"Footprints" is 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 ...

composed by saxophonist

Wayne Shorter Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Davi ...

and first recorded for his album ''

Adam's Apple The Adam's apple or laryngeal prominence is the protrusion in the human neck formed by the angle of the thyroid cartilage surrounding the larynx, typically visible in men, less frequently in women. Structure The topographic structure which is e ...

'' in 1966. The first commercial release of the song was a different recording on the

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 ...

album ''

Miles Smiles ''Miles Smiles'' is an album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released on February 16, 1967 on Columbia Records. It was recorded by Davis and his second quintet at Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City on October 24 and October 25, 1966. It i ...

'' recorded later in 1966, but released earlier. It has become a jazz standard.

Rhythm

Although often written in or , it is not a jazz waltz because the feel alternates between

simple meter In music, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) refers to regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bars and beats. Unlike rhythm, metric onsets are not necessarily sounded, but are nevertheless implied by the perfo ...

and compound meter. On ''

'', the band playfully explores the correlation between African-based (or ) and . Drummer Tony Williams freely moves from swing, to the three-over-two

cross rhythm In music, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a specific form of polyrhythm. The term ''cross rhythm '' was introduced in 1934 by the musicologist Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980). It refers to when the rhythmic conflict found in polyrhythms is the ...

—and to its correlative. The ground of four main beats is maintained throughout the piece. The bass switches to at 2:20.

Ron Carter Ronald Levin Carter (born May 4, 1937) is an American jazz double bassist. His appearances on 2,221 recording sessions make him the most-recorded jazz bassist in history. He has won three Grammy awards, and is also a cellist who has recorded nu ...

’s figure is known as ''tresillo'' in

Afro-Cuban music Music of African heritage in Cuba derives from the musical traditions of the many ethnic groups from different parts of West Africa that were brought to Cuba as slaves between the 16th and 19th centuries. Members of some of these groups formed thei ...

and is the duple-pulse correlative of the figure.Peñalosa, David (2010: 43). ''The Clave Matrix; Afro-Cuban Rhythm: Its Principles and African Origins''. Redway, CA: Bembe Inc. . This may have been the first overt expression of systemic, African-based cross-rhythm used by a straight ahead jazz group. During Davis’s first trumpet solo, Williams shifts to a jazz

ride pattern The ride cymbal is a standard cymbal in most drum kits. Its function in the kit is to maintain a beat,Schroedl, Scott (2001). ''Play Drums Today!'', p.7. Hal Leonard. . "It's called the ride cymbal because you 'ride' on it--that is, you maintain a ...

while Carter continues the bass line. The following example shows the and forms of the bass line. The slashed noteheads indicate the main beats (not bass notes), where one ordinarily taps their foot to "keep time." :

Harmony

Harmonically, "Footprints" takes the form of a 12-bar

C minor C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature consists of three flats. Its relative major is E major and its parallel major is C major. The C natural minor scale is: : Cha ...

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

, but this is masked not only by its triple time signature but by its

avant garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical De ...

turnaround. In the key of C minor, a normal turnaround would be Dm⁷⁽⁵⁾, G⁷, Cm⁷. But Shorter doubles the

harmonic rhythm In music theory, harmonic rhythm, also known as harmonic tempo, is the rate at which the chords change (or progress) in a musical composition, in relation to the rate of notes. Thus a passage in common time with a stream of sixteenth notes and ch ...

of the turnaround, and the progression reads: Fm⁷⁽⁵⁾, F⁷⁽¹¹⁾, Eaug⁷⁽⁹⁾, A⁷⁽⁹⁾, Cm⁷. In jazz jam sessions and for educational purposes, players often choose D⁷⁽¹¹⁾ D⁷⁽¹¹⁾ Cm⁷ as turnaround, which also fits with the original melody.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Footprints (Composition) 1966 compositions