Nascimento - a different treatment, brazilian style !

„Fly me to the moon“ - Bart Howard , originally in 3/4 time

„Answer me“ - Keith Jarrett version

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Jun 12·edited Jun 12Liked by Michelle Mercer

Beautiful and informative. Thanks for this! I read somewhere that the Beatles went on in rehearsal about if "All You Need I Love" should have been in 3 or 4. After some deliberation they stuck with a bar of 4 followed by a bar of 3. Whatever works! It worked. I think it might have been a George Martin interview. Waltz on Michelle!

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Jun 12Liked by Michelle Mercer

Thanks for your wide-ranging consideration of the "power of 3"! I'll toss two more facets into the mix: [1] the rich, suave and powerful drumming approach that Elvin Jones brought to triple meters. Every decent jazz drummer of my generation knows what's meant if you say "an Elvin 3" -- or, for that matter, a (Bernard) Purdue shuffle; [2] as I understand it, the Cameroon groove called "bikutsi" is commonly a type of 12/8 feel (four triplet quarter-notes per bar, a cousin of swing and shuffle feels). But check out what virtuoso Cameroonian drummer Brice Wassy (credits include Salif Keita and Jean-Luc Ponty) created in his piece "Flip Stories", which is a "bikutsi in 3" (three triplets per bar)!: https://youtu.be/E8z5eaxQtIs

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Jun 12·edited Jun 12Liked by Michelle Mercer

Great article! I would like to contribute, many of the songs on Sting's wonderful "Last Ship" album are in 3 (the album came out before the Broadway show). He told me when he was writing the music for the album that he was "bringing back the waltz", so it was a conscious effort to write songs in triple meter.

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