MU2404

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Phil Tovell May 2011

Khan, Ashley (2000) Kind of Blue. London: Granta. Subtitled The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece as the title (and the year) suggest, this book earns its definitive title by its completeness. The most important aspect of the record is the process by which it was made; here it is thoroughly and sensitively documented. Khan is called upon as an Authority by BBC Radio 3, and he directed and produced the DVD Made in Heaven (see below) for Columbia Records. Davis, Miles (Transcribed: DuBoff, Rob; Vinci, Mark; Davis, Mark; Davis, Josh). Kind of Blue. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard. Some of the most individual soloists in jazz - Davis, Evans, Coltrane every note of every solo. Especially interesting to see how Davis achieves the lyrical simplicity of his opening on the first track, So What. Evans tremolo on All Blues , voicings on Blue in Green and solo using notes a 2nd apart on So What are also documented. Discovering Music: Miles Davies: Kind of Blue.(2005) BBC Radio 3, 8 October, 14:00. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gxvtw [last accessed 13.5.11] The record is the text! More objective than Made in Heaven, and explains modal jazz very clearly, with the aid of Ashley Khan, and its evolution as a contrast to Be-bop. Guy Barker [British trumpeter] makes a telling contribution; especially worth listening to for his note-by-note analysis of Miless crucial first solo, and their exploration of the contrast between the styles of Davis and Coltrane.

Collier, J. L. Jazz(i) The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd edition: especially Section VI AFTER 1960; subsection 2 The modal alternative: Davis and Coltrane. [accessed 16.5.11] Collier recognises the influence of Daviss creative process, in that the liner notes to the Album acted as a kind of tutor for other musicians. New Grove in the biographical entry, also has relevant information for those interested in the vexed issue of Daviss claims of authorship, especially those of Blue in Green and Flamenco Sketches generally thought of these days as being Bill Evans compositions. Williams, Richard (2009) The Blue Moment. London: Faber and Faber. Subtitled Miles Daviss Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music. Argues strongly for the recognition of the recording as a crucial moment in music and jazz in particular. There is a good balance of writing, attempting to be both passionate and objective. Lenz, C. and Khan, A. (2004) Made in Heaven: The Story of Kind of Blue [DVD]. Nashville: Columbia/ Sony Music Entertainment. Available in 3 parts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGQzNsZAtCo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I21UW_hgopE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX3K9CkORO0 All last accessed 12.5.11. Probably the only document of its kind, this DVD deepens the context through personal evidence from a range of respected and wellknown performers especially as regards the extent of the records influence. One drawback is that the comments from non-musicians may carry less weight if, or when, they are no longer so well-known. It contains poignant archive film and photographs of the recording and

features the only surviving [at the time] member of the Sextet - Billy Cobb, the drummer; these atmospheric elements contribute more nostalgia than academic analysis. Levine, Mark (1995) The Jazz Theory Book. Petaluma: Sher Music. Recognised as one of the experts on jazz theory especially jazz harmony and piano. One irony of Kind of Blue. is it makes jazz sound a lot easier than it is Levine demonstrates that it has an almost inexhaustibly rich pallet (evidence: Blue in Green) composed of rich textures with or without cadential motivity. This comprehensive volume over 500 pages - provides a sound academic approach to analysing the structures and sonorities that jazz improvisers have at their/ our disposal. It may seem a little dated; for instance it was probably written when many performers were discovering the melodic minor scale. Appel, Alfred Jr. (2004) Jazz Modernism. New haven: Yale. He has a compelling vision of how jazz and modern art evolved together. Written in an intense post-modern voice, his ideas may prove to be valuable if only as provocation. I was particularly affected by his description of Thelonious Monk getting up and dancing during a performance, in the small space in front of the piano. Drawbacks are that he is not concerned with jazz after 1950, he focuses rather narrowly on the sexual content of vocal performance and then there is the inherent limitation of writing about music using predominantly language evolved to describe visual arts. Vian, Boris (trans. Mike Zwerin) (1988) The Jazz Writings of Boris Vian. London: Quartet Books. Vian is a very entertaining writer; this is a collection of his contributions

to periodicals, especially Jazz Hot, and radio. It is also useful to hear a non-anglophone voice so immersed in the aesthetics of the music and the conviction that it matters. He makes an especially valuable insight into the hostile reception bebop received in some quarters, as indeed did Kind of Blue some people still like to exclude it from the category of jazz recordings. McLuhan, Marshall (1964) Understanding Media. London: Routledge. Subtitled The Extensions of Man and famous for The Media is the Message (The title of the 1st. Chapter). Here context equals the bigger picture, being an economic history of the evolution of communications media of all sorts. He also dissects the terms cool & hot (essential to understanding the culture of the U.S.A. when the recording was made) and, crucially for this study, in Chapter 28 the role of The Gramophone the Toy that Shrank the National Chest, contrasting the medium of recorded music with, for instance, the radio The Tribal Drum responsible for World War II! and the bicycle, as an ideal extension of our ability to communicate.