1/ 51 Miles Davis (1926-1991) Presentation By Akram Najjar Karaz w Laimoon 16 Nov 2016
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Miles Davis(1926-1991)
PresentationBy Akram NajjarKaraz w Laimoon16 Nov 2016
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BebopHard BopCool Jazz
Modal JazzFree Jazz
Jazz-Rock Fusion
Ancestors of Big Bands . . .
Ragtime Stride
Boogie
Woogie
Rock n’ Roll
Early
Jazz
March
Bands
Sacred
Music
Rhythm and
Blues
Honky
Tonk
Blues
20s+30s
50s
20s
30s
Big
Bands
30s+40s
Modern Jazz
started in the early 40s
with the decline of
Big Bands
The Evolution of Jazz after Big Bands
Oppositional
Big
BandsBebop
Cool
Jazz
Hard
Bop
Oppositional
Regressive
Modal
Jazz
Extensive
Free
Jazz
Opposed
Everything
Oppositional
Fusion
Absorbed
Everything
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Miles Davis: Periods and School
(In Spite of Overlap!)
A) The New York Bebop Years 1944 - 1948
B) The Birth of the Cool (Nonet) 1949 - 1950
C) Hard Bop Period 1950 - 1954
D) The First Great Quintet 1955 - 1958
E) The Sextet 1957 - 1958
F) Collaboration with Gil Evans 1957 - 1963
G) Modal (Kind of Blue) 1959 - 1964
H) The Second Great Quintet 1964 - 1968
I) 1969 onwards . . . .
Bebop(early 40s to late 50s)
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Dizzy Gillespie (tr)
Charlie Parker (as)
Thelonious Monk (p)
Bud Powell (p)
Kenny Clark (dr)
Max Roach (dr)
Miles Davis (tr)
Key Bebop Musicians
Dexter Gordon (ts)
Ray Brown (b)
Sonny Stitt (ts)
J.J. Johnson (tb)
Fats Navaro (tr)
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“Modern Jazz” starts with a Severe
Reaction by Bebop to Big Band Music
A rise of late night Jam Sessions for small Combos:
Speeded up tempos
Unusual keys
Changed improvisation schemes
A rise in “cutting contests” encouraging virtuoso playing
A rise in small “dynamic” bands / soloists without contracts
Bebop musicians saw their music as Art Music
NOT a Functional Music or Music for Dancing
as in Big Bands in large halls, studios or events (army?)
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They Saw a Major Need
to Change the Musical Format
No more writing for instrumental “sections”
Songs consisted of a single “head” (statement of melody) + an
unspecified number of choruses assigned to one or more artists
Each chorus is an improvisation over the harmonic structure of
the head
Sometimes, the “head” would also appear at the end
(Compare with Classical Sonata Allegro Form!!)
Often, the end would be through unresolved chords
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More Musical Variance from Big Bands
Soloists introduced fluid vs discontinuous playing
influenced by: Lester Young (tenor) and Charlie Christian (guitar)
Competent musicians used advanced harmonic structures:
New chords and unusual harmonies
Flattened 5th, whole tone scales, 9th, 11th, 13th
Tritones, Augmented and Diminished chords
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And . . . Instrument Roles Changed
Bass maintained “walking” but was promoted to to a soloist’s role
(Thanks to Jimmy Blanton (Duke Ellington bassist) and Oscar
Pettiford)
Pianists started “comping” (or providing rhythmic accompaniment)
This elevated the guitar to a soloist’s role
Emphasis on speed and virtuosic playing
Vocalists were not common anymore: melodic lines were
changed from lyrical/melodic to more angular/fast
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Rhythmic Changes?
Advanced rhythms away from 2/4, 4/4
Also away from standard accents: 1-2-3-4 or 1-2-3-4
Kenny Clarke built on Basie’s enhanced drummers role
Bass drum was not fast enough to provide flexible beats
Moved beat from bass drum to the ride cymbal
Bass drum freed to provide “dropping bombs”
Often called KLOOK-MOP after Kenny’s nickname: Klook
Clarke’s polyrhythms affected later drummers:
Max Roach and Art Blakey
Charlie Parker (Bird)(1920-1955)
Dizzy Gillespie(1917-1993)
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Considered as the most influential Jazz Musician ever – Maybe
Armstrong can sit with him
Grew up without musical training but with a love for Jazz
He taught himself music theory
His virtuosity was legendary: melodic, harmonic and rhythmic
Died as a burnout at 37
Parker?
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Gillespie
Started life with large bands: Eckstine . .
Big Band music was always under his skin
With Parker, they were two of the most
important creators of Bebop
He was Parker’s “other half of his heartbeat”
but only for 3-4 years
Gillespie went back to Big Bands and changed
a lot in the way they worked
He was behind introduction of Latin American
modes
While most of his colleagues chose to be Black
Moslems, he chose to be a Bahai
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1944: he was 18 and on his way to Julliard in New York
Really, he was searching for Charlie Parker
He dropped out of Julliard
As a young genius trumpeter he played around beboppers
1947: Gillespie left Parker because of Parker’s drug abuse
Miles Davis replaced Gillespie (at 21 years of age)
1948: end of 3 years of great Bebop experience.
BUT speed and complexity did not suit his style
He left Parker and started on his own
Trumpet Influences: Bebop Fats Navarro and Dizzy Gillespie
Influenced greatly by Ahmad Jamal
Miles Davis
1944 - 1948: The New York Bebop Years
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A) The New York Bebop Years
1944 - 1948
1) Hothouse: Parker and Gillespie
With Parker +
Max Roach (dr), Bud Powell (p), or John Lewis (p)
2) Blue Bird (1947)
3) Donna Lee
4) You’re my Everything
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Cool Jazz(Late 40s to early 50s)
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Miles Davis
Ahmad Jamal
Modern Jazz Quartet
Dave Brubeck (p, qrt, oct)
Paul Desmond (as)
Bill Evans
(p / (composer/arranger)
Gerry Mulligan (bs)
Chet Baker (tr)
Gil Evans
(composer/arr)
Jimmy Giuffre (ts)
Key Cool Jazz Musicians
Stan Gets (ts)
Claude Thornhill(cool big band)
Woody Herman(cool big band)
Stan Kenton (cool big band)
Lennie Tristano (p)
Art Pepper (as)
George Shearing
Bob Brookmeyer
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Characteristics of Cool Jazz
A reaction to the hard driving, harmonically complex Bebop
Relaxed tempos (often slow)
Lighter melodies, lots of space
Re-emergence of arrangement (regressive!)
Closeness to European Classical Music
Tonal colors can be compared to “pastel”
And . . .
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Cool Jazz? Why and Where?
(With considerable Overlap)
Group 1: Musicians who preferred soft variants of Bebop (evolutionary)
Group 2: Musicians who dropped Bebop in favor of “Advanced” Swing
(oppositional)
Moreover: the above were often reclassified as “East Coast” and “West
Coast” Jazz
Stylistically the difference was not significant
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Group 1:
Soft Variants of Bebop
Miles Davis “Birth of the Cool” LP (1949-1950)
John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan were part of the Nonet
Lewis and Gil Evans – key arrangers
The Modern Jazz Quartet – MJQ (1952)
John Lewis and Milt Jackson (MJ?)
Gerry Mulligan (when with Chet Baker and Bob Brookmeyer)
Stan Kenton's sidemen (late 40s thru 50s)
George Shearing
Stan Getz (when with Woody Herman)
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Group 2:
Dropped Bebop for “Advanced” Swing
Lennie Tristano (p)
Art Pepper (as) and Lee Konitz (as)
Both major influences on Paul Desmond
Dave Brubeck (p) and Paul Desmond (as)
Woody Herman’s Herds (First and Second)
Four Brothers: Gets, Sims, Steward, Chaloff (by Giuffre)
Jimmy Giuffre (ts)
Lester Young's small group music
Even later Gillespie who had his own Big Bands
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1948: Miles Davis starts collaborating with 3 musicians all of them
great instrumentalists, arrangers, composers:
Gil Evans: extensive experience with Claude Thornhill (late big band)
(Not to be confused with Bill Evans, a later collaborator)
John Lewis: pianist, later with Modern Jazz Quartet
Gerry Mulligan: baritone saxophone
Later with Chet Baker (trump) / Bob Brookmeyer (tromb): the Piano-less
Quartet
This led to the first Davis Band: The Nonet
With Max Roach (drums), Lee Konitz (tenor), Kai Winding (tromb), etc.
Also had French Horn and Tuba
1949 - 1950: The Birth of the Cool (The Nonet)
"I prefer a round sound with no attitude in it, like a round voice with not too much tremolo
and not too much bass.
Just right in the middle.
If I can’t get that sound I can’t play anything."
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1949 - 1950: The Nonet records
many single 78 rpm records
1956: all 78 rpm tracks
released as a single LP: The Birth of the Cool
Later on, Konitz, Mulligan and Lewis going their own way with
their own brand of Cool
Mysteriously, one year earlier, Dave Brubeck had started an Octet
in LA: very similar style
More on the Cool . . . .
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B) The Birth of the Cool (Nonet)
1949 - 1950
5) Move
6) Jeru
7) Venus de Milo
8) Boplicity
9) As a counter sample: Dave Brubeck’s Octet:
Love Walked In (Gershwin)
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1949: Long tour in Paris
Returns to New York worried about his throne
Compares great treatment by the French vs US Racialism
Turns to heroin and weakens his performance
1954: spends 3 months locked up in a room in his father’s farm:
Cold Turkey / Self Rehabilitation
Collaboration with great Jazz artists without a specific Band:
Sonny Rollins, Monk, Coltrane, etc.
Starts using the Harmon Mute
Many landmark LPs were recorded
1950 - 1954: Hard Bop Period
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Cannonball Adderley (tenor)
Sonny Rollins (tenor)
Horace Silver (piano/composer)
Art Blakey (drums)
Charles Mingus (bass)
Tadd Dameron (piano/composer)
Yusuf Lateef (tenor)
Key Hard Bop Musicians
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C) Hard Bop Period
1950 - 1954
10) Walkin’ from Walkin (1954)
JJ Johnson (tb) / Lucky Thompson (ts) / Kenny Clarke (dr),
Percy Heath (b) and Horace Silver (p)
11) When the Lights are Low from Blue Haze (1954)
John Lewis (p), Percy Heath (b) and Max Roach (dr)
12) Miles Ahead from Blue Haze (1954)
John Lewis (p), Percy Heath (b) and Max Roach (dr)
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1955: performs in the Newport Jazz Festival (Great Solos)
Forms the First Great Quintet:
John Coltrane (ts), Red Garland (p), Paul Chambers (b)
and Philly Joe Jones (dr)
Landmark LPs:
Round about Midnight, Relaxin‘, Steamin‘, Workin' and
Cookin'
1958: disbands quintet due to members involved with drugs
(He fired Coltrane!)
1955 - 1958: The 1st Great Quintet and Sextet
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Reforms the band as a Sextet
Rehires Coltrane (tenor)
Hires Cannonball Adderley (alto)
Fires Red Garland and Jones
Hires Bill Evans (p) and Jimmy Cobb (dr)
Records 1958, Milestones
1958:
Reforms the First Great Quintet into a Sextet
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D) The First Great Quintet
1955 - 1958
From Round about Midnight (1957)
Coltrane, Garland, Chambers, Philly Joe Jones
13) Ah Leu Cha
This is a Parker contrafact “Honeysuckle Rose” and “I Got Rhythm”
14) Bye Bye Blackbird
From Someday My Prince Will Come (1961)
Coltrane, Kelly, Chambers, Cobb
15) Someday my Prince will Come
16) Pfrancing (1961) (same)
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E) The Sextet
1957 - 1958
From Milestones (1958)
Coltrane, Garland, Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, Cannonball
Adderley
17) Straight No Chaser (Monk)
18) Milestones
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1957: records Miles Ahead (including “The Duke” by
Brubeck)
1958: with a reshuffled sextet, records Porgy and Bess
1960+: records
Sketches of Spain
Quiet Nights (set of bossa nova titles)
Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall (includes Rodriguez’s
Aranjuez Concerto)
1957 - 63: The Collaboration with Gil Evans
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F) Collaboration with Gil Evans
1957 - 63
From Miles Ahead (1957)
19) The Duke (by Dave Brubeck)
20) New Rhumba (by Ahmad Jamal)
From Porgy and Bess by Gershwin (1958)
21) Bess You is My Woman Now
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A reformed sextet recorded
Miles Davis’ Iconic LP
This is the top selling Jazz LP, ever!
It sold 4 million copies and is still a best
seller
5 tracks: some in strict 12 bar form BUT
using Modal Harmony
Other LPs were released in this period
(mixed styles): Someday My Prince Will
Come, Seven Steps to Heaven, Four
and More, etc.
1959 - 64: The Modal Years
Kind of Blue
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The term comes from the use of the pitches of particular modes
(or scales) in the creation of solos, modal jazz compositions or
accompaniments may only or additionally make use of the
following techniques:
Slow-moving harmonic rhythm, where single chords may last four
to sixteen or more measures
Pedal points and drones
Absent or suppressed standard functional chord progressions
Quartal harmonies or melodies
Characteristics of Modal Jazz
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Melody
Chords = Harmony
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Modal Improvisation
Melody = Notes from a Scale
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Stretch the piano sideways:
C major scale is only 7 white notes
C D E F G A B
C# BbEb F# Ab
C D E F G A B
C
T T 1/2 T T T 1/2
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Greek Modes: Pythagorean Numbers
The Greeks used 7 notes in their music.
Greek Modes are made up by starting on a white note and playing the next 6.
Each note vibrated a whole fraction higher than the previous note: 5/4, 3/2,
etc.
The notes in Greek scales were not equally spaced.
Therefore, each of the 7 modes would sound different
Later on in Europe, they inserted 5 black notes so that the 12 notes were
equally spaced.
Greek Modes and Jazz
Table shows the white notes and their:
T (whole step or a jump of 2 notes, black or white) and
S (semi-step or a jump of a single note, black or white)
Ionian/ Aeolian are the only ones with us today
Mode 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Ionian C D E F G A B C T T S T T T S
Dorian D E F G A B C D T S T T T S T
Phrygian E F G A B C D E S T T T S T T
Lydian F G A B C D E F T T T S T T S
Mixolydian G A B C D E F G T T S T T S T
Aeolian A B C D E F G A T S T T S T T
Locrian B C D E F G A B S T T S T T T
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Miles Davis and Greece?
“So What” is played into two Greek Modes
Most of the song is played in G Dorian.
This is a Dorian scale (using the Dorian intervals) starting on G (it would
have black notes)
In the B section, the group switches to A minor (By coincidence,
this is the Aeolian Mode).
Other songs on Kind of Blue are also in Greek Mode
“All Blue” is in G Mixolydian
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G) Modal (Kind of Blue)
1959 - 64
Started a little before Kind of Blue (Miles Ahead)
Coltrane (tenor), Adderley (alto), Bill Evans (p), Wynton
Kelly (p), James Cobb (dr), Paul Chambers (dr)
22) So What
23) All Blues
24) Freddie Freeloader
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Coltrane and Jones restart on drugs
Bill Evans burns out
1965: Miles Davis starts a new quintet:
Wayne Shorter (ts / ss) or Steve Coleman (ts), Herbie
Hancock (p), Ron Carter (b) and Tony Williams (dr)
Two percussions groups: 1 in the east and 1 in the west
Records: ESP, My Funny Valentine, Miles Smiles, etc.
This would be his last acoustic band
1964 - 68: The Second Great Quintet
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Stopped recording Jazz standards and focused on music
composed by band members: Wayne Shorter and Herbie
Hancock
He still used modal writing
He started experimenting with Free Jazz, a style he had
rejected earlier
Trumpet: harder edge, plays in higher register
Shorter / Hancock compositions introduced new ways of
improvising on harmonies --- no more traditional variation
A Major Change in his Playing
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H) The Second Great Quintet
1964 - 1968
Wayne Shorter (ts / ss) or Steve Coleman (ts), Herbie Hancock (p),
Ron Carter (b) and Tony Williams (dr)
From Seven Steps to Heaven (1963)
24) Ancient Footprints (Wayne Shorter)
25) Seven Steps to Heaven
26) So Near, So Far (same)
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Tries everything . . . Mostly Electric
Plays with everyone: McLaughlin, Zawinul, Pastoris,
Jazz Rock Fusion (Bitches Brew)
Free Jazz (Ornette Coleman) (Miles Smiles)
We will try Bitches Brew for luck . . .
Gary Bartz (soprano / alto), Chick Corea (electric piano), Keith
Jarrett (organ, electric piano), Dave Holland (electric and acoustic
bass), Jack DeJohnette (drums), Airto Moriera (percussion)
I) 1969 onwards . . . .
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Now You Has Jazz