Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis was a studio album released by Columbia Records. The album’s exact release date was August 17, 1959. The album, “Kind of Blue” consisted of the genres of modal and cool jazz, but focused mostly on modality. The album featured Bill Evans a pianist, Paul Chambers a bassist, Jimmy Cobb a drummer, and saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian Adderley as well as pianist Wynton Kelly on one track. The meaning or portrayal of the music on the album was a modal approach that altered and mixed playing styles of different musicians. Miles Davis main goal by releasing “Kind of Blue” was to get rid of modern jazz clichés. Through modal jazz Miles Davis ended up focusing on fewer chords and less concentrated harmonies. Through modal
Understandably the focus of the episode titled 1959 The Year that Changed Jazz would focus on the events of 1959. The main point was outlining the four albums by four different bands that showed the different ways jazz was evolving. The first album to take focus was Kind of Blue recorded by Miles Davis and his sextet. Davis had started his jazz carer at the age of nineteen under his idol Charlie Parker in the late 1940's. Taking what he learned from Parker of the Bebop style, Davis went on to become an amazing artiest in his own right. Columbia Records was was easily able to turn him into a national celebrity, one that the women found highly attractive. From the sextet, Jimmy Cobb and Herbie Hancock were interviewed.
Developed in the early 1940's, Bop had established itself as vogue by 1945. It's main innovators were alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. In this stage in jazz, improvisation differed immensely. Bebop soloists engaged in harmonic improvisation, often avoiding the melody altogether after the first chorus. Usually under seven pieces, the soloist was free to explore improvised possibilities as long as they fit into the chord structure. Popular and influential jazz artists include: Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, & Cannonball Adderley. Armstrong is most known for his involvement in hot jazz as a trumpeter, but is especially renowned for his improvisation capabilities. Louis Armstrong, born August 4, 1901 right in the beginning stages of the jazz movement, was originally from New Orleans. Armstrong was a bandleader, soloist, comedian/actor, and vocalist. Another famous, Miles Davis, is what some consider to be the best trumpeter of the era. Davis was born on May 26, 1926 in Alton, Illinois. One unique thing about Davis was that he was taught to play without vibrato, which was incredibly contrary to the popular way of
Blue train is a 1957 jazz standard written by John Coltrane. From the album of the same name. The song is a blues form in the key of Eb. One chord of interest is the IV chord with a #11 tension added. This song only uses 3 chords, I, IV and V.
The blues is also about saying what you feel the moment expressing yourself without even caring what others think which is kind of like modern day rap. In American history, the blues all started on Southern
As time progressed, music had to continue to evolve to keep up with the ever-changing styles. Blues slowly began to morph into Rock and Roll to engage people of a new era. While many changes occurred in creating Rock and Roll, it continued to carry undertones of the Blues. This can be heard while comparing Son House’s, “Walking Blues” and Elvis Presley’s, “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” These two songs show many similarities, while also having their own identities.
Blues is one of the most captivating genres of music. The genre was originated in the late 1800’s as a method used by African American slaves to express the circumstances as well as to put emphasis on their feelings and emotions. In order to create these feelings in this music, blues artists incorporate many of the same techniques used to write poetry. One of the most easily identifiable songs in which it is easy to see the relation between poetic elements and blues music is the song “Empty Bed Blues” by Bessie Smith.
Joy Williams, “The Blue Men” is a story about a woman who struggles to face and accept her past while trying not to let it consume her. May, our main character, her son had been executed for the murder of a deputy and his drug dog, and she was left to care for his son, Bomber. May is all alone, aside from her grandson and these photos and postcards she carries around in her purse. She is slowly becoming unseen to everyone around her, even herself. One night, on her way home, her purse was stolen from her, and for a short time she felt relief, but the purse was returned to her. The purse disappeared again, but this time by Mays doing, but again it came back to her. It is these moments, when the purse returns to her again and again, that show
Albert, Richard N. "The Jazz-Blues Motif in James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues"" College Literature 11.2 (1984): 171-85. College Literature. Web. Apr.-May 2014.
In “Blame It On the Blues” the author Angela Davis, argues against critics, like Samuel Charters and Paul Oliver, who say that the Blues lacks social commentary or political protest, by saying that the Blues was a subtle protest against gender and racial inequality. Davis uses various songs from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith to prove this.
The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) had a soundtrack that used jazz standards, including those particularly from Bill Evans. “The piano introduction of ‘Jack’s Theme’. is built on a phrase taken from bars 5 and 6 of the second chorus of the Bill Evans and Miles Davis composition ‘Blue in Green’ from the album Kind of Blue.” (Biggs). This type of influence on this track is seen throughout the whole soundtrack of the film.
This small but distinct difference is what makes Louis such an important and influential figure in Jazz. About five years before Louis recorded this song, band leader Fletcher Henderson brought Armstrong onto his band to play shows in New York. (Singer 2) Originally, Fletcher’s band was a band primarily proficient in reading and playing music inspired by White bands at the time such as Vincent Lopez and Paul Whiteman. (DeVeaux 123 ) When Armstrong played with the band he brought a new element to it, he showed off his ability as a Jazz soloist. The nearly 2 minutes of primarily trumpet in the beginning of Armstrong’s version of “Black and Blue” is a reflection of what he brought to the table in Fletcher Henderson’s band. His trumpet stood out when he played with the band because it was such an improvisational and new element being brought to a somewhat traditional sound of music. Louis Armstrong even described this himself and very humbly tacked it all up to his inability to read the music as fast, “Well, I knew I couldn’t read music as fast as them cats, and Fletcher never let me sing. They’d got me there to blow that hot stuff. Lot of the time all I had to play in the arrangement was a 8 bar, maybe 16 bar solo. First time I did it, they went
James Baldwin, the author of “Sonny Blues,” is an African American novelist and storywriter. In one of his most famous stories, “Sonny’s Blues,” he writes about a young boy that has an addiction to heroin. The story shows the relationship between two brothers and the problems that they, and their family have to endure. The brothers do not have a close bond during the time that the story takes place. James Baldwin, while growing up also dealt with many family issues. He didn’t know his biological father and had trouble being accepted into society being a homosexual African American. The boy portrayed as Sonny in “Sonny’s Blues” very closely resembles the way Baldwin must have been treated growing up. They both were shunned from society, and both struggled with the way their families interacted with one another. Baldwin could have purposely done this to illustrate what his childhood was like and express it to the world through the story that he wrote.
Nisenson, Eric. The making of Kind of blue: Miles Davis and his masterpiece. Macmillan, 2001.
The main influence of blues music was African music which has a strong and steady beat using drums or other instruments. Its beat and singing showed in the blues. Work songs and field hollers were an influence on blues. They were mostly made up as the musicians were singing.
In order to see the parallel between the novel and jazz, one must first see how Ellison incorporates jazz music in the prologue of the novel. He not only sets the scene with jazz music in the background but also gives the narrator a deep understanding of music. The music that the narrator listens to is Louis Armstrong’s “Black and Blue,” which is appropriate because Armstrong is a prominent African-American jazz musician who protests the treatment of African-Americans through his music. The narrator embraces every line of the song and gives an apt description of its message: