Chapter 11 : Modality (Davis & Coltrane)

Miles Davis (1926-1991)

• Changed the rules of jazz five times from 1949 to 1969

1. 1949–1950: The “Birth of the Cool” sessions started the cool jazz movement. 1954: “Walkin’” started the hard bop movement.

2. 1957–1960: With Gil Evans, he enlarged the scope of jazz composition, orchestration, big bands, and recording projects, while adding a new, meditative mood to jazz

3. 1959: Kind of Blue was the culmination of Davis’s experiments with modes and melodic improvisation, replacing the harmonic complexity of bop.

4. 1969: Btches Brew made fusion mainstream and shifted the music’s focus from melody to rhythm and timbre

Davis’ Compositional/Playing Style Over time

• Over these 20 years Davis forced a rethinking of harmony, melody, rhythm, and instrumentation

• Approach to trumpet remained mostly the same

• Influential persona: Archetypal jazz musician (cool, romantic) Civil rights black man (outspoken, self-reliant) Charismatic, a symbol of his time, imitated for his dress and attitude; a mystery to many Early life in Illinois and East St. Louis; middle class background; early work with the Billy Eckstine band; brief time at Julliard School of Music work with Charlie Parker; 1949 Birth of Cool recording; heroin addiction (4 years); kicks heroin (1954); 1954 Turning point: busy recording activity, re-establishment and rise to fame, 1955, introduction of the Harmon mute to his sound; Columbia album “Round about Midnight” (featured Davis’s first great quintet: John Coltrane, Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums))

Three significant aspects of the quintet:

• The contrast between Davis’s restraint and Coltrane’s demonstrative virtuosity reverses the Parker/Davis disparity.

• The assertive rhythm section consists of Jones’s strong attack and Chambers’s time and harmonic skill

• The repertory was diverse: originals plus pop songs from the 1920s or borrowed

Miles Davis and Modal Jazz

• In France, improvises music for Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Elevator to to the Gallows) dir. Louis Malle (Dec. 1957)

• Based on “scales” (i.e. modes of the major and minor scale) rather than chords- eureka moment!

Kind of Blue

• Records Porgy and Bess (1958)and Sketches of Spain (1959)

• Makes most celebrated album, Kind of Blue (1959) between these sessions

• Culmination of work in modal jazz: album influenced generations of musicians

• Bop was harmonically busy music

• Modal jazz goes opposite direction--decreased harmonic density--melody is the focus

• Modal jazz: revitalization of the relationship between improvised melody and harmonic foundation

• Likely best-selling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue suited Davis’ midrange lyricism and reserved approach; also provides a vehicle for Coltrane’s exuberant style

Bill Evans (piano; 1929-1980)

Classical background; combines classic knowledge w/modal jazz; collaborates/plays on Davis’ Kind of Blue(1959); important composer e.g. “Blue in Green” (on Kind of Blue); quartile harmonies (chords made from stacked 4th (instead of tonal stacked thirds.

John Coltrane (sax; 1926-1967)

Born in Hamlet, North Carolina, Coltrane; early life and education; style; collaborations with Miles Davis; “sheets of sound”; significant compositions (“Naima”; Mr. P.C.; “Giant Steps”: Notoriously difficult; extreme tempo; rapid highly chromatic chord changes (one chord per melody note!); sort of farewell to bop as he embraces modal and experimental sounds

Coltrane and the Avant Garde: “Chasin’ the Trane” (1961)

free playing over a blues progression; multiphonics (more than one on a wind instrument); over blowing/squeals; divisive recording (some saw as “anti- jazz”-others as a new hope for the future)

A Love Supreme

• December 1964, Coltrane recorded a four-part suite and canticle called A Love Supreme to strong reviews

• Musicians and listeners saw him as a leader in the march to the new music

• Refers to his 1957 conversion and liberation from addiction in four movements: “Acknowledgment,” “Pursuance,” “Resolution,” and “Psalm”

• Music gradually moves from common harmonic practice to chromaticism

• Public found this kind of avant-garde approachable, attracting both his old and new fans

• The first movement is a culmination of his music up to that point using scales, pedal points, multiphonics, free improvisation, and shifting rhythms. A vocal chant near the end signals a key change

• Coltrane’s sound and use of pentatonic scales are distinctive. The four-note vocal figure is one of four themes for this movement that he uses to improvise. (a kind of incantation of the words “A Love Supreme” through the saxophone). Some criticized Coltrane for abandoning musical coherence in favour of faith to guide the music. Nevertheless, this piece is strictly ordered.