Miles Davis- All Blues

In All Blues, the performers improvised on basic scales. The key features of this piece are: o Pitch- all instruments keep to their middle and lower registers o Duration- All Blues lasts for more than 11 and a half minutes. o Dynamics- The piece is generally quite subdued- most of its moderately loud, except for a few louder trumpet bits. The ensemble plays even more quietly when a soloist is playing. o Tempo- its marked jazz waltz- it should be played at a moderate pace o Time signature- unlike most jazz and blues at the time, All Blues is in 6/4 o Timbre- The timbres very mellow (this is the overall sound of the piece). Miles uses a mute, ghost notes (notes that are hinted at, rather than played- theyre deliberately weak beats) and rests in his solos to make it more mellow. o Texture- it has a simple texture- the wind instruments play in 3rds and 4ths, while the piano and double bass play a simple riff and chords. The drum keeps a steady beat. o Structure- All Blues uses a standard 12 bar blues chord pattern in G which gets repeated throughout the piece. Its played under the solos and the main melody. The chords arent exactly the same as the traditional 12 bar blues though- theyre a bit fancier: Bar of 121 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Bar Blues Traditional Chords All Blues Chords I I7 I I7 I I7 I I7 IV Im7 IV Im7 I I7 I I7 V V7#9 IV I

12

I I7

VIb7#9 I7 Vb7#9

The #9 means theres an augmented 9th in there- thats a 2nd but up an octave and raised by a semitone.

It is mainly improvised
The band is made up of a trumpet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, piano, double bass and drums. The trumpet, both saxophones and the piano each have an improvised solo. The two saxes tend to play together when theyre not playing solos. When they turned up to the recording session the band had very little idea what they were going to play. Miles gave them a few scales and melody lines to improvise on. He also gave them brief instructions then off they went. The whole album was recorded in two sessions and each piece was recorded in one take

The piece is divided into sections

All Blues has an intro followed by the head (theme). There are four improvised solos, then the head returns The drums keep time and the piano plays chords or tremolo chords (except for its improvised solo) The double bass plays Riff A from bar 9 onwards (for most of piece) The piece finishes with a final coda which fades out. A riff is a modern word for an ostinato- a repeated pattern. It can be in the melody, rhythm or chord pattern. Intro o The intro is 8 bars long. Its made up of two four-bar sections (called intro 1 and intro 2). In intro 2 the alto and tenor saxes play Riff B in 3rds (they dont play anything in the first four bars) Head (32 bars) o The head lasts for 32 bars. A muted trumpet plays a 12 bar theme (the saxes play Riff B in the background). They play Intro 2 followed by the theme again, followed by another repetition of intro 2 Improvised Solo Sections o The four solo sections each feature a different instrument- first its the trumpet, followed by the alto sax then the tenor sax and finally the piano. All the solos are improvised. The trumpet solo and both saxophone solos last for 48 bars and the piano solo lasts for 24. After each of the solos, intro 2 is played (but the piano plays Riff B instead of saxes- except after the piano solo, when the saxes play it again). Head (32 bars) o The head comes back again- its the 12-bar theme followed by intro 2. They play both bits twice Outro o All Blues finishes with a 12 bar outro which fades out. The saxophones are playing Riff B again, but the trumpet introduces a new riff, Riff C