Assignment 1
1/24/12
Milestone A: After
high school Davis managed to get his fathers permission to attend Juilliard
School of Music in New York. Davis felt as if he had learned and accomplished
as much as he could from the music scene in St. Louis, and was excited to go to
New York for reasons not having to do with Juilliard. After he got a lucky
experience of playing with the Billy Eckstine Band traveling through town he
felt that the city seemed “inadequate and sterile in the light of the fresh
musical language Bird and Diz were creating” (Ian Carr, Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography, p.17). Towards the end of
this high school years, he yearned to get out of town and try New York’s
musical scene, but he was held back by his parent’s expectations of him earning
an extended education. Because of his experience with the Billy Eckstine band
he moved to New York “ostensibly to enter the Institute of Musical Art but
actually to locate his idol, Charlie Parker” (Barry Kernfeld. "Davis,
Miles." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article
/grove/music/07310 Jan. 24 2012). When he got into Juilliard he practiced
established western music during the day and invested his nights in the New
York bebop scene and looked for his idol, Charlie Parker. Davis was disappointed
at the education he got at Julliard because he felt that “All that shit I had
already learned in St Louis” and as explained in Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography, the pace of the lessons
were too slow (Carr, p.21). Positive aspects he found in Julliard were the
piano lessons he received and some of the new cords and techniques that he
learned. The New York music scene was extremely appealing to Davis because it
was undergoing a musical revolution of jazz, bebop and exceptional musicians.
Davis met Freddie Webster in 1945, who became a good friend and had a strong musical
influence on him. Davis admired Webster’s St Louis style of trumpet playing,
his tone and his “big, singing sound and marmoreally sculpted phrases” (Carr,
p.21).
Milestone B: According
to many, Gillespie led what was called “the first bebop recordings” in 1944
(Henry Martin and Keith Waters, Jazz: The
First 100 years, p.199). It is also said that Charlie Parker led the “first
definitive recordings of bebop” on November 26, 1945 (Carr, p.25). Dizzy
Gillespie and Miles Davis played trumpet in “first definitive recordings of
bebop” session. Dizzy Gillespie played in Ko Ko because he was more experienced
and confortable than Miles Davis, who was still a young and nervous performer. Miles
played Now’s the time, Billie’s Bounce and Thriving on a Riff during this session. One critic, The Down Beat
reviewer, did not approve of Miles playing and wrote that “The trumpet man,
whoever the misled kid is, plays Gillespie in the same manner as the majority
of kids who copy their idol do – with most of the faults, lack of order and
meaning, the complete adherence to technical acrobatics” (Carr, p.29). The
trumpet player Red Rodney commented that Miles playing in Now’s the Time “was a new sound… it was a young guy that didn’t
play the trumpet very well, but had discovered a whole new way of playing”(Carr,
p.29). Miles was asked to join the Benny Carter band when he was in St. Louis
for Christmas. Joining Benny Carters band allowed Miles to reunite with the Charlie
Parker at the Billy Berg’s Swing club in Los Angeles.
Assignment 2
2/7/12
Milestone C: Gill Evans arranged the Thronhill band in 1941.
This band featured the tuba and French horn, which are instruments not often
heard in big bands and were unusual in modern jazz. When he originally
approached Miles Davis in 1947, Gill Evans asked him for “permission to arrange
Davis’s composition “Donna Lee” for the Thornhill band” (Carl Woideck.
PowerPoint: Cool Jazz, MUJ 351, University of Oregon, accessed 2/4/2012). In
return, Davis asked Evans to “teach me some of chords and let me study some
scores he was doing for the Claude Thornhill band” (Ian Carr, Miles Davis: The
Definitive Biography, p.17). Davis’s nonet, which was influenced by “Evans’s
earlier arrangements for the Thornhill band”, used the instruments piano, bass,
drums, trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba, alto saxophone, and baritone
saxophone (Henry Martin and Keith Waters, Jazz: The First 100 years, p.227).
Not including Davis, the band was arranged by Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, John
Lewis, and Johnny Carisi. Davis’ trumpet style in the nonet included the use of
more written music with less improvisions than in the past, less notes, and not
every second was filled with sound. These aspects contributed to making his style
aesthetically “cool”. Gerry Mulligan said that Davis “was a prime mover. But
another factor is far more important: thinking of Miles as the lead voice
affected the way we all wrote for the band. Stylistically, Miles was the
perfect choice. … If we’d had a trumpet player that had a more conventional
open sound, it wouldn’t have had the same impact on the ensemble.” (Carr, p.51).
The lead voice and the melodies that Miles contributed to the nonet influenced
the rest of the band greatly, giving it a cool edge.
Milestone D: When John Coltrane returned to Davis’s group he
said “I found Miles in the midst of another stage of his musical development.
There was one other time that he devoted to multichorded structures. He was
interested in chords for their own sake. But now it seemed that he was moving
in the opposite direction to use of fewer and fewer chord changes in songs”
(Martin and Waters, p.254). After hearing Bill Evans play for the first time,
Davis said that “You know, if I played the saxophone, I’d want to play it like
you” (Carr, p.348). Davis admired Bill Evans playing because “when they play a
chord, they play a sound more than a chord” (Carr, p.134). The sound Miles was
taking about is the inner voicing that Evans’ gives the chords. On the other
hand, Cannonball Adderley noticed a problem with Bill Evans playing; “Bill
didn’t swing enough on things that weren’t subdued” (Carr, p.135). On March 2nd
1959, Davis’s band was working on the album “Kind of Blue” (Barry Kernfeld.
"Davis, Miles." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article
/grove/music/07310 Jan. 24 2012). This album was based on modality, not hard
bops complex harmonies, which made this album unusual and significant. George
Russell used a new technique with scales for improvisations,
which helped pave the way for Modal Jazz. Modal Jazz is defined as “a body of
music that makes use of one of the following characteristics: model scales for
improvising, slow harmonic rhythm, pedal points, and the absence or suppression
of functional harmonic relationships.” (Martin and Waters, p.254). Davis’s
composition “So What” was conventional for jazz because of its
call-and-response technique. “So What” was nonconventional for jazz because of
how Davis reduced the harmonic structure and only used one or two scales.
Assignment 3
2/21/12
Milestone E: Davis assembled a new group in 1963 that
included Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Tony Williams on drums,
and George Colman on saxophone who was replaced by Sam Rivers who was later
replaced by Wayne Shorter. Davis had been after the saxophonist Wayne Shorter
for several years, trying several ways to convince him to join his band. He
even called Art Blakey’s backstage dressing areas to try to convince him.
Eventually, after Rivers had left the Davis band, Williams and Hancock called
Shorter and convinced him to join the band. Shorter felt that with Davis’s band
“It wasn’t the bish-bash, sock-‘em-dead routine we had with Blakey, with every
solo a climax. With Miles, I felt like a cello, I felt viola, I felt liquid,
dot-dash…and colours started really coming. And then a lot of people started
calling me – ‘Can you be on my record date?’ It was six years of that.” (Ian
Carr, Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography, p.198). In this quote Shorter is
referring to Davis’s more esthetically cool style and how the band communicated
and played so smoothly. Shorter’s work
as a composer “provided a foundation for the new jazz idiom that was created by
the Davis band of 1965-1968.”(Mark C Gridley, Jazz Styles: History &
Analysis, p.247). He also contributed very creative, smooth, and emotional
writing. His playing contained a “highly logical quality” and he played in a
calmer manner than he had in the past (Gridley, P.247). He played very fresh
and unpredictable lines, “stretching the boundaries of what a jazz improviser
could do” (Gridley, P.247).
Milestone F: At a
recording session toward the end of 1967 Davis surprised Handcock with a new
instrument. “I walked into the studio and I didn’t see my acoustic piano. I saw
this little box sitting there, this little toy, so I said, “Miles, where’s my
piano?” He said…”I want you to play this”…So I tested it and heard this
sound-this big mellow sound coming out…I liked it right away” (Henry Martin and
Keith Waters, Jazz: The First 100 years, p.300). The electric piano gave an
altered sound to the band for the rest of its existence. Davis’s album In a Silent Way was different from his previous
work; he said he was more harmonically and rhythmically simple, and he played
the soprano sax. Also, In a Silent Way
featured electric pianos, an organ, electric bass guitar, electric guitars and
often two drummers in place of the more typical jazz instruments of Davis’s
past (Gridley, P.342). The three electric pianists who played In a Silent Way were Herbie Hancock, Chick
Corea, and Josef Zawinul. Davis altered Zawinul’s original song “In a Silent
Way” by the use of alternative instruments including electric pianos, and also
by substantially cutting down the track times and repeating certain sections.
When commenting on Davis’s band-leading style, John McLaughlin said “He puts
your creativity on the line. He’ll make you do something that’s you, but also
in tune with what he wants.”(Carr, p.247). McLaughlin gives the impression that
he is very impressed with Davis’s band-leading skills and thinks that Davis
pushes everyone to a new peak in their performance in which they would not
otherwise go. Dave Holland has a similar impression of Davis’s band-leading
style. Holland compared Davis to a master of Zen, where Davis would say a few
words and his students would become enlightened. He mentioned that Davis said,
“Don’t play what’s there. Play what’s not there.”(Carr, p.247). This means that Davis wanted him to stretch
is creativity, to not play music in the same way every time, and to view music
from a new point of view.
Assignment
4
3/6/12
Milestone G: Davis paused his career in 1975 because
of health problems, such as his cocaine and drug addictions, the arthritis in
his hip, gallstones, and his stomach ulcers that were intensified by
alcoholism. When Davis returned to his recording studio in 1978 he told his
bassist T.M. Stevens that playing everything perfect was his problem and that
mistakes would be beneficial to his music; “The brilliance comes in your
mistakes - that’s how you discover new things. And the only way you make
mistakes is to stretch and take chances. If you play it safe you’ll never
progress” (Ian Carr, Miles Davis: The Definitive Biography, p.338). I
believe the meaning that Davis was trying to get across from this is that music
is to be experimented with and played with the heart, when you just try to play
music perfectly you miss out on the beauty that mistakes can hold. In July
of 1979 the New York radio station WKCR played Davis’s recorded work in
chronological order throughout a week. This brought satisfaction to Davis and
made him happy, reminding him of his accomplishments. Marcus Miller received a
note that read “call Miles” and had a telephone number. When Miller called the
number, Davis invited him on short notice to come play at CBS. Davis coached
him to play F sharp and G in a very confusing way, joking around with him.
Instead of getting upset, Miller took on the attitude “...I’m just gonna ignore
this guy. I’m not gonna let him drive me crazy” (Carr, p.357). In 1981 Davis
performed George Gershwin’s piece “My Man’s Gone Now”, which he had previously
recorded with Gil Evans in 1958.
Milestone
H: Davis was convinced
to perform with Gil Evans again because of musicians and others asking them
about reuniting throughout the years; they reunited because of “external
forces” (Carr p.532). Quincy Jones persuaded Claude Nobs, the founder of the
Montreux Jazz Festival, that Davis and Evans should re-create music at the
festival. The two of them, with the help of money, convinced Davis to re-create
the music and have a concert on August 10th, 1993 in Switzerland.
Gil Goldstein spent a lot of time making sense of Gil Evans’s original scores,
transcribing them so that the band could play them at the concert. It was
difficult for them to find the scores, but once they did they were happy to be
able to understand Evans’s intentions for the music. Goldstein said that he
“had to
re-orchestrate
a lot of it, so what we played is not the actual orchestration that is on the
record. I had to make some educated guesses to fill in the blanks, but was just
gratified that it was all sounding like Gil and giving the general impression
of the charts.” (Carr p.535). At the first rehearsal at the Montreux Davis
didn’t show up, so they chose Wallace Roney to play his part. Davis came into
the rehearsal late and liked Roney’s playing and chose to share the trumpet
playing with him in the concert. Kenny Garrett joked that he knew Davis was
coming when his horn started shaking.
Quincy
Jones said “At the performance itself, I saw Miles, after just one number,
smiling the biggest smile I ever saw in my life, waving his towel to the
audience. I’d never seen him that outgoing in all the years I’d known
him.” (Carr, 541). This showed his true pleasure of playing music.
