Night At Tony's – Gigi Gryce

Like many other jazz composers, Gigi often liked to borrow a "standard" chord progression, then create his own melody. That often led him to adjust the original chord progression, in places, to fit his new melody. The bridge of A Night At Tony's is a good example of this, since Gigi's bridge melody alters the original chord progression of Charlie Parker's Yardbird Suite. However, on the recording the musicians play solos on the original Yardbird Suite "changes."

"When Farmer Met Gryce" was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's legendary Hackensack Studio.

In Art Farmer's words: "We worked a place called ‘Tony's’ [in Brooklyn], that's where he got [the name for] his tune A Night At Tony's." Gigi also arranged this composition in 1957, for Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers (nonet), and also later in 1957, as an octet for a Dizzy Gillespie recording.

Art Farmer's quote came from Rat Race Blues - The Musical Life of Gigi Gryce (a book by Noal Cohen & Michael Fitzgerald). Learn more about Gigi Gryce at Noal Cohen's Jazz History website. Also see Gryce's discography.

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Transcribed Trumpet and Alto Sax Solos: Solos by both Gigi Gryce and Art Farmer are available. Art trumpet takes the solo break and is the first soloist. Our Art Farmer solo audio excerpt starts with last measure of the head, setting up Art's solo break. The Gryce alto solo excerpt fades in with the last couple of bars of Art Farmer's solo, so you can hear how differently each of them start exploring the solo changes. Comparing soloists give you insight into different ways to explore the changes, and a deeper insight into the individuality of each soloist. Articulations are carefully notated. B-flat and C concert editions are available for both solos, as well as E-flat for the Gryce solo.

Piano Comping Voicings à la series
On Gigi Gryce's A Night at Tony's, Horace Silver adds a lot of color to the song's basic harmony, employing voicings in fourths, upper structure triads, and great uses of internal voice leading. Notice the careful use of the ♯9 on the E♭maj7 chord, creating a D triad over the E♭ chord, which is a hip device if used carefully. Also at the end of this chorus we can see Horace's use of passing diminished chords as a turnaround, but created with simple two-note voicings for each diminished chord.

The à la series (in the style of) provides a sample chorus of voicings drawn from the song's original recording, but notated as footballs: simple whole notes and half notes, or the basic harmonic rhythm of the chord progression of the solo section. They are also annotated, showing the original chord symbol above the voicing, as well as any extensions below the voicing. The idea is that these voicings could be of varied uses to any level of pianist—a beginner pianist could play the music exactly as on the page and provide a supportive and harmonically hip sounding accompaniment to a soloist, while a more advanced pianist could use these same voicings with varied rhythms in the style of the recording. Ultimately, a pianist would be able to absorb how these voicings were derived from the chord symbols, and then be able to create their own.