Elevator to the Gallows

1958 French film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud
Staring Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet
-SophyaAgain

Sketches of Spain 50th Anniversary!

On this day in 1960 Columbia Records released Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis. The album teamed Miles up with arranger Gil Evans again, whom he'd worked with on Birth of the Cool and Porgy and Bess. With Sketches use of strings and more formal song structure many consider it Miles Davis' most accessible work. The compositions themselves derive from Spanish folk songs and flamenco music, which Miles Davis had recently begun listening to thanks to an anthology brought back from Spain for him by the actress/model Beverly Bentley. When Sketches of Spain was released Downbeat magazine gave it five stars, calling it one of the most important musical triumphs of the century.

Morning Music

I just woke up, and first thing in the morning I almost always listen to jazz. One of my favorite albums to listen to in the morning is one we've spoken of before, and that's 'Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis. Coincidentally, this record is also a great one to study for you music theory geeks. Why? Because of the album's immense popularity, transcriptions of the songs are all over the internet. The song I want to showcase today is 'So What'. Like the rest of 'Kind of Blue', 'So What' is based on a modal scale or mode, in this case the mode is D dorian. The actual progression of the piece is the old 32 bar standard american pop song: 16 bars of D dorian, 8 bars of E flat dorian, and then back to 8 bars of D dorian.


Below is a video from 1958 of Miles Davis playing 'So What' along with members of the Gil Evans Orchestra and the mighty John Coltrane (whose own song 'Impressions' is a reworking of 'So What'.)



Quincy Jones once wrote to one of his many friends, "That [Kind of Blue] will always be my music, man. I play Kind of Blue every day—it's my orange juice. It still sounds like it was made yesterday." I couldn't agree more and that's why a lot of times I'm eating eggs and drinking coffee while listening to it. What's your wake up music?

Kind of Blue 50th anniversary!

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Kind of Blue, one of my favorite albums of all time, regardless of genre. It's haunting melodies, modal progressions, and laid back style is the epitome of what late 50's jazz is to me.... timeless.