Essays on Miles Davis

Bebop is a jazz style known for fast paces and complex improvisations based on playing off of harmonies. It developed in the 1940s in the United States of America and symbolized the new stage in the ideas about jazz music and its perception. This paper aims to discuss the history of bebop, its establishment as the major modern jazz movement around the days of the decline of big bands, its fragmentation into the styles of cool and hard bop, and the role African-American musicians played in its development. As Gioia writes, from its beginning, jazz was the genre of ...

In an article about hip hop music and its intersection with jazz, Jared Pauley writes that both genres have often flirted with each other. Over the years, hip hop artists have utilized the flavor of jazz music through sampling. In the 1980s to the mid-1990s, hip hop acts "took jazz samples to the top of the charts while others worked directly with respected jazz musicians. With the new millennium, this trend continued" (1). One artist that has continued the trend is Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick Lamar is an emcee that has been on the scene for a number of years, ...

Robert Hayden was a significant African American poet and essayist. His poetry fell under the influence of different writers from different literary movements, among them are Hughes, Keats, Dunbar, Yeats, that makes it difficult to refer him to one particular writing style or movement. Hayden belongs to the literary period of 1965 – the time when African American writings moved from the margins of American literature to its center, bringing new writing styles and techniques. It is for sure that Hayden’s poems are striking and full of feelings and emotions that are conveyed to the reader through the range ...

Miles Davis was, arguably, the most influential jazz musician of the modern era. A trumpeter, his varied musical styles influenced a number of musicians. The life of Miles Davis deserves closer attention. The composer's life, musical style, and his influence on musicians of his generation, and those of later generations paint a picture of an extremely gifted and rare musical genius. Born to Miles Davis, Jr. and Cleota Henry in Alton, Illinois on May 25, 1926, the young Miles Dewey Davis III was raised in an upper-middle-class family with all the privileges accorded to a white residential neighborhood, in ...

Introduction

Miles Davis is vital figure in the 1950s music as he drew together different trends in hard bop and cool jazz. His career travelled from cool jazz and bebop into the heroin addiction since his return at the 1954 caused the shifting to hard bop. Miles emerged a hero of jazz because of the magnificent change that he brought to jazz. From 1949 to 1969, he changed the rules of jazz five timers. Just as Coltrane, Miles’ organized a continuous music growing group that their music styles and concepts were very dynamic for the better. The two artists are considered ...

Miles Davis and John Coltrane are commonly considered to be two of the greatest musicians of their time. Innovators, performers and artists, they contributed significantly to both the music and culture of mid-20th century America, at a time when civil rights was a hot-button issue and popular culture itself was experiencing a crossroads. The free jazz movement started in the late 1940s, as jazz musicians began to experiment with world music influences and other genres, creating new opportunities for composition and performance. While Miles Davis helped develop the concepts of cool jazz, both he and John Coltrane were extremely influential in developing ...

Miles Davis (1926-1991) was one of the most influential jazz musicians in American history. He was on the forefront of several breakthrough development in jazz including cool jazz and jazz fusion. He is one of the most recognizable musicians in the world of jazz and most Americans know his name even if they are not jazz enthusiasts. Davis became an accomplished trumpeter and was known for his smooth sound. Tate (2015) in his article for Rolling Stone magazine credits Davis’ cool style and creativity for the creativity and expression that changed the face of jazz music since the 1940’ ...

1956 – Hard Bop. Hard Bop developed from Bop and spread through the East Coast. Adherents of this style believed that cool jazz was too “European” and wanted to return more blues and Afro-centric elements. Hard Bop was an assertive style that characterized by more active drummers, improvisations, darker and heavier ambience. Style was preferred primary by urban musicians from Philadelphia and Detroit (“Cool Jazz and Hard Bop”). In 1956 Sonny Rollins with different musicians created several significant albums: “Tenor Madness”, “Volume one”, “Colossus”, “Plus Four” and other. Rollins also became a tenor saxophonist of Miles Davis Quintet that was ...

The period between 1900 and 1940 witnessed huge growth and development of jazz leading it to become a widely popular genre of music not just in the United States but the entire globe. However, as is with any other type of music, this genre saw a lot of transformation in terms of style and structure. As time progressed, new forms of jazz that deviated from the traditional style and structure started to emerge. A perfect example of this is the bebop style that started gaining popularity in the 1940’s. The bebop style began to become popular at the onset of ...

The swing era was marked by the introduction of jazz to the world. This genre of music started for the Southern states of the US. New Orleans in Louisiana is particularly considered to be the home of jazz music. During the swing era, this genre of music started to be acknowledged not only throughout the country but throughout the world. It was so influential that even some composers of classical music started borrowing some components from it. In the 1940’, there emerged a new sub-genre of jazz music that was referred to as Bebop. Jazz had been increasing developing ...

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a genre of rock music which is also known as prog or prog rock among its listeners and aficionadas. Progressive rock is considered to be emerged in late sixties or a bit later in early seventies. Songs of this genre are conceptual and based on fantasy and usually longer in length. Some artists have used very meaningful lyrics in their songs and even criticized the society for greed and other evils. Moog synthesizer and Mellotron are important components of this genre. Over the time various sub genres of progressive rock has been formed. All the artist of progressive ...