Miles Davis piece "Solar"

[Jack Pine]

Well, I can't deny I have a 'rich inner life' and certainly could have fabricated the overt connection in my mind. I also used to have a habit of falling asleep to Phil Schaap, so until I can prove that I did not get this idea from him, that's what I'm going with.

[JSngry]

One could well make a stronger case for "Tune Up" being related to HHTM, if one really wanted to make cases at all. Its tonics move down in whole steps, which is more or less the point of HHTM, right? At least it is until it isn't, LOL.

One can be clever and easily interpolate one into the other, if one has that type of inclination. But is it really relevant to much of anything?

I would love to defer to The Quotesmaster General, Dexter Gordon, but he ain't here no more.

[Jack Pine]

55 minutes ago, JSngry said:

One could well make a stronger case for "Tune Up" being related to HHTM, if one really wanted to make cases at all. Its tonics move down in whole steps, which is more or less the point of HHTM, right? At least it is until it isn't, LOL.

One can be clever and easily interpolate one into the other, if one has that type of inclination. But is it really relevant to much of anything?

I would love to defer to The Quotesmaster General, Dexter Gordon, but he ain't here no more.

Sure, my cleverness is finite and perhaps waning, so I'll have to refocus it now on my calypso arrangement of 'A Walk In The Black Forest', speaking of relevant. My brain is kind of hurting now from hours of trying to cram two these songs together with increasing fervency, to prove... something. Time well enough spent though, the closer I look at Solar the hipper it becomes.

[JSngry]

22 hours ago, JSngry said:

Otherwise, 16 vs 32 bar, and cadences moving in different intervals.

Inactivity has not stood me well in this regard - as Mark notes, "Solar" is indeed a 12 bar form.

Which, actually...moving as it does from an opening C (minor) to an F (major) tonality, makes one wonder if Wayne was not writing a cleverly suggested blues form that really isn't a blues?!?!?!

Cm/Cm/Gmin7/C7

Fmaj7/Fmaj7/Fmin7/Bb7

Eb/Dm7-G7/Cm/Dmb5-G7

Clever and crafty both!

 

 

[Gheorghe]

16 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

The commonalities are that the changes are the same in bars three through eight. In concert pitch: G minor 7/C7/ F major/ F major/F minor 7/ B-flat 7.  From here they diverge, with Solar going to E-flat major and Ornithology (How High the Moon) going to E-flat 7 -- though the common root keeps an illusion of similarity for another bar. Of course, Solar is a 12-bar form and Ornithology/How High the Moon is 32 bars (16 + 16) and the songs have completely different characters, especially in Miles' version where he leans into misterioso implications of the opening melodic phrase by emphasizing the sound of a minor chord with a major 7th. And the overlap of the changes for those six bars is also simply a common harmonic formula that appears all the time -- a ii-V-I sequence moving down in whole steps as the major chord becomes a minor on the same root to start the cycle again. The A sections of John Lewis' Afternoon in Paris employ the same idea, though the changes there move twice as fast. 

When Wayne conceived of what we now call Solar, Ornithology/How High the Moon was ubiquitous.  I have no idea if it was a conscious decision or intuitive decision for Wayne to create a harmonic scheme that winks at the changes everyone was playing nightly at the time -- did anyone ever ask him? -- but I have no doubt that once he wrote it, he was aware that a connection existed. 

That´s my idea of a perfect analysis. 

As you write it, it´s totally clear, it´s only that I play faster than I´d name the chords, 
Yes, from bars three to eight.
As I said, I just play it automatically how it flows, like let´s say you talk without having to look into a dictionary.

Besides that, if something is composed and usually played in a certain key, if I have to play it in another key it´s practically another tune for me, like if something is red and something else is green. So I think, keys are colours for me, I can´t explain it better. 

And yes: "Afternoon in Paris" is a wonderful tune and really employs the same idea. Very easy to play, such a great simple tune. 

The idea of composing on certain changes where they run twice as fast, is a very interesting one. I recently played Eddie Lockjaw´s "Hey Lock" and it has the A section based on Body and Soul, but twice as fast (the B section is from "Lover" ). 

[Mark Stryker]

On 1/27/2023 at 2:10 AM, Gheorghe said:

That´s my idea of a perfect analysis. 

As you write it, it´s totally clear, it´s only that I play faster than I´d name the chords, 
Yes, from bars three to eight.
As I said, I just play it automatically how it flows, like let´s say you talk without having to look into a dictionary.

Besides that, if something is composed and usually played in a certain key, if I have to play it in another key it´s practically another tune for me, like if something is red and something else is green. So I think, keys are colours for me, I can´t explain it better. 

And yes: "Afternoon in Paris" is a wonderful tune and really employs the same idea. Very easy to play, such a great simple tune. 

The idea of composing on certain changes where they run twice as fast, is a very interesting one. I recently played Eddie Lockjaw´s "Hey Lock" and it has the A section based on Body and Soul, but twice as fast (the B section is from "Lover" ). 

Thanks for the kind words.

[Daniel A]

"Sonny" seems to be in Db (if the speed is correct). FWIW, it starts on a DbMaj7. 

Edited January 28, 2023 by Daniel A