Dave McKenna's Performance of "Have You Met Miss Jones?"

Abstract

Dave McKenna plays jazz piano with uncommon power and grace. His improvisations are not only hard-swinging and emotionally direct, they are also technically impressive and intelligently constructed. Yet his playing is not well-known or widely appreciated. Why? Perhaps it is because his style, rooted in the swing era but influenced by aspects of modern-jazz phrasing, is more traditional than path-breaking. Perhaps it is because his allegiance to lyrical melody playing (together with his own description of himself as a bar-room pianist) has typecast him more as entertainer than as artist. Or perhaps it is because scholarship and popular criticism tend to overlook high quality twentieth-century art when it is not wildly new. As an introduction to his playing and a suggestion of one way to explore its beauty more deeply, this article analyzes a complete transcription of his performance of Have You Met Jones? (Left Handed Complement, 1980, Concord Jazz, CJ 123).' My commentary, followed by the transcription, is divided into sections on the principles of this transcription, on the original melody of Miss Jones, on the improvisational strategies in McKenna's performance, and on the role of the original melody in McKenna's performance.