First.. I'm a huge fan of this stuff, and Kind of Blue is one of my favorite records.
That said, I think that the author is making a mistake by taking Stephen Thomas Erlewine's review too seriously. When you read things like "an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence..." take it for what it is -- fawning praise written 50 years later by a fanboy.
Read a bit further... "this music never flaunts its genius," a line that stuck with the blogger. In fact, anybody who knows a bit about Miles Davis is probably laughing now about how backwards this is. Miles was Mr. Flaunty Genius.
"Kind of Blue is more than easy listening. It's the pinnacle of modal jazz"... I think at this point, modal jazz was just getting started, not reaching it's pinnacle.
"...this is an exceptional band... one of the greatest in history, playing at the peak of its power. "... Um, no! None of these musicians were at the peak of their power at all. They all went on to do more.
Unfortunately now the blogger is trapped in this line of thinking, and he writes... "I think what draws me to this album is the enormous restraint that each of these brilliant musicians show... They were all extraordinary musicians at the top of their games, and yet they came together and produced a piece of work that doesn’t feel strained or over the top. There is a sense of comfort – of rightness – to every note on the album."... In fact, there are other critics that have said that Cannonball Adderley was really a wrong choice for Kind of Blue - his playing stands out as being too bluesy and he didn't really "get" the modal jazz like the other musicians.
Anyway, I guess my point is to be wary of empty praise. The author was clearly moved by the music, and the Erlewine review reinforced those feelings, but he is missing out on a lot of interesting lines of criticism that might bring him new insights. Jazz, like other abstract arts, is especially interesting because of how malleable it can be, with each listener bringing their own perspectives and opinions into how they perceive the work. The best ones (and Kind of Blue is among them) will grab your attention, play off your memories and emotions, and inspire you.
- Kind of Blue *is* a definitive jazz album.
- Miles was *not* flaunting during that particular time period of writing and
recording. He changed his mode of expression and self numerous times throughout
his life.
- The musicians *were* at their peak *while they were together for this
recording*.
- Cannonball Adderley's playing is often times the best of the bunch.
I don't think you can have "empty praise" when you are expressing your subjective opinion about music and you like something.
Can you explain how improvisation is different in modal jazz vs. improvisation over chord changes?
I understand that instead of targeting the tones found in chord progressions, Miles Davis etc. focused on playing the tones in D Dorian mode for "So What?" which has notes that could be actually dissonant to whatever chord-tones/walking bass being played. But how does one actually construct a modal solo and does one not think about at all the chord-progression being played at all or is chord consonance still very important?
Well, three things about modern Jazz to understand:
1. Dissonance isn't bad or good, it's just more or less tension.
2. You can alter chords with substitutions, effectively creating a "chord abstraction theory".
3. If you can get abstract about chords, and that lets you play similar chords where other chords are, then you can do the same thing with scales.
They then just play fewer chords. If you only have 3, or even 1 chord, then you can simply stay in one key and solo all day long. You can then go outside the key to add tension with dissonant notes by picking a new "abstraction".
This reduction in the number of chords in the song then lets you play with abstractions on the chords being used. You can start doing substitutions with chords that are similar to give the song a feeling of progression where there really is none.
If I remember correctly, Freddie Hubbard's "Mr. Clean" is just a F-7 chord for the whole song, but check out what they do with it:
Hey Zed, your video a long time ago about not being a corporate programmer-serf is what inspired me to take up guitar, so appreciate that. What you said about chord substitution, do you mean some chords are more dissonant sounding compared to its major chord counterpart (e.g., dominant 7 or half-diminished)? So in scales, you have different scalar patterns that also have different qualities (e.g., minor pentatonic to the minor scale) - but how do you actually then use the scales creatively instead of just playing over the minor pentatonic scale to a blues jam because it's a stereotypical bluesy scale.
I'm not sure if you are a musician or not, but for now just accept that, to a musician, each mode has it's own "feel". If you are playing in D Dorian, it "feels" different than C Ionian or G Mixolydian, even those these all involve the same primary notes.
Chord consonance in a modal solo is far less important than in blues or bop, but for sure there is a structure to whatever song you're playing (i.e. rules) and you need to know those rules in order to sound capable.
The old rules of bop and blues said that you need to hit specific notes at the right times to sound good. There were right and wrong notes. The newer rules that Miles introduced with Footprints (1958) and continuing with Kind of Blue (1959) freed him and his musicians to explore a lot more and "play around" in certain modes. (I say "play" in the sense of what a child might do, not "play" in the sense of "playing" an instrument). In a modal solo, the aim is to create a melody, not demonstrate capability by hitting the "right" notes as fast as possible. In bop, playing the 9th or 11th of a chord would sound weird, whereas in modal jazz you can linger over those notes and it could sound really nice.
Thanks for your answer. I'm a beginner guitar player interested in learning more about jazz theory.
The old rules of bop and blues said that you need to hit specific notes at the right times to sound good. There were right and wrong notes.
Do you mean here, root or chord-tone targeting? As a D chord comes-in, lead in with a 3rd or 5th chord tone and then the root note.
In a modal solo, the aim is to create a melody, not demonstrate capability by hitting the "right" notes as fast as possible.
Does the melody have to be constrained to tones in the mode; and how is call and response implemented here? In blues, one way it's implemented as the call being a solo fragment from the minor pentatonic scale whereas the response will be in the major pentatonic counterpart. When you are constrained to one mode of one quality, how do you construct a response that sounds somehow different?
Hi, not sure if you're still following this thread from yesterday, but I'll still try to answer your questions..
> Do you mean here, root or chord-tone targeting? As a D chord comes-in, lead in with a 3rd or 5th chord tone and then the root note.
You can do that, but you don't have to be that strict. You can play other notes. If the music says D7, you could play D,F#,A,C to be "safe". But you don't really want to constrain yourself to the notes in the chord, or your solo will sound kind of boring. I said in my other comment that you want to demonstrate "capability". This means knowing the song, knowing the style (rules), knowing your instrument, then once you have all that down, putting something of yourself into the solo. The chords are just guidelines, and they will go by quickly.
> Does the melody have to be constrained to tones in the mode; and how is call and response implemented here? In blues, one way it's implemented as the call being a solo fragment from the minor pentatonic scale whereas the response will be in the major pentatonic counterpart. When you are constrained to one mode of one quality, how do you construct a response that sounds somehow different?
Hmm, "how is call and response implemented" is a very interesting question. It's an interesting way of even asking the question. Jazz isn't really "implemented".
Anyway, call and response isn't done so much in modal jazz. What you're describing about switching between minor and major is more of a bluesy thing. I mean, I recognize what you're saying as a very technical description of what they do in songs like Nat Adderley's "Work Song", or Art Blakey's "Moanin'".
Most modal jazz songs will give you plenty of time in a mode to really stretch out a solo and experiment with different patterns. Coltrane could take a half hour long solo over a song like "Impressions" and keep it interesting. Its not really about constructing a "response" to a "call".
It's awesome that you are asking questions and trying to learn more about jazz theory, but I think you might be getting bogged down in details and missing the bigger picture. Theory won't really make you a better musician. Back when I was playing a lot, I would meet old guys at clubs who would put me to shame, and they didn't know the first thing about theory.
My advice to you is:
1. Listen. To as much music as you can. I'm in my 30s, so back when I really got all nerdy about this stuff, they had those deals where you could get "15 CDs for a penny". I would sign myself up for those under all kinds of alternate names. Get them delivered at work, at my parents house, etc. There was a period of several years where I would just nerd out and listen to everything I possibly could. Nowadays, people probably just download music from torrents. I think you should pay for the music if you can, but don't feel too bad about not paying for it if you can't.
2. Play music all the time. Have your instrument ready to go, and play along with your CDs. Find jam sessions in your area and go to them. The first time you go, don't bring your instrument, just listen. Each jam session has a "character" and you want to make sure that, as a n00b, you can fit in. Some sessions are more n00b-friendly than others. Some have sign-in sheets, and are mostly music majors trying to outdo each other. But don't worry, because people are generally nice, and the bar for being a jazz musician is set much lower than you think. You don't need to know theory or modes, you just need to be willing to listen. You'll meet all kinds of interesting characters and you'll learn a ton about music, and probably a ton more about things outside of music.
3. Practice. This will take years, but you need to know your instrument inside and out. You need to know scales and arpeggios. How different playing techniques alter the sound. Practicing jazz means playing lots of jazz. I don't know of any better study aids than the Jamey Aebersold Play-a-long books. Start with Volume 21, "Gettin' It Together" which just gives you a CD of every key in major and minor, and a few common blues changes, and then play it constantly. Then add Volumes 1 (intro to soloing), Volume 2 (blues), Volume 3 (ii-V7-I). Then add any other volumes you are interested in (and there are hundreds). Again, these can be pirated, but I think you should buy them if you can afford them, as they are very worth it.
4. Learn the history. Read books about jazz, and nerd out on Wikipedia. Jazz is a constantly evolving artform, so to really understand it, you need to know the context of the times in which it was created. Imagine what it was like for the early blues artists. Then it evolved into a commercial success with big bands that would travel around and play at dance halls. Imagine being a musician like Charlie Parker or Dizzy Gillespie, who after playing the same music for years gets bored. They form small groups where they can really show off and the result is bop style. Coltrane comes along and gets bored with that and basically starts throwing different chords into the standard blues and rhythm changes. etc etc. Jazz is a conversation that took place over years. Basically (and this is the secret to everything in life) there are rules, then trendsetters break those rules in ways that lay down new rules, and this is a cycle that endlessly repeats itself. Miles "got" this more than anyone else.
Hey bhousel, thanks for your detailed answer here. I'll def. get James Aebersold's Vol 21 "Gettin' It Together" and try to get myself together. I'll also check out the local jazz jams around Boston, I went to a blues jam at a Cambridge bar where it was really overwhelming as lots of regular pro's congregated there but I think if I leave my ego at home, I'll go to more jams and play.
Yea also appreciate your tip about not getting bogged down on the technical detail. As a adult music-language learner, I might have a tendency to think in terms of structure to construct musical phrases. Appreciate your advice, I'll explore the avenues you have revealed here and let you know how it goes.
Chord consonance is still important in modal jazz. For the most part, the players have more freedom to stretch out on longer harmonic movement, rather than hopping around quickly like in bebop. If you look closely at transcriptions of the solos in kind of blue, some of the players do hint at chord progressions towards the beginning, middle, and end of their solos, which might be the dissonance you mentioned. At least, this is what I remember from back in music school. :)
I couldn't agree more... a lot of the appeal of Kind of Blue isn't its musicians' virtuosity, but rather that the pieces are very well-executed, accessible and interesting to both casual listeners and "serious" jazz fans, and the recording is now very, very familiar.
Well-stated retrospective that gets at a common point between great art and great design.
Charles Mingus said, "Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."
I only wish that kind of sentiment drove more modern design work, or music for that matter. I guess the fact that it's so exceedingly difficult to do explains why we only see it once in a decade in a given domain. Still, I find striving for what Mingus describes, and what Davis achieved, a worthwhile goal.
Nice article, but you failed to focus one of the real co-authors of Kind of Blue: Bill Evans. There would be no "Kind of Blue" or Miles Davis without Bill Evans. You can even say "Kind of Blue" is a Evans' LP by how much his influence on composition and arrangement is strong, how his "impressionist" way of playing is permeating everything... One of most underrated musicians ever.
Bill Evans played with Miles Davis for no more than a total of 8 months. Miles Davis was a genius before he met Bill Evans. Bill Evans was a good piano player who complemented Miles's playing style @ the time. Without Miles Davis there's no Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Philly Joe Jones, Paul Chambers, etc.
All of the players you mention would be remembered as greats with or without Miles Davis. Their playing might have been different, but Miles wouldn't have been Miles without them, either.
Calling Bill Evans a "good piano player" is like calling Feynman a "good physicist".
Even though I consider all of these musicians to be greater than Miles Davis, it was Miles Davis who, as a band leader, let these individual members not only play in his band, but also shine by letting each of them solo on pieces instead of just him.
No one person deserves the credit. Duke was groundbreaking, but even without him there would have still been Billy Strayhorn and Charles Mingus and Thad Jones pushing the same boundaries of group writing and harmony, to name just a few.
Yes, but Bill Evans did the arrangements on Kind of Blue; he is also rumoured to have composed several of the songs (although they are credited to Miles.)
IANA Musician but rumor has it that Davis wasn't a great technical trumpet player, that he lacked the speed and range of others. The essence of his genius was in his understanding of the music and his ability to examine and re-arrange its principles.
It's worth considering in the discussion of the value of 'rock star' programmers.
He was something of a groundbreaking musician, establishing new concepts and then moving on to yet more new things, while others picked up his ideas and ran with them. His "Birth of the Cool" music, for example, really wasn't very popular at the time he did it. As I recall, the recordings weren't even released until years later, because it just wasn't expected to be well-received. In retrospect, it was great music, and helped set the stage for a whole sub-genre of jazz.
He was also adept at discovering / identifying great up-and-coming musicians and associating himself with them, to the benefit of both parties.
His sense of melody, arc, and color were second to none. I don't think he was totally without chops, though. He was playing faster and more agressive with his hard-bop crew.
Although note that the knowledgeable will have different ideas about who's important. You often hear variations of the phrase "an X's X" (i.e. a poet's poet, a director's director), and the same is true for trumpeters. While Miles was a solid player, he couldn't pull amazing melodies out of thin air at breakneck speeds like Clifford Brown[1], didn't have the virtuoso skill of any number of other folks[2], and had kind of a crap tone to boot[3].
3. Neither warm like Brownie nor powerful, like, say, vintage Louis Prima: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46byB2YGePA (solo starts at 4:25 and continues after the break). At least I think that was Louis Prima. It's been a while since I've seen the liner notes for that one.
Depends, he had classical chops and attended Juilliard briefly (in those days it was uptown by Columbia) and could produce beautiful tone in all registers, but critics have commented that he couldn't produce the dazzling topspeed runs that Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker or Coltrane had, nor did he want to duplicate what anybody else had done.
The application of these artistic principles to startups is such a stretch. If it was just about coding, fine: restraint is good, technical ability is good, cooperation is good. But why should a startup be worried about whether it's flaunting its genius?
I think it comes down to a matter of taste. Having the ability to restrain one's ego is the mark of a true professional. If you're good, you don't have to flaunt it, your work just speaks for itself. For startups, this doesn't mean you can't promote or sell your product as you see fit, but you shouldn't run around saying "what we've come up with is the most brilliant thing in the world." A lot of people do this and it's quite the detractor. Again, though, this is a taste thing and not a universal preference.
For me, the real genius of Miles Davis was in his role as band leader, in particular in choosing his bands. A large number of great jazz musicians from successive generations (1950s to 1980s) played in his bands early in their careers. He was a jazz professor with them his grad students.
Unrelated but awesome anecdote about Miles Davis: After Sketches of Spain (his most impressive album IMO) was released, there was a huge debate about whether it was 'jazz' or not. When asked about it, he responded "it's music, and I like it." Perfect response.
Equivalently, it's difficult to say whether Anthony Braxton's or John Zorn's music is jazz, even though they use improvisation, and are referred to as jazz musicians.
Can somebody help me to appreciate the genius of jazz music? When I listen to Kind of Blue it does sound nice, but I am not deeply moved by it or able to appreciate its genius, like I can with some classical music. I have the same question for people knowledgeable about poetry and abstract art (and some non-abstract art).
Here's a thought. Do you know your Meyers-Briggs type? It sounds like you might be more of a "thinker" than a "feeler".
If you're more of a "thinker", start at the beginning, learning about the roots of blues and ragtime, what life was like in New Orleans in 1900.. Then work your way forward, learning about how jazz evolved into more modern forms. It's a really fascinating story.
You could check out the Ken Burns documentary. I also really recommend this "coffee table" book, which really covers everything (in case you don't want to watch 20 hours of documentary about something you don't really care much about): http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-John-Fordham/dp/0751300500/ref=sr...
This approach will work for art, literature.. really anything..
Go out to somewhere urban late at night and find a spot where you can watch people and cars go by. It should be late, maybe an hour before most places close. Then listen to Kind of Blue. If it doesn't move you, it could just be you that you're not a jazz fan.
Or try listening to "A Love Supreme" early in the morning before you leave the house. This time of year is a perfect time for it.
Or if it's raining, put on "Blue in Green" from Kind of Blue.
That said, I think that the author is making a mistake by taking Stephen Thomas Erlewine's review too seriously. When you read things like "an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence..." take it for what it is -- fawning praise written 50 years later by a fanboy.
Read a bit further... "this music never flaunts its genius," a line that stuck with the blogger. In fact, anybody who knows a bit about Miles Davis is probably laughing now about how backwards this is. Miles was Mr. Flaunty Genius.
"Kind of Blue is more than easy listening. It's the pinnacle of modal jazz"... I think at this point, modal jazz was just getting started, not reaching it's pinnacle.
"...this is an exceptional band... one of the greatest in history, playing at the peak of its power. "... Um, no! None of these musicians were at the peak of their power at all. They all went on to do more.
Unfortunately now the blogger is trapped in this line of thinking, and he writes... "I think what draws me to this album is the enormous restraint that each of these brilliant musicians show... They were all extraordinary musicians at the top of their games, and yet they came together and produced a piece of work that doesn’t feel strained or over the top. There is a sense of comfort – of rightness – to every note on the album."... In fact, there are other critics that have said that Cannonball Adderley was really a wrong choice for Kind of Blue - his playing stands out as being too bluesy and he didn't really "get" the modal jazz like the other musicians.
Anyway, I guess my point is to be wary of empty praise. The author was clearly moved by the music, and the Erlewine review reinforced those feelings, but he is missing out on a lot of interesting lines of criticism that might bring him new insights. Jazz, like other abstract arts, is especially interesting because of how malleable it can be, with each listener bringing their own perspectives and opinions into how they perceive the work. The best ones (and Kind of Blue is among them) will grab your attention, play off your memories and emotions, and inspire you.