DECLARATION
Name: Tinashe Donaldson Jera
Student number: 49396889
Module: MHS2605
Assignment number: 2
I declare that this assignment is my own original work. Where secondary material has been used (either from a printed source or from the internet), this has been carefully
acknowledged and referenced in accordance with departmental requirements as explained in Tutorial Leter MUSALLJ/302 (The Write Stuf). I understand what plagiarism is and having read Tutorial Leter MUSALLJ/302 I am aware of the department’s policy in this regard. I have not allowed anyone else to copy my work
Signature: T.D. Jera Date: 14 September 2014
Miles Davis was a trumpet player, band leader and a musical innovator. He brought about some signiicant changes to the genre of jazz in speciic bop, modal, cool and fusion jazz. Chico Hamilton called him “jazz’s only superstar” (kart 2004:201). Davis emerged on the scene of New York in 1944 at the same ime a revoluion in jazz was underway (Merod 2001:72) He played a signiicant role in the revoluion, not as a pioneer or founding father, but rather as a paricipant, and worked with such notable igures as Thelonious Monk, Dizzie Gillespie and Charlie Parker, and it was here that he ‘learned bop’s arcane language by imitaion, informal tutelage, and constant jamming alongside players whose mastery was superior to his own’ (Merod 2001:72-74). He made a historic contribuion to jazz through his album Kind of Blue. This record has been labeled the best-selling jazz record of all ime. It brought about a lot of Jazz in the Jazz music making history. It is this album that really made Miles Davis very famous in the history of jazz. Eric Nisenson wrote “In a sense, we can divide jazz history into two segments: before Kind of Blue and ater Kind of Blue”. (Nisenson:1)
Firstly I would like to start by looking at the period before this history-making record was produced.
with an orchestra that included several classical players. According to Miles, many of them clearly thought of themselves as superior to Miles himself and the other jazzmen. But Miles bluntly told them that he could do everything they could and that they could not do something he could, which was to improvise, at least to improvise at any signiicant length. (Nisenson: 10)
Miles's intuiion about the course of jazz evoluion and its connecion to the changes in American society were among the reasons Kind of Blue had so much impact on the jazz scene and the future of what Duke Ellington called "the great American music”
Kind Of Blue introduced us into the world of what is called modal Jazz. It grew out of the conluence of two African cultural expressions. First was the inluence of musical and dance expression of Les Ballets Africans from Guinea and the African American faith-based tradiion. A performance of the Ballet Africaine from Guinea in 1958 had originally sparked Miles’ interest in modal music. Miles had very big ears and was a person who always had an ear for new musical currents, both inside himself, from his past, and to new sources from fellow musicians. Secondly Mile was inluenced to make Kind of Blue by the African-American faith based community especially the kind of music they sang in their church which full of spirit and energy. (Kwanzaa Guide: online)
Prior to the release of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, his music had already started to show that he was already looking for something that would break away from the theories of bebop which were so complex. He was looking for something that would enable musicians to express themselves freely and also be able to create melodic lines with their instruments. Modal jazz has previously been described by its two most prominent traits: unchanging harmonies and improvisaion based on enire scales. Although Kind of Blue was the irst album to fully embody this musical style, inimaions of modal jazz can be found in several of Davis’s
recordings from the hard bop era. (Booethroyd: 10) Miles Davis developed this form of aristry when he used to work with the Parker Quintet. In 1948 he began to work with Gil Evans and the Claude Thornhill band who were working with ‘layered harmonic voicing’, and had introduced the French horn and tuba, and played them as ‘melodic rather than…rhythm instrument[s]’ (Merod 2001:86; Sales 1992:163).
Dissaisied at the increasingly virtuoso instrumentalism of bop at the ime, the band was a confederaion of sympatheic musicians who had been meeing in Evans’s apartment to rehearse and exchange new ideas (Sales 1992:163). Davis took an acive leadership and secured a gig for the nine-piece, but most importantly, he secured a contract with Capitol Records. Kind of Blue was then recorded in 1959. The recording adheres to the modal concept through its use of staic harmonies and scale-based improvisaion. More importantly, Davis’s underlying goal of melodic freedom is made evident by the diverse improvisaional approach taken by each member of the band. This was the birth of a true modal jazz album.
now call the jazz trumpet sound. He adopted the rock method of recording large amounts of material and then ediing it on tape and creaing albums (Shipton 2001:858). This can be seen on the recordings In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew both recorded in 1969 (Milkowski
2003:29). His fusion faced some criicism with some criics poining that his venture into fusion was nothing but a mere contemptuous atempt to grab a piece of the rock acion. Regardless of whether they were right or not, the fact that the fusion movement remains very much alive today is tesimony to the inluence he exerted on the next generaion (Sales 1991:202).
Miles Davis bands players were encouraged to take risks. In fact, those who did not take them ran the risk of being ired. The band was encouraged to spend ime together, explore new ideas, and alert each other to new and exciing developments in music. Every player was encouraged to contribute material, composiions and ideas to the group, and was allowed great freedom and responsibility. In this way, every member was inimately responsible for the band’s sound, and the band became essenially a self-managing team. Everybody’s contribuion and commitment was vital to maintain the band’s high standards. Davis himself said the band was so good he had to start pracicing his instrument again (Montuori: 4)
He is well known for the emoional touch he had on the trumpet and a lot of the imes he missed a lot of notes but very few people could pick it up due to the inimate and emoional expression he had. A lot of prominent trumpet players in our day and age have learnt a lot from this kind of emoional playing and they have adopted it their own playing. One of the best examples of Davis style and inluence can be heard on the 1970s album Bitches Brew. The African inluences and “back to the roots” style is heard throughout the album, as beats and drums are stressed alongside Davis’ trumpet playing. Listeners can also hear the
inluences of some of Davis’ closest friends at the ime, such a Jimi Hendrix style electric guitar and the strong electronic funk beats of James Brown. Miles Davies music has posiively inluenced arist such as Mos Def and Santanna.
A lot of music criics and historians respect Davis as one of the most inluenial person in the history of jazz and American music (McConnell 2001:616). Whether it is his ability to sense new direcions, assimilate their atributes, and popularizes the new style, he was certainly a maverick amongst musicians (Tanner et al 2001:225). His genius was centered on an ability to construct and manipulate improvisaional probabiliies, selecing and combining
composiions, players, musical styles and other performance parameters (Smith 1995:41).
Bibliography
Eric, Ninenson. 2000. The Making of Kind of Blue. New York. St. Marin’s Press.
McConnell, F. 1991. The Prince of Darkness: Miles Davis R.I.P. Commonweal
Milkowski, B. 2003. Fusion: The Vaunted F-word: From Where Did It Come? And More Importantly, Where Is It Going? Jazziz
Montuori, Alfonso. 1987. Miles Davis: The Leadership Challenge of Successful Innovaion page 1 - 8
Myles Booethroyd. 2012. Miles Davis and Modal Jazz. Hawaii. Central Michigan University.
Sales, G. 1992. Jazz: America’s Classical Music. New York: Da Capo Press
Smith, C. 1995. A Sense of the Possible: Miles Davis and the Semioics of Improvised Performance. The Drama Review
Tanner, P. O., Megill, D. W. and Gerow, M. 2001 Jazz. 9th ed. New York, London, Sydney: McGraw-Hill Higher Educaion.
