I am choosing Duke’s Last Soliloquy by Dizzy Gillespie to analyse.
In terms of instrumentation, The track contains piano, drums, saxophone, double bass and trumpet.
The piece begins with the saxophone, bass and piano playing a descending line very softly in unison with some gentle cymbal hits and a brushed snare from the drummer. The trumpet plays a slow melody with some long notes using vibrato and the fact that the trumpet has a much harsher timbre than the rest of the instruments, which are playing so softly, gives a sense of isolation or loneliness. The trumpet is also panned to the left while the majority of the backing is to the right. This enhances this feeling of loneliness. The trumpet and saxophone then stop while the backing gently picks up with the piano and bass building. As this tension rises, the trumpet comes back in with a much coarser tone and gives the impression of shouting out into the night.
This choice of instrumentation was selected as the trumpet naturally has quite a rough and raspy timbre. This allows for it to almost act almost as shouting. As if in the first half of the piece it is soft and helpless and in the second half is shouting out. This level of expression displayed is perfectly suited for a brass instrument such as this. The choice of brushes on the drums allows for a soft and sombre backing whereas a regular snare would be too jarring. The drummer primarily uses the hi-hat and snare as the use of a more standard kick and snare pattern would change the feel of the piece and remove a lot of this feeling of isolation. The parts for all the backing instruments are very simple and primarily contain long-held-out notes. This creates an almost empty and sparse atmosphere for the trumpet to cut through.