Jazz Ballad: Miles Davis Style

Hi Guys,

Welcome to my lesson No. 71

This lesson is about Miles Davis' style!


Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in his five-decade career which kept him at the forefront of a number of major stylistic developments in jazz.[1]

Born and raised in Illinois, Davis left his studies at The Juilliard School in New York City and made his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from 1944 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records but did so haphazardly due to a heroin addiction. After a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records and recorded the 1957 album 'Round About Midnight.[2] It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers, key members of the sextet he led into the early 1960s. During this period, he alternated between orchestral jazz collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, such as the Spanish-influenced Sketches of Spain (1960), and band recordings, such as Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959).[3] The latter recording remains one of the most popular jazz albums of all time,[4] having sold over four million copies in the U.S. (Wikipedia)

In this little music piece I tried to emulate the great trumpet style of Miles Davis by using loooong notes with vibrato, slides and Some whang bar tricks.

The structure of the Jam track:

A Part 0:00-0:32
| Bm7 | % | Bm6 | % |
| Gmaj7 | % | C79 | F#7#5|

B Part 0:33-1:03
| Bm7 | % | G#m7b5 | % |
| Gmaj7 | % | C#m7 | F#7#5|
| A/B | B B7#5 |

C Part 1:04-1:23
| Em7 | % | F 7 | % |
| C#m7 | C7 |

Outro 1:24-1:30
| Bm7 | % |


Have fun! ;-)

Final words

I tried to transcribe as close as possible. Specially in the Guitar Pro file you'll find all this little extras!

Cheers - Guido

Technical specifications
Guitar: Music Man Luke II
Strings: Elixir Optiweb Strings
Audio Interface: Focusrite Saffire PRO 24
Recording SW: Logic Pro X, several plugins


Kemper Profiling Amp: Bogner XTC (merged)
Matrix GT1000FX with Marshall 2x12" V30 (for monitoring)

The profiles are available for purchase here:
http://www.guidorist.com/en/product-category/kemper-amp-profiles/


Standard Tuning E, A, D, G, B, E

Tempo: 75 BPM