Davis Dam

Cameron Davidson Associate Professor Karen Werner Music of America 28 September 2015 Paper #1: R. Carlos Nakai and Native American Music The field of Native American music is an interesting one. For myself, I have never heard much Native American music, but I have seen the rituals and dances that they perform in movies, most of them in history classes in my past. There is one person that I had never heard of before taking Music of America. That man is R. Carlos Nakai. He relates to the field…

McLaughlin & Miles Davis Go Ahead John is an excerpt from Miles Davis’s cool jazz double album The Big Fun. Album consists of many tracks that were not included in Miles’ previous studio albums and one of those “rejects” was this piece of beauty. Originally recorded on March 7, 1970, Go Ahead John is brought to life by many musicians like Miles Davis on trumpet, Steve Grossman on the soprano saxophone, John McLaughlin with his electric guitar and Jack DeJonette on the drums. Miles Davis, the…

infant boy delivered there, one that would grow up to be stunningly talented, charismatic and versatile. Miles Davis, son of Cleota and Miles Dewey Davis Junior, began his life in Illinois, but the average life in an average town had nothing for him. He played professionally even before he graduated high school, but the gig he found on his home turf simply were not enough. At 18, Miles Dewey Davis III left his middle-class home and comfortable life for an uncertain future in New York City. The…

Music has always been world music, it’s not just old concert pieces from dead men of the past. Here we like to think of world music as music from outside the United States, but in other countries we become the other people, we become the world music to them or at least part of it. My dad when I was growing up listened to a lot of jazz. He grew up in south Louisiana, moved to north Louisiana and then finally moved to Texas, so he grew up in a culture of jazz. We always had some kind of it playing…

Frankie Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra a actor/singer from Hoboken, New Jersey, started off with nothing but a ukulele and his back yard, to bright lights and all the fame a man could want. (“Frank Sinatra Biography”) Frank Sinatra was a mastermind when it came to singing and acting, he was one of the most famous men in the world. He was called the “Swing Eras” (1935-1946) best singer and actor (“Frank Sinatra Biography Film Actor, Singer”). Frank Sinatra was known by everyone back then, everyone…

The song “Flamenco Sketches” by the Miles Davis Sextet has the cool jazz sound with the modal jazz style. The song has a light and soft sound with simple melodic improvisations. A traditional rhythm section maintains a steady rhythm throughout the song, but this rhythm section uses countermelodies to add colorations during the improvisations. The pianist is constantly playing a soft melody underneath the improvisations and sometimes mirroring the melody played by the improviser. The bassist…

Trumpeter-composer Wadada Leo Smith owns an inimitable avant-jazz voice and an out-of-the-box creativity that is patented throughout a prolific career. If last year he delighted me twice with A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke (duo record with pianist Vijay Iyer) and America’s National Park, this year he strikes again with another couple of powerful albums, Solo Reflections and Meditations on Monk and Najwa, the object of this review and a bow to major American jazz artists. The album’s acute bite…

Charlie Parker’s Ill-Fated West Coast Trip Charlie “Bird” Parker is one of the most iconic figures not only in the modern jazz history, but also in the jazz history overall. Charlie Parker had an extraordinary melodic gift and regularly created solos that consisted of ling-lined melodies, each of which was elegant improvised composition unto itself. This gained a wide following among jazz musicians and greatly influenced the Jazz community in the iconic shift is music. Parker’s self-destructive…

was considered more emotional and had a harder drive to the music. As in bebop, there was a large focus on improvisation. A few of the pioneers in hard bop were Art Blakey playing drums, Horace Silver on piano, Sonny Rollins playing saxophone, Miles Davis playing trumpet, and John Coltrane playing tenor saxophone. Some differences between hard bop and bebop are that the melodies are much simpler and more soulful; there is a looser feel in the rhythm section with the bassist not limited to the…

are a number of extremely influential jazz musicians over the years, but I argue to say that the most influential of them were trumpet players. I believe that the most influential trumpet jazz players were Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Milles Davis and Roy Eldridge. These four artists were all musically gifted and were involved in the early days of jazz, where each of them innovated and influence the evolution of jazz. Dizzy Gillespie was one of American’s greatest jazz trumpeters in the…