Four by the Miles Davis Quintet

Four by the Miles Davis Quintet

1. Context

   • Beebop style jazz
   • Live recording in 1964
   • Youtube link
     • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xuLs0ax7XI&index=12&list=PLYa67aBYdXv4dJB9LFYgMmJ0HVxTJDb1X

2. Instrumentation

   • Piano
     • "Comping" - chord based accompaniement
   • Bass
     • Walking Bass, pizzicato
   • Drums
     • Maintain tempo, rapid rhythm on ride cymbal
     • Ocassional snare drum fills, or "rim shots"
     • Begins with a 8 bar drum solo
   • Trumpet
     • Plays the melody in the Head
     • Variety of performance techniques in the improvised solo
       • Ghost note (2.1)
       • Half-valving (3.32)
       • Pitch bend (1.19-1.20)
       • Glissandos (2.23)
   • Tenor Saxophone
     • Plays the melody in Head an octave lower than the trumpet

3. Texture

   • 8 bar monophonic drum solo
   • Head - melody in octaves, melody dominated homophony
   • Break- monophonic solo trumpet
   • First chorus, piano is silent, 2 part texture Trumpet and Bass with drum accompaniement

4. Structure

   • Head arrangement (2 x 16 bars) with altered endings
   • 32 bar improvised choruses
   • Same changes used throughout, with slight alterations due to the soloists playing outside of the key
   • 2 bar solo break which links the head to the first chorus

5. Tonality

   • Eb major throughout
   • Head is more diatonic then choruses

6. Harmony

   • ii7 - v7 Turnarounds (1st time bar)
   • Complex and dissonant
   • H5 uses a G in the melody which becomes the 9th of the chord
   • Every chord is extended, 9th dim 7th, inversions
   • Chromatically ascending bass line
   • Chords are pushed
   • Circle of fiths (1.26-1.29)
   • Substitution chords (1.25) has an Eb chord instead of Gm7

7. Melody

   • Head
     • 3 note ascending scalic phrase
       • Repeated and inverted H2
     • First 4 bar phrase repeated a 5th down in sequence
     • Narrow range 9th from low Eb to high F
     • Larger leaps towards the end like 6th between H10 and 11
   • Choruses
     • Wide range in pitch
     • Scalic sections
     • Low pitches in the 2nd chorus and high ptiches in the third
     • Repeated noets
     • Based on changes in head not melody
     • Performance techniques
     • Wide leaps major 7th (3.21-24)

8. Rhythm and Metre

   • Common time with fast tempo
   • Continuous groups of quavers (2.20-2.22)
   • Continuous crotchets in walking bass
   • Slightly swung quavers, but fast tempo makes it hard to hear
   • Longer notes used to demonstrate particular techniques i.e. fall offs
   • Syncopation and pushed chords
   • Ocassional triplets