TT 280: "On the Trail"

Ferde Grofé's lone "standard"

Ferde Grofé. Does that name ring any bells? Grofé orchestrated George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in 1924 and completed The Grand Canyon Suite in 1931.

The Leonard Bernstein/NY Philharmonic recording of movement three of Grand Canyon Suite, “On the Trail,” has over 130,000 views on YouTube, probably thanks in part to the charming “western” video made by “Ms.Music1234.” Some commentators mention that the theme was popular for midcentury commercials.

The work is a middle-brow symphonic poem. After a portentous introduction including a violin cadenza, a humble but catchy 6/8 leaping octave motif appears. (Probably almost everyone will recognize this catchy motif.) When placed over a polyrhythmic 4/8 base, the motif suggests the clip-clopping of a mule.

Later novelty lyrics confirm this interpretation:

The stubbornest mule I ever saw
He's tossin' his head, he's raisin' ol' Ned
He's gettin' me all of a twitter
That ornery critter…

(Frankie Laine sings these lyrics, listen if you dare.)

As the tone poem continues, the leaping octave motif becomes background accompaniment for a long-limbed melody. (The piano reduction below omits the “clip-clops,” but listen to the orchestral version and you’ll hear the counterpoint.)

There are no lyrics in the symphonic original; the lyrics to the long-limbed theme in the piano score just above were added a bit later in a bid to create a successful pop song. (This was the era when all sorts of “classical” melodies were given lyrics for Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood: two examples from Chopin are “'Till the End of Time” and “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.”)

The pop song “On the Trail” generally took only the first 16 bars of long-limbs; that truncated form is basically the version Jimmy Dorsey recorded in 1940, which must be one of the earliest renditions with a swing beat.

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The leaping octave “clip-clop” started being a bebop quote sometime in the 1940s. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie played it in their solos; Ella Fitzgerald included it in her quote-fest “Air Mail Special” at Newport.

But it took until 1964 for the long-limbed melody to suddenly become common usage for all the heavy jazz cats. The key albums were On the Trail by Jimmy Heath and It’s All Right! by Wynton Kelly, recorded almost simultaneously, both featuring Kelly, Kenny Burrell, and Paul Chambers. Talk about two awesome tracks! I especially adore Kelly’s incredible piano solo on this tune from his own LP. Jimmy Cobb is the drummer and Candido supplies congas.

In the liner notes to It’s All Right, Billy Taylor writes:

In their search for material jazzmen have frequently come up with unexpected tunes of other eras. Case in point in this album is the adaptation of Ferde Grofé’s On the Trail complete with a harmonic and melodic alteration which is maintained through the improvised choruses.

The “harmonic and melodic alteration” mentioned by Taylor is a move upwards a half-step in the second half of the tune.

The following chart was in every fakebook of a certain vintage:

That modulation (up a half-step to Ab minor seventh) is definitely not from Grofé. According to Jimmy Heath, the arrangement is from Donald Byrd, who also contributed the cute curlicue introduction (a curlicue which frequently continues as a counter-melody throughout the piece).

Jimmy Heath explains in his memoir I Walked With Giants:

I did other concerts here and there with Donald Byrd’s sextet. “On the Trail” was one of the staple compositions in the repertoire, and it was on his 1966 record Mustang! Donald arranged the tune by placing another song, “Pavanne,” as a counter-melody behind it….My recording of “On the Trail” was released before Donald’s, so I was given credit for the arrangement. The tune was Ferde Grofé’s from the Grand Canyon Suite, an American classic.

“Pavanne” is by Morton Gould, a “jazzy” American symphonic composer who followed in the footsteps of Gershwin and Grofé. Like Grand Canyon Suite, “Pavanne” was popular at midcentury but has sharply fallen off in relevance. The 1942 Gould recording has impressive trumpet playing by Steve Schultz.

Jazzheads today know of “Pavanne” because the melody of John Coltrane’s modal anthem “Impressions” seems inspired by “Pavanne.” Lewis Porter has a pair of remarkable posts on this topic. (Part one, part two.)

The curlicue bit from “Pavanne” that Byrd appropriated for “On the Trail” is from the same G minor section that inspired Coltrane’s “Impressions.” In this watermarked screenshot of a condensed conductor score from the NY Phil library, letter “D” has what Byrd took for “On the Trail” while the Coltrane bit comes in four bars later.

On one hand, it is quite odd that these once-familiar whitebread light classics are part of some of the densest and most fiercely swinging black music of the early ‘60s.

On the other, Jimmy Heath seems quite genuine when he calls Grand Canyon Suite “an American classic.” Heath also kept “On the Trail” in his repertoire until the twilight of his career.

[After contemplating Jimmy Heath’s “American classic” comment, I re-scheduled this post for July 4, our most patriotic holiday. Sure, there’s a lot to complain about, but the melting pot remains something to celebrate.]

The G minor section of “Pavanne” is unquestionably “modal.” For that matter, “On the Trail” is an open plain of diatonic harmony, also “modal” in its way. (On page 4 above with the big tune, no accidentals are required until the key change in the last two bars.) Heck, the clip-clop in "On the Trail” even has a polyrhythmic mixture of duples and triples — could this be foreshadowing the ultimate polyrhythmic modal drummer, Elvin Jones?

Both “Impressions” and Byrd’s “On the Trail” move up a chromatic half-step in the middle in way that the originals don’t. Is Byrd’s borrowing a tip of the a hat to Trane’s borrowing?

I might be going too far afield with all this speculation, but the Byrd arrangement of “On the Trail” does seem rather Coltrane-esque. The fact that there’s no bridge is significant. You stomp it off and go, just like a lot of classic Coltrane music with very short or open-ended forms.

Something was definitely in the air. 1964 was right when all of modern jazz was adopting to Coltrane-inspired modality. The opening stanza of F major is like bebop of the ‘50s; the second half with the modulation is like modality of the 60’s. Heath even sounds a little bit like Trane on his first recording of the tune.

After “On the Trail” was recorded by Heath and Kelly the song took off like wildfire. This exact arrangement with intro and modulation was recorded in short order by Art Farmer, Clark Terry, Dexter Gordon (with and without Jackie McLean), and many others. Just recently a beautiful long 1967 version was released by Elvin Jones with Joe Farrell on Revival: Live at Pookie’s Pub, which is certainly one way of confirming the Coltrane connection.

In the forthcoming Billy Hart memoir, Jabali says:

Whatever people do, the top version exists in New York City — especially jazz. During the Wes Montgomery years, Dolores had found a place for us in Long Island. After Wes passed so suddenly, it was time to go out, to try to meet people, to become part of the scene, frequent jazz clubs, do anything to fit in. Walter Booker helped me a lot, and two established drummers playing with Booker, Mickey Roker and Billy Higgins, started recommending me to others. Billy Cobham, who was already active in the studios and with some good bands, also sent me some gigs. 

Both Howard McGhee and Sam Rivers had rehearsal big bands, while Jimmy Heath, Hank Mobley, and Cedar Walton were active with smaller groups. This was an elite caliber of musician! I saw the people in that scene frequently performing “On the Trail” by Ferde Grofé, a standard that helped define that era of late-60s NYC serious music. Back in D.C., all the piano players I looked up to played Red Garland’s intro to “Bye Bye Blackbird.” In New York a decade later, they played “On the Trail.”

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Thanks to Mark Stryker for help with this post.