Jazz and popular music had also seen the occasional use of what could be seen as “modal” usage, in the suggestion of non-major/minor tonality (e.g., Burton Lane’s “ Old Devil Moon,” or Ary Barroso’s “ Bahia,”), and in the use of extended solos with minimal harmonic movement (e.g., Benny Goodman’s version of Louis Prima’s “ Sing, Sing, Sing,” or the open montuno solos in mambos of the 1940s-1950s). As we have noted, modal resources had been used in classical music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Miles’ modal work was preceded by a number of contributing influences.
His next album, Kind of Blue (1959), is the definitive example of modal jazz, and was a pivotal moment in the evolution of jazz. The A sections are based on the G dorian scale the B sections are based on the A aeolian scale (see “The Classical Modes,” below). Miles Davis, always a trend-setter in jazz, utilized this approach in his composition “ Milestones” (1958), on the album of the same name. A modal piece will generally use chords, but the chords will be more or less derived from the prevailing mode. By de-emphasizing the role of chords, a modal approach forces the improviser to create interest by other means: melody, rhythm, timbre, and emotion. The term “modal jazz” refers to improvisational music that is organized in a scalar (“horizontal”) way rather than in a chordal (“vertical”) manner. In the 1950s, jazz musicians also began to work with modal approaches. Modes were used as a resource by some relatively modern classical composers like Debussy and Bartok, who felt the need to go beyond traditional major/minor tonality. Our present-day major and minor scales derive from the “modes” of medieval music, which in turn derive from the music of ancient Greece. In musical parlance, the word “mode” simply means “scale” it is often used to describe a scale other than major or minor.
By Peter Spitzer - Jazz Author, Musician, and Instructor
0 kommentar(er)
