[Monday Notes No. 180] Denny Zeitlin is an American pianist who has performed since the 1960s in solo piano or trio with double bass and drums. He is a very fascinating musician also because of an unusual detail: despite a career in music at the highest level, he practised in parallel as a psychiatrist at the University of San Francisco. I have analysed his perhaps best-known piece, entitled Quiet Now.
Quiet Now is a ballad composed expressly for the piano. The first recording appears to be from 1965, Denny Zeitlin playing live at the ‘Trident’ in the company of Charlie Haden on double bass and Jerry Granelli on drums.
Bill Evans liked the piece very much and recorded an album with this title in 1969, playing Zeitlin’s piece. Quiet now also features on other famous Bill Evans recordings, such as the 1979 Paris concert.
Bill Evans, born nine years before Denny Zeitlin, was among his earliest admirers. The two musicians have many things in common: a taste for dense, rich harmonies in the inner voices. A preference for solo piano or trio. The interest in pieces in three-quarter time.
Since I could not find on the various real books a transcription of Quiet Now that I thought was correct, I tried my hand at making one myself (download link at the end of the page). Here then is the analysis of the piece, which has an ABCA form.
The first part of the song is predominantly in the key of C major, with a sudden and unexpected modulation to E flat major, at measure seven.
The simple melody with chord symbols does not adequately describe the piece, which is very rich because of the movement of the voices within the chords. For example, the second measure could be written more precisely with these four chords:
| F#m7(b5)/E | E7(b9) | E7/A | Am7 |
A very original and unusual sequence! The second part of the piece follows.
The second part of the piece is exactly the same as the first for six measures out of eight, but one tone above, thus in D major. The last two measures lead instead towards the key of G major, with which the third part opens.
The third part of Quiet Now is based on a four-chord sequence, which is repeated three equal times, going up a semitone. Here is the pattern:
| Gmaj7 | C7 | Bm7 | Bb7 |
| Abmaj7 | Db7 | Cm7 | B7 |
| Amaj7 | D7 | C#m7 | C7 |
The third part ends with a cadence that leads back to the initial chord, Am7. The piece then repeats the initial section, which we have called [A] in the score, but this time with the addition of a coda.
Also in the coda we notice a fragment that is repeated three times. Here it is the melody that returns three times unchanged, each measure beginning with the note G and the chord of Em7, while the other chords are different.
Quiet Now thus has a relatively simple structure, but with several symmetries within it, both harmonic and melodic. An evocative piece, which Denny Zeitlin, and his exceptional fan Bill Evans, have recorded many times, always with great results.
Until next Monday!
Download the lead sheet of Quiet Now, by Denny Zeitlin