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So What (Miles Davis Composition)
"So What" is the first track on the 1959 album ''Kind of Blue'' by American trumpeter Miles Davis. It is one of the best-known examples of modal jazz, set in the Dorian mode and consisting of 16 bars of D Dorian, followed by eight bars of E Dorian and another eight of D Dorian. This AABA structure puts it in the thirty-two-bar format of American popular song. The piano-and-bass introduction for the piece was written by Gil Evans for Bill Evans (no relation) and Paul Chambers on ''Kind of Blue''. An orchestrated version by Gil Evans of this introduction is later to be found on a television broadcast given by Miles' first quintet (minus Cannonball Adderley, who was ill that day) and the Gil Evans Orchestra; the orchestra gave the introduction, after which the quintet played the rest of "So What". The use of the double bass to play the central theme makes the piece unusual. This arrangement was later performed and recorded as part of the album '' Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a roughly five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz. Born into an upper-middle-class family in Alton, Illinois, and raised in East St. Louis, Davis started on the trumpet in his early teens. He left to study at Juilliard School, Juilliard in New York City, before dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from 1944 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the ''Birth of the Cool'' sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, while addicted to heroin, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music under Prestige Records. After a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voicing (music)
In music theory, voicing refers to two closely related concepts: # How a musician or group distributes, or spaces, notes and chords on one or more instruments # The simultaneity (music), simultaneous vertical placement of notes in relation to each other; this relates to the concepts of spacing and Voicing (music)#Doubling, doubling It includes the instrumentation (music), instrumentation and vertical spacing and ordering of the musical notes in a chord (music), chord: which notes are on the top or in the middle, which ones are doubled, which octave each is in, and which instruments or voices perform each note. Vertical placement The following three chords are all C major, C-major triads in root (chord), root position with different voicings. The first is in close position (the most compact voicing), while the second and third are in Close and open harmony, open position (that is, with wider spacing). Notice also that the G is doubled at the octave in the third chord; that is, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1950s Jazz Standards
Year 195 ( CXCV) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known in Rome as the Year of the Consulship of Scrapula and Clemens (or, less frequently, year 948 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 195 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Emperor Septimius Severus has the Roman Senate deify the previous emperor Commodus, in an attempt to gain favor with the family of Marcus Aurelius. * King Vologases V and other eastern princes support the claims of Pescennius Niger. The Roman province of Mesopotamia rises in revolt with Parthian support. Severus marches to Mesopotamia to battle the Parthians. * The Roman province of Syria is divided and the role of Antioch is diminished. The Romans annex the Syrian cities of Edessa and Nisibis. Severus re-establishes his headquarters and the colonies th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1959 Compositions
Events January * January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the vicinity of Earth's Moon, where it was intended to crash-land, but instead becomes the first spacecraft to go into heliocentric orbit. * January 3 ** Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state. ** The southernmost island of the Maldives archipelago, Addu Atoll, declares its independence from the Kingdom of the Maldives, initiating the United Suvadive Republic. * January 4 ** In Cuba, rebel troops led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city of Havana. ** Léopoldville riots: At least 49 people are killed during clashes between the police and participants of a meeting of the ABAKO Party in Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo. * January 6 – The International Maritime Organization is inaugurated. * January 7 – The United States re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bar-line Shift
In jazz, a bar-line shift is a technique in which, during musical improvisation, improvisation, one plays the chord (music), chord from the bar (music), measure before, as an anticipation of a chord, or after the given chord, as a delay, either intentionally or as an "accident."Jerry Coker, Coker, Jerry (1997). ''Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improvisor'', p.83. . Bar-line shifts may be caused by a novice having lost their place in the chord progression, but is most often attributable to: "(1)...harmonic generalization, as in the case of playing a half-diminished seventh chord, II to dominant seventh chord, V7 (+5, +9) progression II-V-I turnaround, [II-V-I turnaround] as only a altered chord, V7 (+5, +9); or (2) the player ''wanted'' to play the previous chord (though it has already transpired), but was either pausing momentarily (as in taking a breath), and decides to adopt the 'better later than never' attitude." An example of a "very intentional" bar-line shi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" is a recurring song ranking compiled by the American magazine ''Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 in a special issue of the magazine, issue number 963, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2010, ''Rolling Stone'' published a revised edition, drawing on the original and a later survey of songs released up until the early 2000s. Another updated edition of the list was published in 2021, with more than half the entries not having appeared on either of the two previous editions; it was based on a new survey and did not factor in the surveys conducted for the previous lists. The 2021 list was based on a poll of more than 250 artists, musicians, producers, critics, journalists, and industry figures. They each sent in a ranked list of their top 50 songs, and ''Rolling Stone'' tabulated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morton Gould
Morton Gould (December 10, 1913February 21, 1996) was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist. Biography Morton Gould was born in Richmond Hill, New York, United States. He was of Austrian-Jewish heritage. He was recognized early as a child prodigy with abilities in improvisation and composition. His first composition was published at age six. Gould studied at the Institute of Musical Art in New York. His most important teachers were Abby Whiteside and Vincent Jones. Gould was a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. During the Depression, Gould, while a teenager, worked in New York City playing piano in movie theaters, as well as with vaudeville acts. When Radio City Music Hall opened in December 1932, 19 year old Gould was hired as the staff pianist. By 1935, he was conducting and arranging orchestral programs for New York's WOR radio station, where he reached a national audience via the Mutual Broadcasting System, combining popular programming with classical m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahmad Jamal
Ahmad Jamal (born Frederick Russell Jones; July 2, 1930 – April 16, 2023) was an American jazz pianist, composer, bandleader, and educator. For six decades, he was one of the most successful small-group leaders in jazz. He was a NEA Jazz Masters, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Master and won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for his contributions to music history. Biography Early life Jamal was born Frederick Russell Jones in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 2, 1930. He began playing piano at the age of three, when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was playing. Jamal began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, who he said greatly influenced him. Although Jamal is famous for his restrained playing style, he possessed an enormous piano technique from an early age and was playing Liszt etudes in competition as young as 11 years old. His Pittsburgh roots remained an important part of his identity ("Pittsburgh meant eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Impressions (composition)
"Impressions" is a jazz standard composed by John Coltrane. Coltrane only recorded the composition during two studio dates—on June 20, 1962 and March 6, 1963. The 1962 recordings were released on the 2002 deluxe edition of the 1962 album ''Coltrane (1962 album), Coltrane'' and elsewhere. The 1963 recordings were released on the 2018 posthumous album ''Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album''. Coltrane recorded "Impressions" many times live, beginning with his 1961 engagement at the Village Vanguard. These performances produced the third track on the Impressions (John Coltrane album), 1963 album of the same name, as well as two further renditions available on ''The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings''. At least a dozen further live performances exist on various live albums up to 1965. Its chord sequence is identical to that of Miles Davis' "So What (instrumental), So What" (16 bars of D Dorian mode, Dorian, 8 bars of E Dorian, and 8 bars of D Dorian). Both pieces origina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century music. Born and raised in North Carolina, after graduating from high school Coltrane moved to Philadelphia, where he studied music. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of Modal jazz, modes and was one of the players at the forefront of free jazz. He led at least fifty recording sessions and appeared on many albums by other musicians, including trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk. Over the course of his career, Coltrane's music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension, as exemplified on his most acclaimed album ''A Love Supreme'' (1965) and others. Decades after his death, Coltrane remains influential, and he has received numerous posthumous awards, including a Pulitzer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Levine (musician)
Mark Jay Levine (October 4, 1938 – January 27, 2022) was an American jazz pianist, trombonist, composer, author and educator. Early life Mark Jay Levine was born in Concord, New Hampshire, on October 4, 1938. He began playing the piano at the age of five and started trombone in his early teens. He attended Boston University, and graduated with a degree in music in 1960. He also studied privately with Jaki Byard, Hall Overton, and Herb Pomeroy. Career After graduating, Levine moved to New York, where he freelanced and then played with musicians including Houston Person (1966), Mongo Santamaría (1969–70), and Willie Bobo (1971–74). Levine then moved to San Francisco, and played there with Woody Shaw in 1975–76. Levine made his first recording as a leader for Catalyst Records in 1976. He also played with the Blue Mitchell/Harold Land Quintet (1975–79), Joe Henderson, Stan Getz, Bobby Hutcherson, Luis Gasca, and Cal Tjader (1979–83). From 1980 to 1983, he concentr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
So What Chord
In jazz harmony, a So What chord is a particular 5-note chord voicing. From the bottom note upwards, it consists of three perfect fourth intervals followed by a major third interval. It was employed by Bill Evans in the "'amen' response figure" to the head of the Miles Davis tune "So What". For example, an "E minor" So What chord is an Em11 voicing,: The So What chord is often used as an alternative to quartal voicings and may be used in diatonic and chromatic planing. It is identical to the standard tuning of a guitar's five lowest strings. It is essentially a minor eleventh chord, arranged as it would be played on a guitar (1, 4, 7, 3, 5). It may also be thought of as a five-note quartal chord (built from fourths) with the top note lowered by a semitone. More modern sounding than " tertial chords" (built from thirds), it is useful in comping; since the structure of quartal harmony is usually vague, many roots may be applied to the So What chord and it may work well in var ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
