Throughout Miles Davis’ entire career, he was surrounded with heavy use of alcohol and drugs (most commonly heroin). Charlie Parker, one of Bebop’s finest and also a major influence on the career of Miles Davis was an avid user of heroin which affected his health greatly. In fact, his addiction affected his health so much that Parker sadly passed away at the young age of 35 to health related issues. For several years Davis was heavily involved with the use of heroin and was stuck in a pattern of dependency, making it extremely difficult for him to break his destructive habits. This not only affected his health but it also affected his ability to play music at a high level. In 1954, Davis was finally able to sober up from his heroin use (Miles Davis Biography). Even though Davis was able to get off of heroin during this time period, his …show more content…
During this time period he start to work with a pianist named Bill Evans, who collaborated with Davis to make the sub-genre of jazz know as Modal Jazz. Modal Jazz focuses on using scales that are different from standard major and minor scales. Another unique factor of Modal Jazz is that it often uses unchanging harmonies throughout the entire song (Yudkin, Jeremy. “An Analysis of Miles Davis's Kind of Blue.”). With the development of this style, Miles Davis and Bill Evans created one of the most famous jazz albums of all time called “Kind of Blue”. The song “So What” on this album fully encapsulates the characteristics of Modal Jazz that Davis and Evans were attempting to instill into the industry. My favorite song off of this album is called “Blue in Green” because of the fact that it has so many intricate details but still remains relaxing as well as soothing. “Kind of Blue” continues to be one of the top jazz albums of all time and still holds a place at the top of the
“Jazz is a complete lifestyle, something that you feel, something that you live.” (Ray Brown). In his short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” James Baldwin tells the story of a young jazz musician, and tries to capture the lifestyle described by jazz bassist Ray Brown in his character Sonny. Baldwin constantly limits the potential of Sonny as a character by placing him in situations that defy his personality, but make him a believable character because they are similar to experience of actual jazz musicians.
The positive legacies that Charlie Parker left behind were his numerous record-ings that are still influential today, the fact that he redefined virtuosity with his style, helped define new bebop vocabulary, and he created a style that is rooted in the Kan-sas blues tradition. Charlie Parker’s recordings that he did with his musical group made an admirable and profound impression on the listeners and makers of jazz and he also became the first artist to make a recording with orchestral accompaniment. The nega-tive legacies Charlie Parker left behind were his influences of drug and alcohol on other musicians in hopes that they would play like him. His drug and alcohol addiction influ-enced other jazz musicians, causing jazz musicians lives and
Elijah Wald published the book Escaping the delta in reference of the music genre of the blues, in which he explains some of the myths that surround the blues genre, in which according to him were misleading about the culture of the genre. Derived from a lot of history, the foundations in which were perpetuated to promote the genre according to Elijah Wald were not accurate, and he tries to explain in detail the misconceptions in the book. One of the main ideas that Elijah Wald tries to explain is the concept of the blues being described as a definite genre. According to Elijah Wald, the genre exists but also does not exists (Wald, p 23 ).
That’s really important with Clark Terry. You don’t have to be a jazz fan to like and to love his music because it invites you into it. You are invited in not only with virtuosic and bluesy sense, but also with humor. He
Baldwin 's "Sonny 's Blues" and Hurston 's “How it feels to be Colored Me" both take a captivating look at how jazz music portrays such an important role in the lives of these characters and their journey through unyielding times of change. In this essay, I will be dissecting the lives of Sonny from “Sonny’s Blues” and Zora from “How it feels to be Colored Me” and the significance that jazz music has played in each of their lives. James Baldwin 's "Sonny 's Blues" begins with the narrator on the subway reading his brother 's name, Sonny, splashed across the morning paper. It had been heroin that got Sonny arrested. Throughout sequins of cascading events, the narrator and his brother Sonny will reveal the differences between the two of them.
In this paper, I plan to examine the influences that Miles Davis had on jazz. Starting with the bebop era, when his career first began, to his final collaboration released following his death. While in school Davis had learned how to play the trumpet, and following graduation he attended Julliard in New York. However, he dropped out of Julliard in 1945 in order join one of bebop’s pioneers, Charlie Parker. It was
This is when two rhythms are played against each other and that’s how jazz gets its swing and like Duke Ellington says in his song "It don 't mean a thing if it ain 't got that swing. " Also in jazz blue notes take place when a musician plays through a scale and exaggerates some of the notes. While I’ve been listening to both albums it seems that her first one is more jazz while her second has more guitar in it. I personally believe this could be because Amy wanted to experiment with other styles such as soul, pop and reggae.
For African Americans, jazz music, has always had a political undercurrent. Slave songs spoke of the “Israelites” enslaved by the Egyptians, such as in Go Down Moses, symbolising their own yearning for freedom. However, it took time for the assertion of the political message to develop in a more discernible way. Jazz’s status as a form of entertainment had effectively subdued the message for many years, because of the ostracisation of those involved and because of the early popularity of the white swing bands. The majority of jazz musicians were not political activists, rarely explicitly political in their work, however, they often expressed their political ideals, sometimes more subtley other times more overtly through their music.
Initially, bebop jazz was characterized by significantly more complex chord progressions and melodies with a strong focus on the rhythm section. Although the irregular and unpredictable lengths of solos and increased sophistication made the music less suitable for dancing, it was nonetheless entertaining. Jazz had gained higher respect from a widestream audience, as it was no longer just dance music. Bebop lasted well into the 1950s, and the next stylistic revolution came during the revolutionary decade of the 1960s: fusion. Jazz fusion came into fruition when musicians combined aspects of jazz harmony and improvisation with styles such as funk, rock, rhythm and blues, and Latin jazz.
There are many controversies and interpretations surrounding this novel. Some argue that it is a story about going from invisibility to visibility, from ignorance to enlightenment through the naming of the self and identity (Neighbors). Yet others like Gene Bluestein argue that it is a story that through the blues shows the story of the American identity and equality (Bluestein). I will mostly agree with Bluestein that this novel does show obvious “bluesy” tendencies since it backs my understanding of the novel which is a story, like Neighbors said, about coming “from ignorance to
He made new friends with others that introduced him to other drugs and furthered his
The genre of jazz music was first born out of the woes and suffering of the then modern black society. Sonny’s brother on the other hand chose to be an algebra teacher; he was respected by the white culture and his teaching credential earned him the right to be accepted. His aspiration to become an African American teacher implied that his desire was to hide from prejudice, unlike Sonny who really embraced his ethnicity and African American culture. An algebra teacher is very logical and structured by nature, whereas a musician is more free spirited and creative by nature.
“[H]er voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes — when it’s in your veins. It makes you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time. It makes you feel — in control. Sometimes you’ve got to have that feeling” (142). James Baldwin was a popular African-American novelist and essayist whose themes include human suffering, race/racism, social identity, sexuality and numerous others.
Not to mention, jazz music had been struggle against society. The 1960s and 1970s’s black power movement influenced on jazz musicians and Hancock was not an exception. That’s why sociological factors influenced on Hancock’s styles, sounds and messages in songs or albums. In Musical Borrowing, Dialogism, and American Culture, 1960-1975 (2006), Berry suggests that “Watermelon Man” (1973) from Hancock’s album Head Hunters (1973) shows evidence of mixing African-American culture with traditional African music (Berry,2006, p.168-169).