AOS3 All Blues - Miles Davis - 1959

Metre

6/4 sounds like a pair of 3/4

Rhythm

• Swing quavers
• Syncopation
• Use of triplets
• More complicated rhythms in solos
• Rhyhmic displacement and cross rhythms

Tempo

Jazz waltz - 156 bmp - laid back feel

Dynamics

• Quiet in the intro and links and ending
• Builds in the solos

Accompaniment/Intrumentation

• Snare drum with wire brushes at start
• Bass plays pizzicato
• Harmen mute on trumpet for lead
• Piano plays trill at start, then comping for solos
• Frontline instruments
• Saxes play harmonised riff
• Bass riff

Texture

Homophonic for most

Harmony and Tonality

• 12 bar blues sequence
• G major with flattened seventh (blues note) - mixolydian mode (modal jazz)
• Extended and altered chords

Melody

• Head melody (only pre-composed part + embellished) - rising 6ths, moving in steps, followed by 4 improvised solos
• Solos improvised around argeggios and mixolydian mode
• Use of chromatisim in solos

Form/Structure

• Head arrangement                                                 12 bar blues
• Intro - head 1 - solos - head 2 - coda
• Riff throguhout and as breaks and links between sections