K.D. – Bobby Porcelli

Bobby Porcelli created a fitting tribute to Kenny Dorham with this song, a medium-tempo Latin contrafact of the standard Alone Together. It's lyrical and romantic, but also full of the subtle intricacy that characterized Dorham's writing. The melody lands on some classic bebop chord extensions, such as D♯ over A7 in the fourth measure of both A and C, that help give this song its depth. Like several of K.D.'s Latin songs there is a rhythmic bass ostinato played as an intro; this bass figure, on Dmaj7, returns at the end of the A section to extend it to 16 measures (in both head and solo choruses) as opposed to the 14-measure A section of Alone Together. There are many chord alterations and substitutions; all of these are elegant and involve smooth stepwise motion either of roots or inner voices. A rising and falling countermelody in the third and fourth measures of the bridge recalls a similar line from the "Quiet Kenny" recording of K.D.'s song Lotus Blossom. The end of the form has an unusual resolution, never landing in D minor; the second to last measure harmonizes D in the melody with A♭7, followed by two chord hits in the last measure on E♭maj7 and D♭maj7. These hits appear in the solo chorus as well and are used as an ending.

Don Sickler: "I've had the honor of knowing and playing with this incredible alto saxophonist and flutist since the late 1960s. At that time I was already really into Kenny Dorham and Joe Henderson, and Bobby had known both of them way back in the early 1960s. Bobby told me that he had written a tribute to Kenny, which he calls K.D. He brought it over to my rehearsal studio and we played it. It is an elaborate contrafact of Alone Together, an American Songbook standard that Kenny Dorham played on his "Quiet Kenny" album.

I got a chance to record his sextet arrangement of K.D. with Bobby on the T.S. Monk Sextet Blue Note album "Changing Of The Guard." That arrangement is also available in print.
I expanded it to a septet arrangement, and fortunately there is a video of Bobby playing that expanded arrangement with my Columbia University ensemble in a 2014 concert at Columbia University's Miller Theater, featuring Bobby"