Area of Study 3 - Davis - All Blues

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Miles Davis All Blues

 

Jazz emerged in America around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century.  The track is from the album Kind of Blue which was recorded in one studio session in 1959.  Unlike Jeff Buckley, who had many attempts at recording his song, this piece, much like any jazz piece, was recorded in one go, as they thought that the best work would be done improvised. All Blues comes from the Album Kind of Blue released in 1959. 

 

There are six forces within the piece, the frontline is made up of the trumpet, the alto sax and the tenor sax, and the rhythm section is the piano, the bass guitar and the drums. The frontline consists of the instrumentalists that play the main melody lines and have prominent solos. The rhythm section provides the harmonic and rhythmic backing (the pianist also has a short solo). The album was recorded with no prior practise using a technique called improvisation.

 

The piece is in 6/4 giving the music a waltz like feel, because each 6,4 bar sounds like a pair of bars in 3,4 time (the metre associated with the waltz).  The first bar is marked swing quavers meaning the first one should be played slightly longer than the rest. The song is played at 156bpm.

 

The piece uses a head arrangement, which is the 12 bar chord progression often seen in blues pieces. Each repetition of the 12- bar progression is known

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