“Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder” was a song from “The Key Of Life”.
This song was R&B but heavily influenced by Jazz. This song was a huge hit in it’s time because it was so different, there was constantly different sounds within the song that created a lot of interest.
The structure went: Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Breakdown, Chorus and then outro. The structure followed a very popular pop structure called the do-wop structure. This used I, VI, IV and V chords, meaning it was very catchy and made it popular.
Drums, guitar, bass, trumpets, keyboard, vocals, saxophone all made up the song but the swinging hi-hat drums was clearly influenced by Jazz, just like the verse back-beat hitting on beats 2/4 was clearly influenced by Motown.
The key signature 4/4 with C major and a tempo of 108bpm, all made for an incredibly catchy song.
“I Wish – Stevie Wonder” is another example of the song from the album “The Key Of Life”.
Just like a lot of the songs from “The Key Of Life”, “I Wish” is an R&B song but has a heavy influence from jazz. The influence from Jazz can be seen from the Alto and Tenor Saxophone and trumpets, their pattern just gives a typical jazz vibe. However, the bass, drums and synth all give it quite an R&B feel.
The structure of the song was actually: Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, even though the song felt like it was very long and very extensive.
This song had a lot of instruments which made the sound very abstract because there was always something going on, like hidden instruments etc. There was bass, alto/tenor saxophone, two trumpets, vocals, synths, drums, fender Rhodes and an ARP 2600. These all contributed many sounds which could add in sub-genres like jazz.
The time signature was 4/4 with a tempo of 106BPM, in the key of Bb Minor.