Miles Davis Biography

Recopilación de artículos de Wikipedia relativos a la Década del Bebop.

Miles Davis played the blues on his first recording date-in late April 1945, a month before his nineteenth birthday. On these recordings, he performs as a sideman in a sextet accompanying the dancer, comedian, and rhythm-and-blues singer Rubberlegs Williams. 1 Three of the four pieces they recorded were twelve-bar blues. One of them, a tune called ''Bring It on Home,'' features a straightforward R&B style whose standard harmonic palette serves as a foundation for a conventional poetic structure of AAB verses and a bereft lover's plea for the return of ''my woman and my used-tobe.'' Behind the vocal, Davis plays a muted obbligato that sounds so far away from the center of musical action that he might be in a neighboring practice room. A close listening reveals a musician steeped in bebop gestures, including scurrying doubletime passages and upper extensions of chords, such as major sevenths and ninths, that stand outside conventional rhythm and blues playing of the period. 2 In short, the recording contains the seeds of a creative tension that charged Miles Davis's entire career.

Journal of Popular Music Studies, 1990

During the Fifties, a musical style frequently called West Coast jazz became popular with both critics and serious jazz fans. It also appealed to many casual listeners, some as attracted to the provocative album cover art as they were to the music. However, by the mid-sixties when jazz was dominated of the Avant-garde or New Thing, this variation on modern jazz was discredited and frequently forgotten. This study examines the music produced by Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars at The Lighthouse nightclub in Hermosa Beach, California between 1952 and 1959 and its relationship to music recorded by New York-based groups during the same period. The Lighthouse provided a stable working environment for jazz musicians with few, if any, commercial restraints. The band produced both live and studio recordings over a period of seven years. The recordings contain a variety of modern or post-swing approaches to jazz improvisation, composition, and arranging similar to those found on recordings produced in New York. The recordings do not support the view that the All-Stars were playing an identifiable West Coast or Cool style that was different from an East Coast or Hard Bop style favored by players based in New York. Recent interviews with members of the All-Stars and articles appearing in both jazz and general interest periodicals during the fifties also indicate that the All-Stars were not playing in a different style. They viewed their music as modern, just as their New York-based contemporaries did. Using the All-Stars as an example of modern jazz in the fifties, the frequently confusing jazz history narrative found in most textbooks can be reshaped, providing a more useful picture of the music during that decade.

2008

2009

Jazz Perspectives, 2008

This paper examines Miles Davis's studio and live repertoire during the time period from 1963 until 1970, particularly his performances of the ballad “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” which was a remarkably persistent presence in his sets, despite the myriad of other changes that took place in this time. Indeed, listening to multiple versions of “I Fall in Love Too Easily” certainly reveals clear differences in musical parameters such as form, tempo, rhythm, timbre, and orchestration. Examining Davis's performances of “I Fall in Love Too Easily” enables us to focus in on what, according to both jazz critics and jazz historians, is a crucial turning point, not only for Davis's career, but for the genre as a whole. Through detailed examination of various performances of “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” we can also concentrate closely on how exactly Davis's music was changing during this period, even if one song remained a part of his repertoire. In my analysis, I show that “I Fall In Love Too Easily,” more so than any other standard, served as a durable vehicle for Davis's musical goals throughout the mid-1960s. By 1970, however, these goals seem to have shifted as Davis moved, step by step, away from a model of jazz performance based on improvisation on a familiar, pre-existing tune or structure. Hence, “I Fall In Love Too Easily,” and all other jazz standards were dropped from the band's book as Davis pursued other means of communicating with his audience.

2005

In this essay the author discusses the origins, evolution and impact of Third Stream music, the broader outgrowth of it being Confluent music. Reference is made to relevant compositions and recordings from the USA, England and Europe, up to 2004. Background information about the composers is provided. Compositions including elements from African music are being examined. The author investigates the involvement, up to 2004, of Australian composers and composers resident in Australia. A substantial bibliography and discography is included.