SO WHAT
MILES
DAVIS
SONGWRITER: MILES DAVIS
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: KIND OF BLUE
LABEL: COLUMBIA
GENRE: MODAL JAZZ
YEAR: 1959
Miles Dewey Davis III(May 26, 1926– September
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 musical directions in a five-decade career that kept
him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.
Born in Alton, Illinois,
and raised in East St. Louis, Davis
left to study at Juilliard in New York City, before
dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from
1944 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol Records,
which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz.
In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music
while on Prestige Records but did so haphazardly due to a heroin addiction. After a widely
acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz
Festival, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records and recorded the album 'Round About
Midnight in 1955. It was his first work with
saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers,
key members of the sextet he led into the early 1960s. During this period, he
alternated between orchestral jazz collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, such as
the Spanish music-influenced Sketches of Spain(1960),
and band recordings, such as Milestones(1958)
and Kind of Blue(1959). The
latter recording remains one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, having
sold over five million copies in the U.S.
Davis made several line-up changes while
recording Someday My Prince Will Come(1961),
his 1961 Blackhawk concerts,
and Seven Steps
to Heaven(1963), another mainstream success that
introduced bassist Ron Carter, pianist
Herbie Hancock, and drummer
Tony Williams.
After adding saxophonist Wayne Shorter to his new quintet in 1964, Davis led them on a series of more
abstract recordings often composed by the band members, helping pioneer the post-bop genre with
albums such as E.S.P(1965)
and Miles Smiles(1967), before
transitioning into his electric period. During the 1970s, he experimented with
rock, funk, African
rhythms, emerging electronic music technology,
and an ever-changing line-up of musicians, including keyboardist Joe Zawinul, drummer
Al Foster, and
guitarist John
McLaughlin. This period, beginning with
Davis's 1969 studio album In a Silent Way and concluding with the 1975 concert recording Agharta, was the
most controversial in his career, alienating and challenging many in jazz. His
million-selling 1970 record Bitches Brew helped spark a resurgence in the genre's commercial popularity with jazz fusion as the
decade progressed.
"So What" is the first track on the
1959 album Kind of Blue by
American trumpeter Miles Davis.
It is one of the best-known examples of modal jazz, set in
the Dorian mode and
consisting of 16 bars of D Dorian, followed by eight bars of E♭
Dorian and another eight of D Dorian. This AABA structure puts it in the thirty-two-bar
format of American popular song.
The piano-and-bass introduction for the piece
was written by Gil Evans for Bill Evans(no
relation) and Paul Chambers on Kind of Blue. An orchestrated version by Gil Evans of this
introduction is later to be found on a television broadcast given by Miles' first
quintet(minus Cannonball
Adderley who was ill that day) and the Gil
Evans Orchestra; the orchestra gave the introduction, after which the quintet
played the rest of "So What". The use of the double bass to play the
main theme makes the piece unusual. This arrangement was later performed and
recorded as part of the album Miles Davis
at Carnegie Hall.
While the track is taken at a very moderate
tempo on Kind of Blue, it is played at an extremely fast tempo on later live
recordings by the quintet, such as Four & More.
The distinctive voicing employed by
Bill Evans for the chords that interject the head: from
the bottom up, three notes at intervals of a perfect fourth followed by a major third,
has been given the name "So What chord"
(shown below) by such theorists as Mark Levine.
Miles Davis walked
off the stage
That's what the
folks are all saying
Oh yes, he did
leave the stage
After his solo was
all over
Coltrane he walked
off the stage
That's what the
folks are all saying
Yes, they both left
the stage
Clean out of sight
They felt they had
to rehearse
Although we know
they are masters
They get a real
groovy sound
And you will have
to admit it
Yes, they both left
the stage
Soon as their
solo's were over
And if you can't
figure out
Their groove I'd
like to help you
Their groove, I've
helped you
So what.
Postagens
0 comentários:
Postar um comentário