JS 570I Topics in Jazz Theory & Analysis: Parker & Davis
In Topics in Jazz Theory and Analysis: Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, students explore the compositions and improvisations of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and their collaborators. Students are introduced to the literature on jazz theory and analysis, which provides models for the student’s own analyses and interpretations. The class is not only an opportunity for acquiring an understanding of the music of Parker and Davis through transcription and analysis, but also a platform for putting the theory into practice: students learn to play solos and then apply harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic ideas mined from the solos creatively to their own compositions and improvisations. In Unit I, students study the recordings of Parker’s Great Quintet, which feature Miles Davis and Max Roach. Interpreting the harmonic and rhythmic structures of solos and accompaniments in recordings such as “Ko Ko,” “Donna Lee,” “Embraceable You,” and “Anthropology,” among others, establishes the groundwork for understanding more elaborate musical processes in Davis’s First and Second Great Quintets, the aim of Units II and III. In Unit II, students learn about different early approaches to modal improvisation by comparing solos of Davis, Coltrane, Adderley, Garland, and Evans from the albums Milestones and Kind of Blue. In Unit III, the course culminates in an investigation of innovative improvisational strategies and structures in all of Davis’s 1965-1968 studio recordings: E. S. P., Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, and Filles de Kilimanjaro. Students read an award-winning book on Davis’s Second Great Quintet by author and pianist Keith Waters who will also be giving a guest lecture. Coursework comprises weekly reading, response papers, transcription, analysis, creative application, and performance/composition assignments, as well as individual midterm and final presentation projects.