History:
- "So What" appeared on Miles' album "Kind of Blue" released in 1959
- The album included jazz all-stars: Bill Evans (piano), Jimmy Cobb (piano), John Coltrane (sax), Julian "Cannonball" Adderley (Sax), and Paul Chambers (bass)
- Miles handed his musicians just small sketches of some chords and scales before taping
- One track, "Flamenco Sketches", was finalized in the first take
- This was a pivotal stretch of album releases for Miles Davis and the jazz culture because it was a shift away from hard-bop (fast and technically demanding) to a more harmonically rich modal sound
Factoids:
- Miles Davis (1926 - 1991) composed "So What"
- "So What" was revolutionary in the fact that the main melody is given to the bassist. The bass was previously thought as just an instrument to outline chord progressions through a walking bass line, not a melodic tool
- is written in the Dorian mode - AABA form
- 16 bars of D Dorian, followed by 8 bars of Eb Dorian, then another 8 of D Dorian
- Miles Davis often faced his back towards the audience when playing - he had a certain presence that went unmatched
click HERE to go to a page that has an audio clip and free transcription of his improv in "So What"
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