Miles Davis Kind Of Blue Essay

Discuss place and how James Baldwin uses elements of setting to convey Sonny’s Blues’ larger message or theme.

Although I enjoyed the concert, it was very different than how I normally think of jazz. It sounded as if they're playing could've been improvisatory. Although I know that's not the case, at many parts it felt like there were three musicians playing separate pieces that didn't go together. It felt very free, and possibly purposely made to be unique. As they announced titles, they would indicate where the song comes from. Sometimes, they would indicate one of their band members and sometimes it would their version of someone else's song, such as their song “The Robots.” You can see the personalities of the musicians as they play and in their songs. The drummer, Dave King, wrote one of their songs “Keep the Bugs Off Your Glass and The Bears Off Your Ass” and was the most freestyle player. He seemed to have fun, and looked like he was completely free as he played. After relistening to the songs at a later point, I can confirm that not just his playing, but the entire song wasn’t exactly the same, which leads me to believe they do a lot of freestyle typical in jazz. Specifically, Dave King was very humorous throughout the concert. He would tell jokes the entire time between songs, and told a story about his big dream to give out ice cream at their concerts one day. Out of all of them, his personality and playing shined out the most. The performance showed clear elements of jazz and popular music as they played, using syncopation, freestyle, and melodies to musically communicate with the

The story “Sonny’s Blues” By James Baldwin is about a jazz musician and his brother in 1950’s Harlem. The story centers on Sonny who uses jazz music as an escape from his depression. James Baldwin captures the art of jazz during this time period. The themes in this short story are perhaps varied, but all of them revolve around some form of suffering. One theme shows how music can promote change and understanding within relationships. A second theme reveals suffering caused by guilt. Yet another theme references the results of suffering brought about by searching for ones’ identity and how that leads to misunderstanding. There are also subthemes concerning racism and poverty.

It created the new sound of Miles Davis that moved away from Bebop, and more towards unheard of genres of music. In August of 1959 Davis’ success continued with the release of his most successful album, Kind of Blue. This album went on to earn quadruple-platinum success, and to be the best-selling jazz album of all time.

As Bryan Crable notes, Burke and Ellison had the closest intellectual and social relationship when Burke was writing A Rhetoric of Motives—and, I would add, when Ellison was writing Invisible Man. Crable points out that the Rhetoric is “the only one of Burke’s books to cite Ellison,” in large part because Ellison’s 1945 essay “Richard Wright’s Blues” (which called Wright’s just-released memoir Black Boy “a nonwhite intellectual’s statement of his relationship to western culture” that illuminates a “conflicting pattern of identification and rejection” à la Joyce, Nehru, and Dostoyevsky) had a major influence on Burke “only one month into serious work on his now-canonical text” (“Blues” 263–64, Crable 47–48). The claim that the friendship was important for both Burke and Ellison is certainly true, intervening in a longstanding scholarly conversation on the Burkean influences apparent in Invisible Man (and other works of Ellison’s) that paid little attention to the ways in which Ellisonian ideas in fact inspired Burke’s work as well. Even with this helpful addition of Crable’s, though, the scholarly consensus seems to suggest that Ellison employed Burke’s philosophies of literary form in his composition of Invisible Man, while Burke developed his “thoughts on the rhetorical dimensions of race” based on Ellison’s insights about the conflicts between “individual identity” and “racial identity” (Crable 47–48). All of this is correct, but its understanding of the Burke-Ellison

The Sam Davis Home is significant to American History because it was home to a Civil War soldier by the name of Sam Davis. Sam Davis joined the Confederate Army at the young age of eighteen, early in the war between the states. Due to his loyalty, integrity, and knowledge of Middle Tennessee, his commanding officer chose him to serve with E.C. Coleman’s scouts. Coleman relied on youthful men who were familiar with the Middle Tennessee area to move across enemy borders and into the hands of Confederate leaders. This was dangerous for the men, for the Union troops were capturing as many scouts as possible.

Born in Alton, Illinois, Miles Davis grew up in a middle-class family in East St. Louis. Miles Davis took up the trumpet at the age of 13 and was playing professionally two years later. Some of his first gigs included performances with his high school bandand playing with Eddie Randall and the blue Devils. Miles Davis has said that the greatest musical experience of his life was hearing the Billy Eckstine orchestra when it passed through St. Louis. In September 1944 Davis went to New York to study at Juilliard but spend much more time hanging out on 52nd Street and eventually dropped out of school. He moved from his home in East St. Louis to New York primarily to enter school but also to locate his musical idol,

In the story of “Sonny’s Blues,” by Baldwin, the beginning of the story finds Sonny’s brother on his way to work reading about Sonny’s predicament. Sonny got arrested for “peddling and using heroin.” He didn’t want to believe that his brother was in trouble. While teaching his algebra class he was thinking about the past. He remembered when he first suspected his Sonny of using Heroin. He was always under the impression that Sonny was, “wild, but he wasn’t crazy. And he’d always been a good boy.” So he refused to believe that his brother was in trouble and needed him.

Born on May 26, 1926, Miles Davis is considered to be one of the most influential jazz musicians in history. Being a trumpeter, keyboardist, composer, and band-leader, Miles is responsible for the popularization of many styles of jazz throughout his long and prolific career.

     Jazz music is often associated with long, lazy melodies and ornate rhythmical patterns. The Blues, a type of jazz, also follows this similar style. Langston Hughes' poem, "The Weary Blues," is no exception. The sound qualities that make up Hughes' work are intricate, yet quite apparent. Hughes' use of consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and rhyme in "The Weary Blues" gives the poem a deep feeling of sorrow while, at the same time, allows the reader to feel as if he or she is actually listening to the blues sung by the poem's character.

The last song on the set list was called “Talk About It”. The texture was very thick because all the instruments were playing over

‘The Color Purple’ is a novel about women supporting women and the roles that Shug, Nettie, and Sophia play in Celie’s life and the effect it had on Celie throughout the story. The other female characters in Celie’s world change her life. The positive influence of women starts when Celie is young and defenseless and scared when she is taken away by Mr.__ until the end when she is free but also a strong and confident woman that knows who she really is and her feelings and emotions.

Jazz improvisation is considered different from other genres because of its high level of chordal complexity. Since “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis was released jazz improvisation has to deal with modal harmony and improvisation over vital centers. The emergence of free jazz has opened up a much wider variety of jazz improvisation such as ‘’free blowing’’ in which soloists improve freely and ignore the chord changes.

When music enthusiasts or even music novices such as myself think of the blues, thoughts of hardship, adversity, and regret rush to mind. An individual loses his or her job, they get the blues. A close relative passes away, you feel the blues. Indeed, blues music is all too often associated with trials and tribulations. Yet, the blues itself seemingly encompasses much more than simply a sense of misery and unhappiness. Rather, the blues more so embodies overcoming hardship, moving past adversity, hoping for a better tomorrow, and invoking a sense of genuine emotion. In fact, As Elijah Wald states in “The Blues: A Very Short Introduction,” the blues should be thought of in emotional, musical, cultural, or even commercial terms (Wald, 7). To me, however, the blues is a passionate medium of expression, feeling and message that addresses subjects on race and class. Love, emotion, and sexuality were subjects that blues artists commonly decided to incorporate into lyrics. Yet, what was the true motivation behind this transcendent line of music?

Since this film was mainly about jazz piano styles, Chick Corea talked about Jazz’s earliest form, ragtime, and then went into the development of stride piano. He also mentioned key contributors to the complex jazz style bebop.