Graham Hair: Weather Report Studies (1993) No. 1 Black Market

Abstract

"In addition to my 'modernistic' pieces, I've written a whole raft of transcriptions, arrangements, paraphrases and 'cover versions' of various kinds of popular music in recent years. The purpose is practical as well as aesthetic: to extend the repertoire of the two 'all-girl' vocal groups I currently direct (Voiceworks in Sydney and Scottish Voices in Glasgow), as well as to explore the interesting question of the reciprocal influence of paraphrase (in all its musical senses) and original composition. Some of these are arrangements in the more or less traditional sense (preserving most of the original melodic and harmonic substance), but in this little 'encore piece' for Perihelion, elements of tonal acentricity, chromaticism, dissonance and discontinuity interpenetrate the pentatonicism of Joe Zawinul's original Black Market theme (as played by his jazz-rock band, Weather Report, in 1976), which wafts in and out." -- Graham Hair