Milestones (jazz tracks)
Milestones (German: Milestones ; also play on words from Miles and Tones ( Miles Klänge )), listed on the original album as Miles , is a modal jazz composition by Miles Davis . It first appeared on his album Milestones , which was recorded and released in 1958. The composition is considered to be groundbreaking for the recording of the album Kind of Blue and developed into a jazz standard .
Miles Davis recorded a bebop composition of the same name by John Lewis with Charlie Parker for Savoy Records in 1947 , "with relatively little success".
The composition
Milestones is considered the first modal jazz composition by Miles Davis. He was inspired to do this by a performance by the Ballet Africaine from Guinea . The piece has an eight-bar structure in the song form AABA. The composition moves in two scales: first a Doric over the note g (in the A part, initially twice for 8 bars each ), then an Aeolian over the note A (in the 16 bar B part); it then reverts to Doric mode.
The theme is based on a riff of the wind instruments and is supplemented by interjections from the piano; it uses slow harmonic changes. In the A section it is carried by a walking bass with an accent on the fourth beat. In the B part the rhythm is emphasized irregularly; the trumpet emerges here shifted as a soloist. The tonal base can also be described as an F major scale (with a bass note C) and an A minor scale.
The modality is a tool for creating challenging and interesting melodies. Davis told the band members:
"There will be fewer chords, but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them."
More shots
Milestones became "a classic of the modal school." The piece was regularly performed by Davis between 1959 and 1965 (and is also documented on live recordings from the period). It was not only recorded by musicians close to him such as Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock or Dave Liebman . The composition was recorded by many other musicians, such as Stan Getz and Chet Baker , Booker Little , Anthony Braxton , Dexter Gordon , Michal Urbaniak , Claudio Roditi and Buddy Rich . As unusual recordings, Hans-Jürgen Schaal highlights the collaboration between Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith with the orchestra of Oliver Nelson , the trio recording by Joe Pass , the recording of the Turtle Island String Quartet or Aki Takase's arrangement from 1992 (with her on piano, bassist Nobuyoshi Ino and string quartet).
The song originally had no lyrics and is mostly recorded as an instrumental. Mark Murphy recorded the song with lyrics by Jim Britt .
First recording musician
The initial reception of milestones took place on April 2, 1958 at the CBS 30th Street Studio in New York City. Ekkehard Jost wrote: "" ... Milestones was ... recorded by a sextet whose line-up consists of extraordinarily strong musical characters. Miles Davis - trumpet , Julian Adderley (called Cannonball) - alto saxophone , John Coltrane - tenor saxophone , Red Garland - piano , Paul Chambers - double bass , Philly Joe Jones - drums ; all musicians who are usually called style-forming, especially when their individual style of playing was seen as exemplary and called numerous imitators on the scene. "( Author: Ekkehard Jost : Source: Miles Davis´ MILESTONES as a lesson on the relationships between musical material, time style and individual means of expression (PDF file; 404 kB))
Web links
literature
- Jack Chambers Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis . Da Capo Press; ISBN 978-0306808494
- Ekkehard Jost : Miles Davis' MILESTONES as a didactic piece on the relationships between musical material, time style and individual means of expression . in: Contributions to Popular Music Research Vol. 7/8 (1989), pp. 5–15 ( full text )
- Hans-Jürgen Schaal (Ed.): Jazz standards. The encyclopedia. 3rd, revised edition. Bärenreiter, Kassel u. a. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1414-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Review of Milestones at wicn.org ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c H.-J. Schaal Jazz-Standards , p. 314f.
- ↑ Gillespie's Cubana-Be / Cubana-Bop , which George Russell helped to create, is named as the first modal recording of a jazz composition . Cf. Alyn Shipton Enjoying Jazz , cit. n. the song portrait at jazzstandards.com
- ↑ Milestones Review ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ There will be fewer chords, but an infinite number of ways to do something with them.
- ^ Review of Village Vanguard Sessions at allmusic
- ^ Review of The Stockholm Concerts at allmusic
- ^ Review by Buddy Rich in London at allmusic
- ^ Review of The Best of Joe Pass: Pacific Jazz Years at allmusic
- ↑ Review by Rah! At allmusic
