The Modern Jazz Quartet    Django (1960)
Milt Jackson (vib), John Lewis (p, comp), Percy Heath (b), Connie Kay (d)

The Modern Jazz Quartet was one of the most successful and long-lived of jazz groups. All of the members of the group had solid bebop credentials (in fact, the group originally came together as the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band), but it had a somewhat different approach and repertoire than most bebop bands. This was largely due to John Lewis, the group's musical director. As a pianist, Lewis had a "cool," understated style. You can hear that on "Parker's Mood" and also on Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool" recording sessions, which Lewis participated in as pianist, composer, and arranger (see the writeup below for "Boplicity").

Besides being a fine pianist, Lewis was an ambitious composer who made effective use of techniques drawn from European classical composers, especially from J.S. Bach. His classical influences come through in this piece, with its intricate form marked by shifting tempos and moods.

Miles Davis and his Orchestra    Boplicity (1949)
Miles Davis (t, comp), J.J. Johnson (tb), Sandy Siegelstein (hn), Bill Barber (tba), Lee Konitz (as), Gerry Mulligan (bars), John Lewis (p), Nelson Boyd (b), Kenny Clark (d), Gil Evans (arr)

This piece is from a very influential album called "Birth of the Cool" (see p. 114 of the textbook for a little bit of information about it). The ensemble for this album was put together primarily to be a rehearsal band— it had only one brief engagement in a night club and a few recording sessions. The arrangers and many of the performers in the band had gotten to know each other hanging out in the basement apartment of Gil Evans, and they found that they shared an interest in experimenting with a more orchestral and softer-edged sound than bebop, yet something quite different than the swing-era big band sound. The model was the Claude Thornhill band. Miles Davis was the main organizing force and the principal soloist, though he didn't write any of the arrangements. Talking to Amiri Baraka, he explained that his motivation was wanting "a music with more melodic access and a 'cushion' (bottom) of harmonies that made his own simple voice an elegant, somewhat detached 'personality' effortlessly perceiving and expressing."

Miles Davis with Gil Evans's Orchestra    Summertime (1958)
Featuring Miles Davis (t), with John Coles, Bernie Glow, Ernie Royal, Louis Mucci (t); Joe Bennett, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland (tb); Dick Hixon (btb); Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller (hn); Bill Barber (tba); Julius 'Cannonball' Adderley (as); Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque (fl); Danny Bank (bcl); Paul Chambers (b); Jimmy Cobb (d); Gil Evans (dir, arr); George Gershwin (comp)

A number of the musicians on the Birth of the Cool sessions went on to explore other ramifications of the "cool" style (which came to be associated with the West Coast, so that the jazz version of the simpleminded schematic of American culture boiled down to the following opposition: West Coast = "cool" = white vs. East Coast = "hot" = bebop = black). Miles Davis picked up a drug habit in the early 50s and his career lost momentum, but when he got his act together a few years later his interest in "cool" had cooled, and he focussed on small, hot, bebop bands.

Still, Miles and Gil Evans remained friends and occasional collaborators, and out of this collaboration came a number of beautiful albums that built on the conception put forth by the Birth of the Cool band. "Summertime" comes from one of the best of these albums, a reworking of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess.

Each chorus breaks down into four 4 bar phrases that can be analyzed as ABAB'. However, since it is only 16 bars long the effect is more like a 12-bar blues in that it feels like a single section that is repeated over and over, without a bridge. Both the performance and the arrangement here are tightly focussed. Miles sticks pretty close to Gershwin's melody all the way through, and Evans's arrangement is based on a single rising melodic figure that is repeated many times. The artistry in the arrangement is the subtle shifting balance of tone colors, and the artistry in Miles's playing is the eloquent understatement and the perfect control of nuance.

The band here is significantly larger than the Birth of the Cool ensemble but has many of the same non-traditional (from the jazz point of view) ingredients, as well as some new ones. In this piece the key addition is 2 flutes. Also, Miles is playing with a stemless harmon mute, which accounts for the metalic, buzzy sound of the trumpet.

The Miles Davis Sextet    So What (1959)
Miles Davis (t), Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley (as), John Coltrane (ts), Bell Evans (p), Paul Chambers (b), Jimmy Cobb (d)

From the album Kind of Blue, this is a classic (and beautiful) example of "modal jazz." Rather than improvising on a chord progression, the musicians on this recording were given a sequence of scales that they could draw from to improvise. "So What" is in AABA form, but where a typical AABA jazz tune uses 8 or more chords in each section, here there is one scale for the A section and one scale for the B section.

The Miles Davis Quintet    My Funny Valentine (1964)
Miles Davis (t), George Coleman (ts), Herbie Hancock (p), Ron Carter (b), Tony Williams (d)

Like many "jazz standards" (that is, tunes well known and often recorded by jazz musicians), "My Funny Valentine" was written for a Broadway show. It's quite a beautiful ballad, one that most jazz singers do at some time or another. It's in a slightly elaborated version of AABA form—the A sections are each a little different, especially the final one, which is extended by 4 bars.

If you weren't playing close attention, though, you might not figure out that "My Funny Valentine" is what Miles Davis is playing in this live recording from 1964 (but you will pay close attention, won't you?). Though this excerpt is technically the head, after the first couple of phrases Miles only hints at the melody. The rhythm sections rarely plays a straightforward accompaniment. Instead it seems to shift between different sounds and time feels almost on a whim, or at the command of Miles's trumpet.

Miles is very much in command here, but the performance is still anchored by the form. The most important changes almost all happen at the start of a section, even though the beat and chord changes may not be easy to hear at the moment of transformation. And since each eight bar section takes about 30 seconds, there is plenty of time to lose track of things.

This kind of rhythmic freedom within a form (as opposed to, say, Ornette Coleman's version of rhythmic freedom) was something that this edition of Miles's band excelled at. It isn't only the rhythmic freedom that is striking, though. These two choruses play out in waves of intensity that are shaped first and foremost by the leader's trumpet playing, as it shifts from low to high register, from soft to loud, from floating to crisp rhythms. At every step, the band supports and responds. Miles's trumpet is brilliant and riveting. Make sure to give a close listen to what's going on behind him, though—you'll hear the rhythm section create one small miracle after another.

The Miles Davis Quintet    Footprints (1966)
Miles Davis (t), Wayne Shorter (ts, comp), Herbie Hancock (p), Ron Carter (b), Tony Williams (d)

This is a 12-bar blues composition that has a strong modal influence. It is not in the 4/4 rhythm that is usual to jazz but instead in 6/8, meaning that there are six beats in every bar. Instead of walking, the bass plays a vamp (a short, repeated figure) most of the time, though it breaks out of the vamp on bars 9-10 of the form. However, the band does not play a simple 6/8 rhythm very much of the time. Instead, they juxtapose and superimpose several beats in a polyrhythmic fashion. There is the basic 6/8, there is a fast rhythm with two bars of 4/4 in the same space as one 6/8 bar (I call this double-time feel below) and there is a slow swing, with one bar of 4/4 in same space as a 6/8 bar (I call this half time). I would not ask you to describe or to point out these different rhythms out on a test, but I do expect you to know that the piece sets a six beat pattern against four beat patterns. I also expect you to be aware of and recognize how the rhythm typically changes on the 9th bar of the form, even if you can't describe exactly how it changes.

This is the same rhythm section as on "My Funny Valentine" and you can hear the same high level of interaction and the same fluidity at switching between time feels. But this tune brings out a different kind of intensity from them as they explore its polyrhythmic possibilities.

The John Coltrane Quartet    Countdown (1959)
John Coltrane (ts, comp), Tommy Flanigan (p), Paul Chambers (b), Art Taylor (d)

Countdown is from the album Giant Steps. Like the album's famous title tune it is extremely fast, with a difficult, tightly-packed chord progression. The arrangement is unusual and quite effective. The head is not played at the beginning. Instead, instruments are added one by one with an effect that is something like a countdown—perhaps the inspiration for the title of the tune. When Coltrane finally plays the head, at then end, it feels like liftoff.

The John Coltrane Quartet    A Love Supreme (Acknowledgement) (1964)
John Coltrane (ts, comp), McCoy Tyner (p), Jimmy Garrison (b), Elvin Jones (d)

This is the first of a suite of four pieces that make up A Love Supreme. The composition is completely modal—there is no fixed bar structure, no chord changes, no chorus form. But much of what you hear is based on a couple of short musical figures, or "motives" (to use the correct technical term).

The Bill Evans Trio    Blue in Green (1959)
Bell Evans (p, comp), Scott LaFaro (b), Paul Motian (d)

This is one of the tunes from Miles Davis' Kind of Blue session. Like most of the tunes from that recording date, it was written jointly by Bill Evans and Miles Davis in collaboration. On this recording, by Evans' trio, the pianist's beautiful tone and lyrical improvisations are very much in evidence.

A hallmark of this trio was that the improvisations are very conversational. This is especially true about the relationship between piano and bass. When Evans is improvising a solo, LaFaro sometimes plays a walking bass lines but quite a bit of the time he plays countermelodies instead.

This piece has quite an unusual form. It is 10 bars long but it is written so that the end of the form isn't a point of rest or conclusion.

The Ornette Coleman Quartet    Lonely Woman (1959)
Ornette Coleman (as, comp), Don Cherry (t), Charlie Haden (b), Billy Higgins (d)

This piece shows a few aspects of the freedom Ornette Coleman had in mind when he developed the style that came to be know as "free jazz." There is, first of all, rhythmic freedom. Previous to this, the rhythm played by the rhythm section and the horn section or soloist were both locked into a single tempo (or beat). Many soloists (for instance, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday) stretched the beat, but they never broke it. Here the drums play one tempo, but the horns play in an independent tempo (and, to some extent, free of a fixed beat). The bass playing is locked in to the drumming to some extent, but it comes and goes quite freely. The way the horns float free of the drummers pulse is, to me, beautiful and poignant.

The form is traditional in some ways and free in others. It is traditional in that the melody is structured as AABA, and the whole performance is structured as intro-head-solo-head-fade. It is free in that there is not a fixed number of bars to the sections, and there are no chord changes.

The Charles Mingus Quartet    The Original Faubus Fables (1960)
Eric Dolphy (as), Ted Curson (t), Charles Mingus (b, comp), Danny Richmond (d)

At the beginning of the cut, Mingus announces this tune as "Fables of Faubus." I suspect they chose to title it "The Original Faubus Fables" on the album sleeve because Mingus had recorded the piece once before for a record company that forced him to leave out the lyrics. It's deplorable but not surprising that a mainstream record company in 1960 would have choked on this piece as you hear it here (from an album called Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus that was released by a small, adventurous label). The lyrics, and the tone in which they are delivered, are matched by music that oscillates between sarcasm (the A sections) and dark but confident swing (the B sections). It's as powerful a musical statement of ridicule and defiance as any I've heard.

In the process of speaking his mind, Mingus shows how brilliantly he could manipulate both form and arrangement. The form of each chorus is fairly elaborate (ABAB'CAB'), and each section in the form has a distinct character. It is easiest to hear this by following the ins and outs of the rhythm section, as described below. The piece never really settles into a groove—that would be too easy, too pat, and, I think, too comforting.

Drummer Dannie Richmond was with Mingus for many years and the two had a remarkable rapport. The trumpeter, Ted Curson, was a important Mingus sideman, too, though not at the same level as Richmond. Here he holds up his end of the bargain admirably but is somewhat in the shadow of a giant—Eric Dolphy, one of the most original and expressive voices on alto sax (and flute and bass clarinet) during the late 50s and early 60s.

Like Coltrane, with whom he played after leaving Mingus, Dolphy was a deeply serious musician and an assiduous practicer. He had an abrupt, angular, insistent style all his own. One of Mingus's pet peeves was that too many saxophonists were merely parroting Charlie Parker, thus his composition originally titled "If Charlie Parker Were a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats." In that scenario no saxophonist was safer than Dolphy, and his biting tone and eloquent range of inflection is fantastically effective on this composition.

One great advantage of this recording is that the small group and lack of piano or guitar allows the incredible power and fluency of Mingus's bass playing to shine through. It also forces Mingus—a big band composer at heart, deeply in thrall to Ellington—to make up for the lack of horns with his own voice, straining to the limits of falsetto. That may have been an expedient but it turns out to suit the mood perfectly.

Stan Getz and João Gilberto    Corcovado (1963)
Stan Getz (ts), João Gilberto (voc, g), Astrud Gilberto (voc), Antonio Carlos Jobim (p, comp), Tommy Williams (b), Milton Banana (d)

The music here is more Brazilian than American, so it could be argued that it isn't really jazz. But the main soloist, Stan Getz, is an American jazz musician, and the bossa nova style was quickly absorbed into the jazz mainstream, as the Afro-Cuban sound had been absorbed a couple of decades before. The feeling, for sure, is worlds away from the other 60s-era jazz we're talking about. Here everything is subservient to the melody and the lyric. The rhythm section is playing a kind of latin feel, which you can hear in the steady eighth notes on the cymbal and the syncopated guitar rhythm, but their playing is always comfortably in the background. The vocal and instrumental solos are light and understated. The music is gentle and unabashedly beautiful.

Corcovado was written by the most famous composer of bossa nova, and one of the great masters of popular songwriting in the 20th century, Antonio Carlos Jobim, who's also playing the piano. The form is essentially ABAC but it's unusual in that the second section is really a version of the first, so AA'AB is a better fit.