Miles Davis Contribution to Jazz Name Ti
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.
There was a lot of predictable jazz before the making of kind of blue. Chord progressions were
very predictable and a person could really tell the structure of a song by just listening to the
beginning of the music. Musician longed for a change in the way they were playing their
music. During that also black Americans faced a lot of hardships in their eforts to pracice Jazz
music. At that ime the bands that really did well were white bands such as the Glenn Miller
bands. Blacks faced a lot of resistance even though they were the pioneers of the genre. Some
what if the music could not be analyzed in the western theories of harmony and composiion,
the music would be resisted. Many jazzmen began to wonder whether trying to achieve the
harmonic complexity of classical music was a desired goal ater all, especially for music such
as theirs, based primarily on improvisaion. In the year 1960 Miles recorded Sketches of Spain
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.
Ater the success of Kind Of Blue, Miles did some signiicant contribuions again to the genre
of Jazz. In the period from 1969 to 1975 he began to experiment with what is now called
fusion jazz. He began to fuse rock and roll music to create a disinct and unusual jazz sound.
He also began to add efects on his trumpet so that it produces a sound which some people
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
Merod, J. 2001. The Quesion of Miles Davis. Online
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.
htp://theinluenceofmilesdavis.blogspot.com
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.
There was a lot of predictable jazz before the making of kind of blue. Chord progressions were
very predictable and a person could really tell the structure of a song by just listening to the
beginning of the music. Musician longed for a change in the way they were playing their
music. During that also black Americans faced a lot of hardships in their eforts to pracice Jazz
music. At that ime the bands that really did well were white bands such as the Glenn Miller
bands. Blacks faced a lot of resistance even though they were the pioneers of the genre. Some
what if the music could not be analyzed in the western theories of harmony and composiion,
the music would be resisted. Many jazzmen began to wonder whether trying to achieve the
harmonic complexity of classical music was a desired goal ater all, especially for music such
as theirs, based primarily on improvisaion. In the year 1960 Miles recorded Sketches of Spain
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.
Ater the success of Kind Of Blue, Miles did some signiicant contribuions again to the genre
of Jazz. In the period from 1969 to 1975 he began to experiment with what is now called
fusion jazz. He began to fuse rock and roll music to create a disinct and unusual jazz sound.
He also began to add efects on his trumpet so that it produces a sound which some people
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
Merod, J. 2001. The Quesion of Miles Davis. Online
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.
htp://theinluenceofmilesdavis.blogspot.com