Composer:  John Coltrane    (click to list other tunes) Submitted by:  David Luebbert Posted:  12/18/08; 4:41:40 PM Msg#:  5577 (top msg in thread) Prev/Next:  5576/5578 Reads:  925

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This is a song that John Coltrane played frequently with his Classic Quartet with Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, and McCoy Tyner.

Coltrane frequently took lengthy solos on this piece which would cause a performance to last for 20 or 30 minutes. The later moments of an Impressions performance often became a saxophone/drum duet between Coltrane and Jones (or Roy Haynes, when he was the drummer) that was conducted at very high intensity.

Impressions is a modal tune, where the harmony doesn't change for large sections of the tune's form.

It has the same harmonic plan as Miles Davis' "So What": 16 bars of Dmi7, 8 bars of Ebmi7, 8 bars of Dmi7.

Soloists use the pitches of the D Dorian mode as their starting point within the Dmi7 measures of the form, and Eb Dorian within the Ebmi7 measures.

Here's a playlist which will allow you to perform some of Coltrane's better recordings of the piece. Scroll past that to see the downloadable score for the chord progression arrangement.

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