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About the Track

The first sounds you hear on the greatest jazz album ever recorded. Also the first sounds you hear on… this.

Early plans for this album included a full rendition of “So What” including solo sections performed in the styles of various popular songs, but ultimately it didn’t seem to fit. I didn’t want the effort I had put into transcribing the opening piano/bass duet to waste though, and I realized it worked on its own as a brief intro track.

Fans of Dave King will recognize the Happy Apple.

Music Theory Notes

This is my own direct transcription of the (presumably) improvised introduction to “So What” played by Bill Evans (piano) and Paul Chambers (bass).

Instrumentation

Keys:
Yamaha Reface CP electric piano
Bass:
Squier 5-string Jazz Bass
Percussion:
Happy Apple

Miles’ Version

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About the Track

“81,” or “Eighty-One” as it was originally designated, is the second track on Miles’ E.S.P. album. It’s my favorite track on that album, and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to play it. Over the past few years I’ve become keenly aware of opportunities to create mashups of classic jazz with newer rock songs with my band 32nd Street Jazz. Somewhere in the early preparations for this project, it occurred to me that “81” might be compatible with one of my favorite Radiohead tracks, “Everything in its Right Place.”

When I put them together, I realized that not only is it possible to seamlessly transition between the two (as I do in the initial statement of the head here), but it is possible to create a true mashup: the head from “81” can be played directly over the changes from the chorus of “Everything in its Right Place” (shifted into 4/4) with no alterations — not even a key change!

I was originally intending to play the melody on tenor sax, not soprano. In fact I even recorded an entire tenor sax track. But in the end I was not happy with my tone, or with my solo, so I got out the soprano and recorded a new take, which seemed to fit much better.

Music Theory Notes

“81” is a modified 12-bar blues, built on a series of sus4 chords. My interpretation leans heavily into the final D♭Δ7♭5/F chord, which appears only in the first time through the changes in the original recording. (It is indicated in The Real Book Volume One, but is not in The Miles Davis Real Book. And of course, anything in The Real Book needs to be taken with a grain of salt anyway, but since I’m not going for 100% faithful interpretations, I’m using it freely as a jumping off point for my ideas throughout the album.)

“Everything in its Right Place” is alternating measures of 4/4 and 6/4, with a chord progression of ascending major chords over a Phrygian mode scale. In the original recording of “81,” the head and most solos are played with straight 8ths; on the final chorus of each solo the feel switches to swing. In this version, the final chorus of each solo switches from “81” to “Everything in its Right Place.” After the solos, the “81” head melody/harmony lines are played over the “Everything in its Right Place” changes, in 4/4. This is my own loose transcription/interpretation by ear (and by memory) of the original. I’ve interpreted the chord progression as F | C | D♭Δ7 | E♭6 (major chords with an added C at the top across all four chords).

Solos on the blues sections were primarily played using minor pentatonic scales, except on the final diminished chord. Solos over the Radiohead changes were played in C Phrygian mode.

Instrumentation

Reeds:
Jupiter soprano sax
Yamaha bass clarinet
Keys:
Yamaha Reface CP electric piano
Yamaha Reface CS analog modeling synth
Bass:
Fender Precision Bass
Percussion:
SJC snare drum
Zildjian hi-hat
Meinl crash-ride cymbal
Meinl slaptop cajon
Eggz shaker

Miles’ Version

Radiohead’s Version

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About the Track

Filles de Kilimanjaro is probably my favorite album from the period in the late ’60s where Miles was transitioning from acoustic to electric instrumentation. I already recorded the title track for the original Northern Daydream album. I’ve been trying to develop my own interpretation of “Petits Machins,” and originally planned to record that song for this album, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Then “Tout de Suite” caught my ear, and I decided to record it instead.

The piano part in the head was especially challenging for me, as I am not a trained keyboardist. Although I’ve been reading music since I was in elementary school, I’ve never been trained to read music for a chordal instrument, and it’s just not something I’m able to do in real time. So I had to do my best to memorize sections and record the part in pieces… a secret that I could have kept were it not for the magical appearance and disappearance of my dog in the accompanying video! (Of course I often find that by working through this type of recording process, by the time I’m done I actually can play the piece straight through from memory, but by that point I already have it recorded in sections, so I rarely bother to go back and try it again!)

The solo section in this track exposes one of the challenges of trying to record a “jazz” album by yourself: the group interaction dynamic of an improv solo section. In general throughout the process, I first created MIDI guide tracks for each instrument part, so even from the very beginning, I was “playing along” with… something. Bass and keyboard parts were recorded first, then winds, and the percussion parts were added last, although of course all of the other parts had been played along with a pre-programmed beat.

For this song I actually planned a “drum solo” of sorts, but I wasn’t sure what form that would take, given my lack of depth as a drummer. Ultimately I settled on playing a repeating triplet pattern on the snare to match the electric piano, with random clinks and clunks on my various percussion gear in between. Not really a true drum solo, but hopefully something reasonably enjoyable to listen to.

Music Theory Notes

The head is in 3/4. On the original recording, the solo section goes into an open-feeling 4/4. In this version, the solo sections are technically in 4/4, but are played with a repeating pattern over two bars of 4/4, loosely based on a small section of the original as performed by Dave Holland (bass) and Tony Williams (drums), that feels more like three measures of 5/8, 6/8 and 5/8. My interpretation is mostly following The Miles Davis Real Book, with soprano sax playing the trumpet melody and my own (somewhat loose) transcription of Wayne Shorter’s original tenor sax harmony part taken by the bass clarinet.

On the original recording, the harmony in the solo sections is free, played over an F pedal in the bass. On this version the solos are played in F Lydian mode.

Instrumentation

Reeds:
Jupiter soprano sax
Yamaha bass clarinet
Keys:
Yamaha Reface CP electric piano
Bass:
Fender Precision Bass
Percussion:
SJC snare drum
Zildjian hi-hat
Meinl crash-ride cymbal
Meinl slaptop cajon
LP jamblock
LP cowbell

Miles’ Version

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About the Track

When I was in college in the mid-’90s, it was difficult to explore new (or “new to you”) music. The CD library at my college was predominantly “classical” music, there were no streaming services, and CDs were expensive if you didn’t have a job! So I was very selective in acquiring jazz CDs. The first two, and for a long time only two, Miles albums I owned, or had even heard, were Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew. Two very different albums, recorded a mere 10 years apart, but the two most striking and definitive statements in his very extensive catalog.

I knew that if I were to record an album of Miles Davis covers, Bitches Brew would have to be represented, not only because of its impact on the jazz world, but also its impact on my own musical world. In college I spent a lot of time with a friend from high school recording free-form improvisations. Our experiments were heavily shaped by Bitches Brew along with Sun Ra, and ’70s German “Krautrock” by bands such as Neu! and Can. You can hear elements of all of those influences in my version of “Bitches Brew,” including a brief descent into free-form chaos. (Cue the “Wilhelm scream.”)

Music Theory Notes

The “head” (such as it is) consists of a combination of details from The Miles Davis Real Book along with my own transcription of parts of Miles’ delay-drenched trumpet part, along with some improvisation. The bass clarinet line in the middle section is my own transcription of the original (presumably improvised) line played by Bennie Maupin, which is not represented at all in the sketchy Real Book version.

During the improv sections, the parts played in time are atonal in the keyboards. The soprano sax and bass clarinet improvise over an octatonic scale. In the free section, all bets are off.

Instrumentation

Reeds:
Jupiter soprano sax
Yamaha bass clarinet
Keys:
Yamaha Reface CP electric piano x2 (Wurlitzer with ring modulation effect; Rhodes with Leslie cabinet effect)
Bass:
Fender Precision Bass
Kala fretless ukulele bass
Percussion:
SJC snare drum
Zildjian hi-hat
Meinl crash-ride cymbal
Meinl slaptop cajon
LP bongo cajon
LP jamblock
LP cowbell
LP flexatone
LP vibraslap
LP one-handed triangle
Happy Apple
Samples:
Wilhelm scream

Miles’ Version

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About the Track

There are several Miles albums from the ’70s that I’ve been aware of for decades but have only just heard for the first time this year, now that I have unlimited access to them all with Spotify. The one that has grabbed my attention the most is, without a doubt, Big Fun. My favorite track on the album is the propulsive, relentless “Ife.” It’s clear why this track was relegated to a post-retirement collection of outtakes… early on there’s a spot where you can hear the bass and drums get out of phase, and the rhythm briefly collapses entirely. That unfortunate flub doesn’t take away from the inspired intensity of the rest of the track though.

Fortunately for me, recording solo in multiple passes, it was easy to avoid a similar breakdown. My version slightly modifies the bass pattern, although as with the original it’s still easy to misinterpret the pulse of the bass line outside of the context of the drum beat. As for the drum beat… well, I’m not much of a drummer, so I used this as an opportunity to work on my rudiments, playing a basic paradiddle pattern between the hi-hat and snare drum during the head.

Music Theory Notes

The head, including the sustained organ chords, is based on the transcription in The Miles Davis Real Book and seems to be faithful to the growling soprano sax and wah-wah trumpet rendition of the melody on the Big Fun version of the song. A section of one track on the Miles album Dark Magus is also identified as “Ife,” but it sounds completely different to me.

The original recording had no prescribed harmonic structure for the solo sections. In this recording, all improvisation is done over a whole tone scale. Fun fact: the “allowed” notes in the whole tone scale are identical for both concert pitch instruments (bass and keyboards) as well as B♭ instruments (soprano sax and bass clarinet).

Instrumentation

Reeds:
Jupiter soprano sax
Yamaha bass clarinet
Keys:
Yamaha Reface YC combo organ
Yamaha Reface CP electric piano
Yamaha Reface CS analog modeling synth
Bass:
Fender Precision Bass (with fuzz/wah effects)
Percussion:
SJC snare drum
Zildjian hi-hat
Meinl crash-ride cymbal
Meinl slaptop cajon
LP bongo cajon
LP jamblock
LP cowbell
Eggz shaker
LP tambourine

Miles’ Version

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