Miles Davis and the Longevity of Modernism

Question Modernism Miles Davis Birth of the Cool

Are the characteristics and trends The most important aspect of Davis was infused with a European The intent was to mimic the human voice of Modernism ongoing and have Modernism is the progress and compositional and harmonic through carefully arranged compositions and they left a heritage that has affected evolution of form wrought from education from Juilliard. He combined classical music techniques such as paired the development of jazz, the music individualism, education and this with the constant experimentation instrumentation. “an impressionist composer of Miles Davis and his instruction in the use of existing and innovative environments with a great sense of aural poetry and a very contemporaries, and continued to forms, and innovation of these experienced at nightly jam sessions of fastidious feeling of tone color...the music influence the music of the present? forms. the bebop players of the 1940s. sounds more like that of a new Maurice Ravel Davis’s approach to his art mirrored than it does jazz.” - Winthrop Sargeant early jazz musicians’ unique heritage Jazz’s Heritage Evidence of classical forms and their tendency to reinvent them. Then, like most notable Modernist composers, he Kind Jazz was born in New Orleans. It is “There was a linguistic and cultural used his amassed knowledge and the result of experimentation with fit between Creole musicians such invented his own style. of musical form, an existing European as Sidney Bechet and the French musical heritage, and the individual musical community. The teachers of Blue contributions of artists born from the many first-generation ragtime and Jeff Buckley cultural clash of displaced African jazz players had studied clarinet Americans. and oboe in Paris and played in the Davis experimented with modal jazz. orchestra of the French Opera in The result was the best-selling jazz New Orleans.” – Charles Riley. album of all time. “I think a movement “For deeper than this is the way in in jazz is beginning away from the which the black American conventional string of chords, and a experience is central to and return to emphasis on melodic rather constitutive of modernity because than harmonic variation. There will be of its catastrophic exposure to fewer chords but infinite possibilities as enforced diaspora, genocide, exile, to what to do with them.” – Miles Davis alienation, cultural mutation, and Following in the footsteps of Davis, Jeff Buckley hybridity, and fractured or doubled came from a contemporary musical education— selfhood.” – John Osborne being a graduate of Los Angeles’s Musicians Institute—and coupled with many influences was Bibliography obsessed with musical form. “Friends and critics Appel. Alfred. Jazz Modernism: From Evidence alike have often compared him to the most Ellington and Armstrong to Matisse and adventurous jazz musicians who run through every Joyce. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. “As singers, Armstrong, approach to phrase, turning core musical Brooks, Daphne A. Jeff Buckley’s Grace: 33 structures over and inside out in order to approach ⅓. New York: Continuum, 2005. Jazz Forms Waller, Teagarden, and Holiday Davis, Miles and Quincy Troupe. Miles: The typically had to modify or tear material at different angles.” – Daphne Brooks Autobiography. New York: Simon The swing and bebop composers and apart and rebuild poor or and Schuster, 2011. musicians continued to experiment mediocre Tin Pan Alley material Gioia, Ted. The Birth and Death of the Cool. Conclusion Golden, Colorado: Speck Press, 2009. with musical forms. These artists in a pro-creative manner Osborne, John. “Larkin, Modernism and deconstructed existing musical analogous to the ways in which Jazz.” Hungarian Journal of English compositions for reinterpretation. This modernists such as Picasso Without end, the legacy of 20th century Modernism is alive in and American Studies 9/2 (2003): 7–28. reflected the actions of many different begot paper collage, wood our time as we have seen through the careers, compositions, Riley, Charles A. Free As Gods: Howthe 20th century Modernist artists. assemblage, and metal and form experimentations of Miles Davis and Jeff Buckley. Jazz Age Reinvented Modernism. Its principles and innovations of forms have been utilized Hanover: ForeEdge, 2017. sculpture.” – Alfred Appel Jr. and celebrated by these artists to create works that aided in All Images From Bing Library influenceing Modernism’s continuance.