Before Dawn – Doug Miller

This bright-toned song is made even brighter on the recording as Doug Miller whistles the melody an octave above the piano—as you can hear, he is quite a talented whistler! Before Dawn is a bossa full of bebop-style lines. Though the key is clearly F, the A and C sections of the 32-measure ABCD form start on B7 in a long chromatic descent to the tonic. The B section visits quite a few key centers: B♭, A♭, C, and finally G♭.

Our piano trio edition reflects the recorded arrangement. The melody is written in the octave that Marc Seales plays it on piano. At the end of Doug Miller's bass solo, he plays the last four measures of the melody, with an added phrase at the end to set up the out head. They take the melody out from C, but it could also be played from A. The ending goes to a II-V7-III7-VI7 vamp, and on cue the final melody phrase is tagged three more times.

Doug Miller also recorded a lyric version of Before Dawn in 1997 with vocalist Janis Mann. Also in 1997, New Stories recorded their second album "Remember Why."