Miles' first foray into modal

[Pluto]

I understand that this was marked by the appearance of Kind of Blue, and exemplified by So What and All Blues. But has anyone else analyzed Summertime from Porgie and Bess and found if not true modal at least a precursor of this style hiding in wait? Compare his rendition with the Bird's, or with anything else that he played preceding P&B, and tell me if you hear what I'm talking about.

[Tom K]

Also listen to Miles' composition "Milestones" (from the album with the same title). There is a "modal", or at least pedal point passage there too.

[burning dog]

Ascenseur pour L'echafaud?

[Pluto]

Originally Posted by burning dog

Ascenseur pour L'echafaud?

That's what I surmised.

[Mr.Kenyatta]

What about Somethin' Else?

[burning dog]

Here are some dates if it helps

Ascenseur pour L'Echafaud - Dec 4 1957
Something Else - March 9 1958
Milestones - April 2,3 1958
Legrand Jazz - June 25 1958
Porgy & Bess - July/August 1958

Regards
BD

[jlee]

"Somethin' Else" is a minor blues, not a modal tune. Leonard Feather made up some nonsense (which is wrong) in the liner notes, as he does elsewhere -- probably to make it appear as if he studied the music before writing about it.

[Minatar12]

As far as I've heard, Milestones was Miles' first conscious excursion into modal jazz, though as I've never Ascenseur pour L'Echafaud I could be wrong. But Milestones deffinitely precedes Kind of Blue, and is deffinitely worth a listen! Great solos from Cannonball and Miles on the title track.

Interestingly enough, to my ears, out of the 3 horns it is Coltrane who sounds the most uneasy with the concept (not bad...his solo is great, just seems the least comfortable with it at the time) and of the three, he's the one who went on to play modal jazz the most...in my opinion he probably did more for modalism (is that a word?) than anyone.

[Pluto]

Originally Posted by Minatar12

As far as I've heard, Milestones was Miles' first conscious excursion into modal jazz, though as I've never Ascenseur pour L'Echafaud I could be wrong.

Is his Summertime considered generally considered Cool or Modal?

His melody for Summertime is so strong it stands on its own, I often hum the melody by itself. It's one of those rare renditions where I don't mind that he does not even refer to much less repeat the theme statement at its conclusion.

[KyleA]

Though I am not sure what Miles' own first go at modal jazz was, I am fairly certain that he was partially inspired/interested by George Russell's "Cubana Be Cubana Bop" (written for Dizzy Gillespie) in 1947, which was definitely a foreshadow to the modal jazz movement a few years later.

[burning dog]

Jazz can be both "cool" and modal.

Miles was definitely influenced by George Russell.

"Ascenseur Pour L'echafaud" contains improvisations of a modal nature "L'assassinat de Carala" and "Julien dans l'ascenseur".

Search YAHOO for - Ascenseur Pour l'echafaud [soundtrack] - amazon.co.uk has sound clips, amazon.com doesn't!

BD

[Ed Byrne]

Hi Everyone,

To learn what Miles Davis thought of his music from his "modal" period (C. 1958-63), the best source is Davis' autobiography. in which he states that he was indeed prompted into this style of improvising on fewer chords by Gil Evans' arrangements of "Porgy and Bess." He also states that George Russell recommended Bill Evans to Davis on the stregth of Evans' knowledge of French Impressionist composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Davis became obsessed with Ravel's "Concerto for the Left Hand," and spent the next 13 years incorporating the composer's devices into a distinctive Davis style of what some historians (Winthrop Sargeant, for example) termed "Impressionist Jazz."

Having said all of this, however, I must point out that jazz is not modal, including Davis' music of the period in question. Jazz scholar Barry Kernfeld, for example, calls this music "Vamp Music," explaining that this style does not fulfill the musical characteristics that scholars attribute to "Modal" music. Check out the [I]Groves Dictionary of Music and the Groves
Dictionary of Jazz. In brief, modality is a Medievil style based entirely on melody--not harmony: unlike Mozart's music, whose melodies are guided by, and outline, chord progressions in tonal keys, modal melodies need no reference to chords whatsoever.

Since Davis' music was profoundly beautiful by all standards, it is beside the point that he misunderstood the term "modal": It has no impact upon the success of his musical statement that he thought of it as such. It also can be stated, however, that regardless of the fact that he thought of his music as modal, it doesn't make it so.

This misunderstanding of modality has had a profound effect on jazz improvisation pedagogy. The prevailing approach in modern times is to arbitrarily assign scales to each chord in a tonal progession that was designed to accompany a tune. The problem with this approach, however, is that it fails to address the primary stuff of the composition on which one improvises: melody, guide tone lines, root progression, and melodic rhythms. Moreover, to assign three different Greek names to a ii7-V7-IMA7 (D Dorian, G Mixolydian, & CMA7 is ludicrous. First, the progression is in the key of
C Major. If you combine these three modes, you come up with the obvious: a C Major scale.

Best,
Ed

Ed Byrne

[burning dog]

Hi Ed,

I acknowledge that your definition of modal is the correct one.

I think many jazz musicians (wrongly) call a modal piece one based on one chord, or a two chord vamp, or with various cycles of the same.

Many listeners and critics call any simple, pared down harmonic stucture modal, especially a blues.

I think using the first (wrong) definition "Ascenseur Pour L'echaufaud" contains the earliest examples, as well as some "pared down" blues. I don't know how premeditated this was.

I could be wrong though!!

Regards

BD

PS: - Re your website "Stop wasting time pursuing activities that make you sound like eveyone else"

Amen to that!!

[Ed Byrne]

Hey Burnin' Dog,

Thanks for your response. From 1958 on, Davis was searching for a way to play more motivically, and less constricted by running chord changes. In the process, he became captivated my Ravel's various devices, such as quartal harmony, pedal point, bi-tonality, unresolved melodic tensions, and so on. He thought that this constituted modality, while he was reall incorporating Impressionist devices into jazz.

This also, in my view, was the last great example of the assimilative process that jazz musicians traditionally persued with regard to European musical forms and harmonies. Since then, especially with the tenure of Wynton Marcalles at Lincoln Center--his bully pulpit--jazz has been languishing in a mediocre retrograde. unfortunately, we have not even begun to use the devices of the composers of the second half of the Twentieth century. The music is no longer in the now--at least the music that finds its way into the media.

By the way, thanks for visiting my site.

I don't make the news: I only report it!

Ed Byrne

[burning dog]

Originally Posted by Ed Byrne

Hey Burnin' Dog,

Thanks for your response. From 1958 on, Davis was searching for a way to play more motivically, and less constricted by running chord changes. In the process, he became captivated my Ravel's various devices, such as quartal harmony, pedal point, bi-tonality, unresolved melodic tensions, and so on. He thought that this constituted modality, while he was reall incorporating Impressionist devices into jazz.

This also, in my view, was the last great example of the assimilative process that jazz musicians traditionally persued with regard to European musical forms and harmonies. Since then, especially with the tenure of Wynton Marcalles at Lincoln Center--his bully pulpit--jazz has been languishing in a mediocre retrograde. unfortunately, we have not even begun to use the devices of the composers of the second half of the Twentieth century. The music is no longer in the now--at least the music that finds its way into the media.

By the way, thanks for visiting my site.

I don't make the news: I only report it!

Ed Byrne

Iv'e always thought it strange that a movement that started to make jazz less vertical, ie less "running the changes", has ended up making jazz into a scale running excersize by, to my ears, attaching a scale to every chord of an old fashioned chord progression, rather than allowing people to solo more melodically without resolving, as I think Miles and Bill Evans intended, or making a new melody fit an old chord structure as Parker did.