above, the letters attached to phrases refer to harmonic structure, not melody. Note that Ellington's head does not return after each bridge but only at the end of the entire piece. Melodic development takes the place of repetition, just as it does in Beethoven or Brahms. Or the blues.
At once circular (reiterating its phrase structure in the manner of the blues) and linear, âCotton Tailâ builds phrase by phrase, chorus by chorus, to the climactic âtuttiâ proclamation of VI B. Its form is subtly, systematically asymmetrical: the six choruses are grouped 1 + 2 + 3 (an expanding Fibonacci series that would have pleased Bartók). Three structural anomalies (X) elide the six choruses into a seamless, seismic whole. The last phrase of chorus one, four bars shorter than the expected eight, serves as a jump cut to Webster's entrance. The cropped phrasing tilts the entire structure; everything thereafter seems to arrive ahead of schedule.
Harmonically static, Webster's first solo phrase in chorus two seems to extend the previous stanza as well as beginning a new one. Its structural ambiguity turns Webster's double chorus solo into an asymmetrically subdivided single phrase, 40 + 24 (AABAXABA). The last phrase of chorus four similarly jettisons rhythm changes in favor of a blues oscillation on the piano that sets up the supersax supermelody of chorus five. Although Ellington's static, out-of-time solo comes two thirds of the way through the piece, it feels like its center, the eye of the storm. Form is also a manifestation of rhythm; these strategic formal asymmetries are slo-mo versions of faster off-kilter patterns.
Listening to âCotton Tailâ we can detect five different kinds of rhythm:
  1. Pulse rhythm: bass, drums, piano
  2. Melodic rhythm: beginning with the head
  3. Soloistic (supermelodic) rhythm: first heard in Cootie Williams's plunger solo I B
  4. Riff or shout rhythm: first heard emerging in the trombones in I A and Aâ²
  5. Harmonic rhythm: the regularly paced temporal exposition of rhythm changes
Each of these rhythms has its own physiognomy, speed, and ancestry. The steady stream of harmonic rhythm, the chord change that happens every two beats like clockwork, is European in origin. The unpredictably exploding shout rhythm, derived from the âring shout,â has African roots. The steady pulse (234 beats per minute) heard nonstop in the bass and drums relates to two continents, the walking bass of European baroque basso continuo and the âmetronome senseâ of African drummers. Theorists of rhythm in both European and African musictell us that rhythm is layered, simultaneously horizontal and vertical. The rhythmic engine driving âCotton Tailâ onward and ever upward counterpoints rhythms and cultures.
Tracking each rhythmic strand in isolation through the piece shows that each one tells its own story.
Pulse Rhythm
Bass (Jimmy Blanton) and drums (Sonny Greer), both improvising, lay down a carpet of steady beats, four to a bar. Unlike the walking bass lines in baroque music (the Prelude in B Minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier , Book I, for instance), the inflection of the four beats changes often and unpredictably in both instruments; it's a springy carpet. Between one extreme of four evenly accented beats and the other of two heavy backbeats (one and two and ), Greer also punches the fourth beat at times and ushers in the last phrase of chorus two with a four-note break that says âI Got Rhythm.â Similarly, Blanton varies the inflection by playing either two pairs of notes or four different notes in each bar. The double articulation of pulse by pitched and unpitched instruments, as rhythm and melody, makes the drums speak, the capability for which they were banned during the time of slavery.
Melodic Rhythm
From its first note the head melody bounces off the pulse far more often than it coincides with it; it
At once circular (reiterating its phrase structure in the manner of the blues) and linear, âCotton Tailâ builds phrase by phrase, chorus by chorus, to the climactic âtuttiâ proclamation of VI B. Its form is subtly, systematically asymmetrical: the six choruses are grouped 1 + 2 + 3 (an expanding Fibonacci series that would have pleased Bartók). Three structural anomalies (X) elide the six choruses into a seamless, seismic whole. The last phrase of chorus one, four bars shorter than the expected eight, serves as a jump cut to Webster's entrance. The cropped phrasing tilts the entire structure; everything thereafter seems to arrive ahead of schedule.
Harmonically static, Webster's first solo phrase in chorus two seems to extend the previous stanza as well as beginning a new one. Its structural ambiguity turns Webster's double chorus solo into an asymmetrically subdivided single phrase, 40 + 24 (AABAXABA). The last phrase of chorus four similarly jettisons rhythm changes in favor of a blues oscillation on the piano that sets up the supersax supermelody of chorus five. Although Ellington's static, out-of-time solo comes two thirds of the way through the piece, it feels like its center, the eye of the storm. Form is also a manifestation of rhythm; these strategic formal asymmetries are slo-mo versions of faster off-kilter patterns.
Listening to âCotton Tailâ we can detect five different kinds of rhythm:
  1. Pulse rhythm: bass, drums, piano
  2. Melodic rhythm: beginning with the head
  3. Soloistic (supermelodic) rhythm: first heard in Cootie Williams's plunger solo I B
  4. Riff or shout rhythm: first heard emerging in the trombones in I A and Aâ²
  5. Harmonic rhythm: the regularly paced temporal exposition of rhythm changes
Each of these rhythms has its own physiognomy, speed, and ancestry. The steady stream of harmonic rhythm, the chord change that happens every two beats like clockwork, is European in origin. The unpredictably exploding shout rhythm, derived from the âring shout,â has African roots. The steady pulse (234 beats per minute) heard nonstop in the bass and drums relates to two continents, the walking bass of European baroque basso continuo and the âmetronome senseâ of African drummers. Theorists of rhythm in both European and African musictell us that rhythm is layered, simultaneously horizontal and vertical. The rhythmic engine driving âCotton Tailâ onward and ever upward counterpoints rhythms and cultures.
Tracking each rhythmic strand in isolation through the piece shows that each one tells its own story.
Pulse Rhythm
Bass (Jimmy Blanton) and drums (Sonny Greer), both improvising, lay down a carpet of steady beats, four to a bar. Unlike the walking bass lines in baroque music (the Prelude in B Minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier , Book I, for instance), the inflection of the four beats changes often and unpredictably in both instruments; it's a springy carpet. Between one extreme of four evenly accented beats and the other of two heavy backbeats (one and two and ), Greer also punches the fourth beat at times and ushers in the last phrase of chorus two with a four-note break that says âI Got Rhythm.â Similarly, Blanton varies the inflection by playing either two pairs of notes or four different notes in each bar. The double articulation of pulse by pitched and unpitched instruments, as rhythm and melody, makes the drums speak, the capability for which they were banned during the time of slavery.
Melodic Rhythm
From its first note the head melody bounces off the pulse far more often than it coincides with it; it
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