Kind Of Blue: A Brief Analysis Of Miles Davis's Kind Of Blue

Decent Essays
In 1959, Miles Davis began to astoniched the jazz world. He broughtg his sextet into the studio to make a new album. Even though he was at a terrible time point in his lifMiles Davis and his sextet recorded the best selling jazz album ever, "Kind of Blue." The members of his band stepped up to the plate, when Miles returned and gave them their parts. John Coltrane( tenorsaxaphonist), Julian Cannonnball Aderly(alto saxaphonist), Pual Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, and Bill Evans(Drummers), and Bill Evans(pianist). After dealing with a drug addiction, Miles wanted to start anew. When he finally came back to Jazz, he created something and would change the Jazz world foreever

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The song, ‘‘Welcome to The Colored Section” by Donnie Williams, is a song that expresses the true feelings and the true meaning of hardship through the eyes of African-Americans. The purpose of this song is to tell the audience of what it was like being an African American, and the difficulties black people had to struggle or fight for to end in as so called American History today. The elements work together to push the meaning because in the song the singer has tone and prospective to get you to understand the message of the song. There is a lot of facts of black power coming from his lyrics and it draws the audience attention to his appeals of black history in the earlier years. Also, he uses a slow rhythm and harmony to set the mood of the…

    • 1250 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After the world war one and somewhere between the 1930`s, a great cultural event happened in America. The jazz era also known as the Harlem Renaissance had a lot of people flocking to Harlem, New York. According to Richard Wormser from PBS, he states Harlem was considered the mecca to which black writers, artist, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars traveled. Many came to express their talents freely, and escape oppression in the south and the caste system. It was during this time that many talented artists such as Langston Hughes and Claude McKay started being recognized for their achieved works.…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is a story about a struggling addict named Sonny. Sonny’s family was born and raised in the housing projects of Harlem, New York in the 1950’s during a time where heroin was booming and racism was still alive. As an African American man Sonny’s paths in life were limited. Like most of his African American community Sonny turned to music and drugs to numb the pain of life’s endless disappointments. According to an article by 12 Keys Rehabilitation, “Most psychological addiction begins with feelings that are out of control.…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Color Purple - Historical Fiction Analysis The Color Purple by Allice Walker is a book that was published in 1982, and is set in the timeframe of 1910 to 1940 in Georgia (SparkNotes Editors). The book is written from the first person point of view from a black girl named Celie, and it covers all of the events in her life as she grows up from a little girl to an old woman. Within the book, the content is structured as letters, at first to God, and then as letters between both Celie and her younger sister Nettie. Throughout the book, Celie and Nettie are separated and one main purpose of the book is to show the events and struggle that led to the two sisters finding each other again.…

    • 1512 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Cues can often signal the approach of something important in literature. On certain occasions, the cues may be obvious, but more often than not they only truly manifest once the reader gains a full understanding of the text. “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is a dynamic short story that encompasses both the lifestyle of the African American community within the time period and the development of jazz music as a form of self-expression. Despite having two dynamic main characters the plot moves forward with fluidity. This is mostly due to Baldwin’s use of ongoing themes such as loss of innocence, suffering and self-discovery that manifest in both of the leading characters.…

    • 1683 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Each person has his or her individual path to follow, no two paths are exactly the same; but, every now and then, paths interweave and people construct bonds with each other. In the case of Sonny and his brother, the narrator, in James Baldwin’s short story, “Sonny’s Blues”, their paths were parallel with one another until they grew up. Sonny left the slums of Harlem, aspiring to become a musician, while his brother settled in Harlem and became a teacher. Although the narrator and his brother ended up with completely different lives, the narrator being a family man with a teaching job and Sonny, an ex-convict playing jazz at a club, are ironically more similar than they are portrayed.…

    • 1861 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin is about differences, understanding and most importantly music. In the story, the unnamed narrator and his brother Sonny struggle to understand each other, which stems from the immense differences in how they live and view life. This story takes place in the 1950’s, which is shortly after the Harlem Renaissance, which is labeled as the “literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity” (history.com). At the time, Jazz was exploding in popularity and is one of the main aspects of the story.…

    • 1152 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The story “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin (1957) explores the theme of suffering experienced by African Americans. It features the struggle of two brothers separated and caught in the entanglements of time, space and ideals. Both Sonny and his brother are surrounded by a world full of shadows and light, structure and antistructure. The narrator must understand his brother 's fall into drugs, while Sonny himself must recover and learn to stay afloat. Baldwin utilizes aspects of African culture and in particular the three stages of Victor Turner’s rites of passage to talk about pain and affliction done to African Americans during the 1950’s.…

    • 1307 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Theme Of Racism In Sonny's Blues

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited

    The first example of racism that I came across was about the death of Sonny's uncle who was hit by a car driven by a group of drunken white people. The repercussions of the treatment received by black people in the 1950's in Harlem are present throughout the entire story. Another example of racism that occurred in this story happened to Sonny's dad. He is tormented by the memory of his brother's death and because of this he has formed a hatred for white people. I feel this is Baldwin's way of demonstrating to his readers that black America is justified in feeing the pain, suffering and hate brought about by a racist white…

    • 1029 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    James Baldwin accomplished things when he wrote “Sonny’s Blues—not only is the story a memoir of the lives of African Americans in Harlem in the 1950’s but also a story about the struggles and decisions that affect family and brotherhood. Harlem, the setting, traps the African Americans who call it home; it traps them in a life of poverty, crime, and anger. Two brothers choose very different paths: the narrator becomes a respectable teacher whose goal is to assimilate into a white society, and the other is a jazz musician, a heroin addict, also hooked on a life of crime, who turns to music to find himself and connect to his community and heritage. Baldwin depicts the plight of African American men in the urban communities through such themes…

    • 1595 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Music is a powerful language which speaks to us, move us, and fills us with emotions. In “Sonny’s Blues”, the voice of jazz reflects the relationship between two brothers. The unnamed narrator who represents one of the one of the sides of the African American experience. Sonny the titular character of the story, Sonny represents the other side of the African American experience. In “Sonny’s Blues” we find an important description of how a musician can express his feeling through his music.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Racism In Sonny's Blues

    • 1163 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Drugs, crime, unemployment, crowded living conditions, and segregation infested early 20th century Harlem. Many of which still remain today. All of these hardships in 20th century Harlem are excellently described in Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin. Baldwin shows us what African American people went through in Harlem.…

    • 1163 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night. ”(Ginsberg, Allen: Howl). ‘Beats’ are characterized as individuals who desire to instigate change and deeply believe in their convictions. After World War 2 ideas of nationalism and the fabrication of the American dream was produced to be marked to the masses, which encroached upon as well as went against the Beats concept of freedom, lifestyle and manner of existence within society. The Beats did not want to break the system, within which society existed upon,…

    • 1812 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During this essay, the two books and the essay have the common theme where the teenagers are lacking either academic skills or socialize skills component for the real world because the lack of experience and knowledge compared to the previous generation either knowledge or career wise and they have being a burden for the society or for the teenager’s parent and they are minor affected the technology. The two essay and the movie that would demonstrate this point are “Ivory tower blues” written by James E. and “Ivy league” written by Lauren Cassani Davis and the movie is “Generation boomerang” and source was from CBC. Many university have lowered their standards in order to have teenagers to apply to their school, due to the lack of knowledge and the level of knowledge that the student have in this decade have dramatically decreases comparing to the previous generation. With the two essay and the movie, they all have a common thing where they notice how the academic level have been dropped down with the lack amount of work and how the teacher have been giving less work to the student because the teacher knows that the only thing that students care is about the marks and therefore the teacher gives less work and this way, both the student gets the high…

    • 1126 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On Blues Music

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Blues have been around for a long time. In fact, “the blues flourished from African American folk music, such as work songs, spirituals, and the field hollers of slaves” (Music Pg. 357). The exact time frame in which blues music originated is unknown. However, during the 1980s blues music was gaining popularity in rural areas of the south. Blues music speaks to the soul and heart.…

    • 504 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays