Manhattan by Midnight is a three-movement work for jazz orchestra scored for woodwinds, brass and jazz rhythm section. The intent is to compose a work that reflects and emphasizes two musical elements that set jazz apart from every other genre: the swung eighth note and its distinctive, idiomatic use of extended diatonic and chromatic harmony. Combining these two musical elements with my own ever-evolving composition style will culminate in a work that explores and expands upon the typical conventions of jazz melody, jazz harmony and jazz rhythm to create a piece that is a sum of my influences as well as my experiences. The title Manhattan by Midnight refers to the night I moved into my current residence, which is in a neighborhood called Washington Heights in the northern part of Manhattan in New York City. The drive in and the frantic attempt to move all of my belongings into my apartment, as well as the multitude of emotions a jazz musician experiences when making the move to the jazz capital of the world provided more than enough inspiration for an extended composition. The following analysis of this suite provides an overview of how Manhattan by Midnight works in a technical sense with special attention given to form, harmony, melodic content and orchestration. / text

Tonality is a term often used to describe the music of the common practice period (roughly 1600-1900). This study examines the music of mid twentieth-century jazz composer Thad Jones in light of an extended common practice, explicating ways in which this music might be best understood as tonal. Drawing from analyses of three of Jones’s big band compositions: To You, Three and One, and Cherry Juice, this study examines three primary elements in detail. First is Jones’s use of chord-scale application techniques in the orchestration over various chordal qualities represented by the symbols, revealing traditional as well as innovative methods by Jones. Second is Jones’s use of harmonic progressions, demonstrating his connection to past practice as well as modern jazz variations. Third is Jones’s use of contrapuntal connections and their traditional relationship to functional tonality, but in a chromatic scale-based environment. Jones’s music is presented in this study to demonstrate a tonal jazz common practice that represents an amalgamation of traditions including twentieth-century scale-based procedures, Renaissance and early twentieth-century modality, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century voice leading schemas, and Baroque and Classical descending-fifth progressions. Also included as an appendix is a list of possible note errors in the published scores of To You, Three and One, and Cherry Juice.

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