"500 Miles High" is a
jazz fusion
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...
song by
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea (June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021) was an American jazz composer, pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and occasional percussionist. His compositions "Spain", " 500 Miles High", "La Fiesta", "Armando's Rhumba", and ...
and
Return to Forever
Return to Forever was an American jazz fusion band that was founded by pianist Chick Corea in 1972. The band has had many members, with the only consistent bandmate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke. Along with Weather Report, The Headhun ...
. Composed by Corea with lyrics by Neville Potter, it was recorded in 1972 for the group's second album, ''
Light as a Feather
''Light as a Feather'' is the second studio album by jazz fusion band Return to Forever led by pianist Chick Corea.
Content
The style of the music remains mostly the same as the first album, though vocals were given a larger role. Corea prod ...
'', which was released in 1973.
Brazilian singer
Flora Purim
Flora Purim (born March 6, 1942) is a Brazilian jazz singer known primarily for her work in the jazz fusion style. She became prominent for her part in Return to Forever with Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. She has recorded and performed with nu ...
provides the vocal and the piece became her signature song
and a
jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive lis ...
.
Composition and lyrics
"500 Miles High" is one of three pieces on ''Light as a Feather'' which feature vocals by Purim.
At over nine minutes in length, it is largely an instrumental and contains three verses.
The song opens with a brief electric piano intro by Corea, then Purim sings the opening verse:
Although the song has sometimes been connected to drug culture,
Potter's lyrics express
romantic love
Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a Interpersonal attraction, strong attraction towards another person, and the Courtship, courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emot ...
. After solos by the band members, Purim returns to the verses and concludes with a
scat-style
coda
Coda or CODA may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* Movie coda, a post-credits scene
* ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television
*''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...
.
Critical reception
Critic Michael G. Nastos referred to the song as "beautiful", but wrote that it "unfortunately became a hippie drug anthem."
He also wrote of the album ''Light as a Feather'' that "From a historical perspective, this is the most important effort of Corea's career".
Tom Moon wrote of the song's "ethereal lyrics well matched to the sounds."
Hernan M. Campbell wrote that the song is "overwhelmed with explosive and spontaneous musicianship."
He also wrote about the influence of
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...
on the band, and how the album ''Light as a Feather'' had diverged from the pattern set by other jazz fusion artists who had been similarly influenced.
Campbell further wrote that the album as a whole is an "undeniable classic", and that it is "evidence that Return To Forever are, and will always be, recognized as one of the most distinguished acts in their respective genre."
Ron Drotos writes of the
rubato Tempo rubato (, , ; 'free in the presentation', literally ) is a musical term referring to expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor. Rub ...
style with which the song starts, before shifting to a "medium Latin" tempo:
"Rubato playing is an extremely important part of jazz piano playing, particularly when you're accompanying vocalists, yet many pianists don't really learn to do this well. Corea's playing here is a good introduction to the style, but remember that he's able to play fast keyboard fills because vocalist Flora Purim is an accomplished professional and won't get confused by anything he plays."
Dave Worley writes "Chick's solo is a remarkable example of post bop melodic invention, and with its use of pentatonics, chromaticism, and polyrhythmic motion" and links to a video analyzing the song by Don Glanden of the
University of the Arts in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
.
Brian Harker writes of the song's "characteristically 'Brazilian' approach".
Richard J. Lawn writes that "Tunes such as '500 Miles High'... all remain significant contributions to the repertoire today. In all of these pieces Corea shows a love of strong melodies, interesting extended form structures, Spanish and Brazilian attributes, including Brazilian samba rhythms, and a light, airy group sound."
Lawn also writes that
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of ...
's inclusion of Corea's songs, including "500 Miles High" on his album ''Captain Marvel'', and including them in Getz's performances (where Return to Forever played as a backup band) helped popularize Corea's work, because the ''Light as a Feather'' album had not then been released in the United States.
Lawn mentions that some of Corea's compositions were commissioned by Getz.
''The Rough Guide to Jazz'' describes "500 Miles High", along with "Captain Marvel" and "Spain" as "some of Corea's best compositions".
''Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improvisor'' uses the song as an example of harmonic generalization.
Paul E. Rinzler comments on the use of fermatas at the end of short phrases in "500 Miles High".
Accolades
Corea was nominated for "Best Improvised Jazz Solo" for "500 Miles High" by the American Association of Independent Music in 2012.
''Forever'', a two disc album including a version of "500 Miles High", reached number four on ''Billboard''s Jazz Albums chart.
Other renditions
Jazz saxophonist
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of ...
recorded an early version of "500 Miles High" for his album ''
Captain Marvel''.
He performs it as an instrumental, with the melody line played on saxophone. Along with drummer
Tony Williams, Getz is backed by Corea on piano,
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke (born June 30, 1951) is an American bassist, film composer and founding member of Return to Forever, one of the first jazz fusion bands. Clarke gave the bass guitar a prominence it lacked in jazz-related music. He is the first jaz ...
on bass, and
Airto Moreira
Airto Guimorvan Moreira (born August 5, 1941) is a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. He is married to jazz singer Flora Purim, and their daughter Diana Moreira is also a singer. Coming to prominence in the late 1960s as a member of the ...
on percussion, who were just forming Return to Forever.
Although the piece was recorded in 1972, the album was not released until 1974. AllMusic critic Thom Jurek describes Getz "shapeshifting his way through the mode changes on 'Five Hundred Miles High'" and ''Captain Marvel'' as "arguably the finest recording Getz made during the 1970s."
Getz recorded "500 Miles High" several times during his career.
In 1974, Flora Purim performed the song at the
Montreux Jazz Festival
The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second-largest annual ...
.
Described as "wilder and more electric than in its Return to Forever studio version", the concert recording became the title track to her album, ''500 Miles High''.
As one of her signature tunes,
she revisited the song often and several are in release.
Transformative
jazz pianist
George Shearing
Sir George Albert Shearing, (13 August 1919 14 February 2011) was a British jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for Discovery Records, MGM Records and Capitol Records. Shearing was the composer of over 300 t ...
recorded the piece in 1977 for his album, also titled ''500 Miles High''.
It is featured alongside mostly
bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...
jazz standards, making it the sole contemporary tune on the album.
In 2009,
the Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer is a Grammy award–winning vocal group founded in 1969 that has explored a cappella, vocalese, swing, standards, Brazilian jazz, rhythm and blues, and pop music.
There have been two editions of the Manhattan Transfer, ...
interpreted the song for their tribute album, ''The Chick Corea Songbook''.
Nastos describes it as "the most well-revered '500 Miles High,' as rich angelic voices reach for the heavens in wordless refrains holding tension and a modicum of energy, again quite unlike the initial famous version done by Return to Forever with Purim."
Other recordings include those by
Joe Pass
Joe Pass (born Joseph Anthony Jacobi Passalaqua; January 13, 1929 – May 23, 1994) was an American jazz guitarist. Pass is well known for his work stemming from numerous collaborations with pianist Oscar Peterson and vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, an ...
(''Virtuoso No. 2'', 1976),
Azymuth
Azymuth is a Brazilian jazz-funk trio formed in 1973. The original band members were the now late Jose Roberto Bertrami ( keyboards), plus Alex Malheiros ( bass, guitars), and Ivan Conti ( drums, percussion).
History
From 1979 to 1988, they rel ...
(''Outubro'', 1980),
and
Joe Farrell
Joseph Carl Firrantello (December 16, 1937 – January 10, 1986), known as Joe Farrell, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who primarily performed as a saxophonist and flutist. He is best known for a series of albums under his own name o ...
(''Sound of Jazz'', 1988),
who played saxophone on the original with Return to Forever.
Notes
{{authority control
1972 songs
Vocal jazz songs
Jazz fusion standards
1970s jazz standards
Jazz compositions in E minor
Jazz compositions
Jazz fusion songs