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174 12 The Final Sessions Dameron’s health was not his only concern at this point. It seems his relationship with Maely was never an easy one. They were both stubborn by nature, and while Maely’s watchfulness was, no doubt, good for Tadd’s health, he found it increasingly irritating. The couple’s quarrels, already a matter of concern to their friends, would come to a head in the course of the latter part of 1962 and 1963. Nevertheless,Tadd was still busy with various projects at the beginning of the summer of 1962. The most significant of these were two recording sessions, one for Milt Jackson and another for Sonny Stitt. This Jackson session was for Riverside. Its connection, if any, with the January date for Atlantic seems only to be that it was another collaboration between the two musicians. Dameron split the arranging chores with Ernie Wilkins,Tadd contributing five ballad arrangements . Using a band with the same instrumentation as the larger of his Magic Touch ensembles (and several of the same players), he gives Jackson a warm and sympathetic accompaniment for his interpretations and improvisations. Dameron directed the band himself on either Tuesday, June 19, or Wednesday, June 20, only a week or so after his collapse in the rain. Pianist Hank Jones, who played on that session, recalled that Dameron was quite ill and had to be brought to the session from the hospital.1 The Dameron arrangements recorded that day were of Monk’s“‘Round Midnight” and two of his own compositions, “If You Could See Me Now” and the new“The Dream Is You.” “The Dream Is You” is a contrafact of “Out of Nowhere.” Although the model is audible, Dameron’s mastery of melodic construction is evident in the entirely different shape of this melody, with stop-time in the first and fifth measures of the A sections. In contrast to those for Blue Mitchell, Dameron’s ar- The Final Sessions 175 rangements for this project feature Jackson in the statement of the melody and give him more soloing space.While these arrangements are striking in their lush beauty, they are less assertive than the Smooth as the Wind charts. If the author’s speculation about Dameron’s pent-up creative energy needing an outlet in the earlier recording is correct, this would make sense, since Big Bags,2 as the LP is titled, was produced soon after Dameron’s own Magic Touch. Still, Dameron presents something with the weight of a symphonic movement in his treatment of Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight.” It is like the slow movement of a concerto, relatively simple in its structure but deep and complex emotionally. At about 52 beats per minute, the two choruses, plus the introduction and coda, take the better part of seven minutes to unfold. The eight-bar introduction grows out of the long pick-up to the coda that Dizzy Gillespie probably composed for the tune but develops into a different melody. A solo alto sax leads the way in the first four measures and returns at key points in the piece, as if it were a narrator setting the scene for Jackson’s soliloquy. Jackson elaborates on the famous melody from the beginning of the first chorus. The ensemble background is finely detailed, with shifting instrumental colors and little fragments of melody in various instruments. The alto sax returns to lead the ensemble in a four-bar interlude that introduces the second chorus. Here Jackson solos over the rhythm section in double-time feel, up through the bridge. For the last A of the chorus, the ensemble returns with a Dameroninvented melody over the tune’s chord progression. It begins with the lead alto over the rest of the sax section, recalling the introduction in color and mood. There is a two-measure phrase, the beginning of which is repeated sequentially, up a fourth. This second phrase blossoms out into the full ensemble, with a trumpet taking the lead midway.The paraphrase of Monk’s melody continues to its conclusion, leading into a six-bar cadenza from Jackson. The alto sax, along with the rest of the section, returns with the two-measure phrase that began this last ensemble passage, resolving into a final tonic chord with a French horn flourish and final comment from Jackson. The arrangement of “If You Could See Me Now” from this set is quite different from the previous vocal arrangements and makes no reference...

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