Miles Davis: All Blues from the Album Kind of Blue

All Blues comes from the Album Knid of Blue released in 1959. The band on this album is made up of:

Frontline:

• Miles Davis on the Trumpet
• Julian 'Cannonball' Adderly on the Alto Saxaphone 
• John Coltrane on the Tenor Saxaphone

Rhythm Section:

• Bill Evans on the Piano
• Paul Chambers on the Bass
• Jimmy Cobb on 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.

Miles Davis did give his band some basic information on the piece which consisted of:

• Overall Structure
• The Basic Chord Sequence
• The Melodic Idea
• Which Mode or Scale to improvise on

Structure

• Based on a 12 bar blues chord progression- a chord sequence that lasts 12 bars.
• The main melody is called the head and is played by Miles on the muted trumped. It lasts for 12 bars and can be heard at the start and end of the piece.
• There are four simple 4-bar riffs in parallel 3rds that seperate each other.

The piece can be broken down into 5 sections:

• Introduction - The opening four bars, played by the rhythm section is followed by the riff
• Head 1 - The head melody followed by the riff, is played twice.
• Solos …