This site is all about music, music that we love and hate as long as it stirs some emotion it is worth listening to and talking about.
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This site is all about music, music that we love and hate as long as it stirs some emotion it is worth listening to and talking about.
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Miles Davis – “Four” - An AnalysisThe legacy of Miles Davis is an unprecedented journey of music, creativity, innovation and personal charisma. His career spanned nearly five decades and he left an indelible impression on how we think about jazz and the jazz trumpet. Miles was responsible for or contributed heavily to five major movements in jazz from the 1940s to the 1970s: bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, hot jazz and fusion. In 1944 the eighteen year old Davis moved to New York to pursue a career in music. He enrolled at Julliard, but his real incentive was to be part of the new jazz being played: bebop. Bebop was music for listening rather than dancing and featured extended improvisation, frenetic tempos, complex and often dissonant harmonies and intricate rhythms. Davis formed friendships with two of the greatest exponents of bebop, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, who had been foremost in reshaping the style of jazz being played. Small groups (trios, quartets and quintets) would replace the popular big band format. The bebop music used fast tempos, favoured swing quavers and triplets and added several new elements to the jazz solo. Their use of alterations1 and chromaticism would become a trademark for the style.
Charlie Parker & Miles Davis Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson Thelonius Monk Dizzy Gillespie By and large, bebop songs were either a blues, an altered show tune or a composition based on the chord structure of a show tune. For example, “How High the Moon” formed the chord structure of “Ornithology” and slightly more loosely “Four”, “Honeysuckle Rose” became “Scrapple from the Apple” and “I Got Rhythm” became the basis of “Anthropology”. Bebop melodies usually had complicated themes, more or less like a solo, or sometimes, like “Four” used simple repetitive phrases or riffs in the melody. The rise of bebop coincided with the invention of the LP (long playing) vinyl record in 1948. Prior to 1948, records were made of a resin called shellac, which was made from the ground up shells of the shellac beetle. According to Howard Goodall in his book “Big Bangs” “The Second World War moved recording technology on with renewed vigour. The Japanese blockade of Malaysia had led to such an acute shortage of shellac (derived from those Malaysian beetles) that people in America could only be issued with new records if they brought the old ones back. The American military were also using shellac to coat the instrument panels of their bombers (it wasn’t prone to condensation, apparently), putting further strain on the already short supply. Eager to find a replacement, the American record company Columbia developed a new plastic material – vinyl – no doubt to the huge relief of the beetles. Vinyl records were first issued commercially in 1948.”
These long playing (LP) records gave a much better frequency response (high-fidelity). They rotated at 33.3 times a minute allowing more than 20 minutes of playing time per side (rather than the 3 minutes of the old 78rpm shellac discs). This was enough to allow a complete substantial work such as a symphony or a selection of bebop tunes, with extended solos, to be released on a single 12-inch disc for the first time. Example 1: “Four” Chord Structure Analysis sheet. The analysis sheet below shows the fundamental aspects of the chord structure starting from the first full bar (bar 2): 1. Each chord from the lead sheet bar by bar in its basic four part form (e.g. EbMaj7 would be Eb, G, Bb and D). 2. Roman numerals under each chord show its relationship to the key. 3. The basic scale that can be played over the chord is listed below the Roman numerals.
Example 2: Four – Lead Sheet
“Four” is a 16-bar song with two endings. Originally written with saxophonist Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson although Davis subsequently has been attributed with its composition, “Four” was first recorded by Miles Davis in 1954 on the album “Blue Haze”. The arrangement of “Four” played here is called a “head” arrangement, which is a common structure in jazz. Head Arrangement Intro Drums in this case Head States the entire melody and establishes the chord sequence or “the changes” Solos Based on the chord pattern Head Re-statement of the entire melody or “out chorus” Coda Ending There are two main melodic motifs, one in bars 1-8 and the second in bars 9-16. Example 3: Bars 1-8 of “Four” – First melodic motif
The first motif is largely based on the repetitive three-note riff from bar 1. Bar 2 begins using the same rhythm as bar 1, descending to the D note instead of ascending to it. Then the three-note riff is restated ascending to a Db (blue note) to anticipate the Ebm7 chord (Db is the 7th of Ebm7). Bars 4-6 transpose the melody of bars 1-2 up a fourth. This time the melody ends on the anticipated 7th (blue note Gb) of Abm7. The tail in bar 8 prepares for the next motif using a chromatic passing note (A) to connect the Ab and Bb. Davis establishes two modulations in these first 8 bars. In the first modulation (bar 3) to Db Major, Davis uses a tonic interchange to enter the modulation (changing EbMaj7 to Ebm7). The V chord (Ab7) of the modulation is the partial diatonic IV7 chord of Eb Major and allows Davis to re-enter the main key at bar 5. The three-note riff in bar 1 outlines the EbMaj7 chord using its 5th and 7th notes (Bb and D). When the melody transposes up a fourth in bar 5, it seems to again outline the EbMaj7 chord using its root and 3rd (Eb and G). However, Davis uses the active II chord (Fm7) under the melody, giving an added sense of momentum to the song. Example 4: Bars 9 to 16 of “Four”
The chords and melody in bars 9 to 12 are basically repeated in bars 13 to 16, with a small change in the melody. The chord progression is a II – V – I in the main key of Eb major. Davis adds a chromatic modulation in bar 10 and 14 to chords II – V of E major, chromatically lifting the key from Eb to E and back down to Eb. The melody in bar 9 and 13 outlines the Eb Maj7 chord it is played over, using chord tones (root, 3rd and 5th). The B natural (last note of bars 9 and 13) anticipates the chromatic modulation to E major. In bar 10, Davis stresses a D# and (as this melody is repeated in bar 13) a B natural. These are the chord tone 3rd and root of B7, so Davis is emphasising the V chord over the II chord. Bar 11 emphasises the chord tones of Fm7 (C and Ab) and anticipates the Bb7 chord with its 13th (G). This is called using an “upper partial” on a chord change. The rhythm at the end of bar 12 mirrors the riff used in bar 1. In bars 13 to 16, Davis uses the same motif as bars 9 to 12, accentuating the B natural in bar 14, and using an E natural to chromatically push down to the D#. Example 5: Second ending of “Four”
Davis reworked the chords of the first ending to create a new progression in the second ending. The Gm7 uses a technique called substitution to create a different sound. Substitution Substitution is a technique used with four part chords such as Eb Maj7 and Gm7 below. Here, Davis has substituted the chord EbMaj7 (Eb, G, Bb and D) with Gm7 (G, Bb, D and F) and so used the 3rd, 5th,7th and 9th chord tones of EbMaj7 to create a substitution to Gm7. Chord Tones of Eb Maj7 I III V VII Eb Maj7 Eb G Bb D Chord Tones of Gm7 I III V VII Gm7 G Bb D F The Gbm7 chord in bar 17 is another substitution for the E major modulation in bar 14 as Gbm7 is enharmonically F#m7. Davis again uses the II – V chords of Eb Major (Fm7 – Bb7) and ends the song on the I chord (EbMaj7). The result of this progression is a chromatic line between the first three chords (G-Gb-F). Despite the changes, Davis manages to maintain some of the identity of the first ending’s progression. The melody of the second ending begins on a Bb note much as the first ending had. This time, though, Davis creates an ascending line within the melody to give way to the end of the song and the beginning of the solos. The melody uses chord tones to outline each chord it is played over, with the exception of the Gbm7. If you remember in the first ending, Davis used B, E and D# in the melody to accentuate the B7, not the F#m7. In the second ending, Davis uses Cb, Fb and Eb over the Gbm7. This is enharmonically the B, E and D# of the first ending, so Davis is essentially still responding to the B7 chord. Performance Techniques used in “Four” In the New Anthology of Music (NAM 50) there are a number of techniques highlighted in the score:
Ex A: Refers to a fall-off, a short downward slide that gets quieter as it goes down. Ex B: The note in brackets (sometimes shown as an “x” headed note) designates a ghost note. A ghost note is one that is barely audible, hinted at or implied. Ex C: Is a technique specific to valved instruments and involves slightly depressing one or more valves to create a muffled sound on indeterminate pitch.
The analysis above was assisted by the book on the right "The Music of Miles Davis" by Lex Giel
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