I Love It When You Dance That Way – Donald Brown

This first recording, at a medium samba tempo, has an eight-measure intro which starts with four measures of conga alone, then adds the drum set. Our audio excerpt starts with the tom-tom setup to the instrumental melody and fades out on the last two measures of the melody chorus.

Catchy and flowing with a bright vibe, this song has the feel of a standard—though not without a bit of a challenge. The uneven form is 37 measures long, divided into an 18-measure section and a similar 19-measure section. These are labeled on our lead sheets as A1 and A2, as the first 13 measures are identical. The changes have a lot of standard II-V7 movement, but there is no key center. Though the end of the form suggests a resolution into C major, there are no C major chords; the beginning uses C7 as a "V of V" resolution to B♭ major.

This song has a cyclical form, resolving back at the end to the beginning of the next chorus. The recordings of this song show different ways to deal with the ending. On this first version, the out melody repeats and fades out; this is shown on our lead sheets as "ending: vamp and fade melody", with the first note of the melody shown to continue the phrase.

This recording features both instrumental and vocal melody choruses; check out the vocal version for more details about the latter. The melody is played first instrumentally, then sung by the two vocalists in octaves; the horns and vibes double the vocals. The last two measures are played instrumentally in this chorus. This is followed by a piano solo chorus with wordless vocal melody as a background almost throughout (except the last two measures). After the vocal out head (same format as the vocal in head), there is another chorus of wordless vocal melody, doubled by the flute with flugelhorn and vibes improvising together over it. This chorus is repeated and fades out.

Though all recordings have a samba groove, the tempo marking on our lead sheets is "samba or bossa" as it would also work at a slower bossa tempo.

Note: all instrumental lead sheets for this composition are identical, no matter which album cover they are displayed under.

Donald Brown's fourth album as a leader, "People Music" was the first of his to feature vocals, though only on this song. Lenora Helm also sang on Donald's next album, "Cause And Effect," a year later; she has also recorded with Antonio Hart and pianist Dona Carter. The other vocalist on this song is the drummer, Eric Walker; this seems to be his only vocal recording. Walker is best known for his work in Sun Ra's Arkestra; in this band he used the name Samarai Celestial, which is how he is credited on the cover of "People Music."