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259
R.N.F. Pinheiro: Freedom in Music, Freedom in Life:
Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
IRASM 51 (2020) 2: 259-273
Freedom in Music, Freedom
in Life: Miles Davis,
Stella
By Starlight
, Harmony, and
the Advent of the Second
Great Quintet
Ricardo Nuno Futre
Pinheiro
Escola Superior de Música
de Lisboa
Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa
Campus de Benfica do
1500-651 LISBON
Portugal
UDC: 78.036.9Davis, M.
781.65:342.727
Original Scholarly Paper
Izvorni znanstveni rad
Received: 14 February 2020
Primljeno: 14. veljače 2020.
Accepted: 1 September 2020
Prihvaćeno: 1. rujna 2020.
Abstract - Résumé
Jazz, power and freedom are
historically closely associated.
The word Jazz carries »(...)
numerous ‛messages’ contain-
ing many attitudes and princi-
ples, playing a crucial role as an
instrument of dissemination of
political viewpoints« (Pinheiro,
2015). With this article, I intend
to discuss the association
between the concepts of
freedom in improvisation, social
freedom, and the musical
processes developed by Miles
Davis and his quintet in the
1960s. The main goal of this
paper, departing from Afro-
Modernist and Afrological
perspectives (Ramsey 2003,
Lewis 2000, Magee 2007) that
point out the relevance of social
phenomena over musical style
and aesthetics in the study of
African-American improvisatory
practices, is to identify the
flexibility in the harmonic
approach developed by the
Miles Davis Quintet in the 1964
version of Stella by Starlight
and to reveal associations
between freedom in the
improvisational process and
freedom as a social relation
(Steiner 1994).1
Keywords: Jazz • Miles
Davis • Freedom • Race
•
Stella By Starlight
•
Performance
Introduction1
Music analysis and the social phenomena that
affect and are affected by musical processes often
appeared dissociated in jazz studies. Robert Walser
(1993) criticizes established analytical approaches
that spring from traditional musicological methods
and shows their inadequacy in terms of contributing
towards a deep understanding of the musical, social,
political and racial implications which music articu-
lates.2 According to Walser:
Musical analysts need to confront the challenges of si-
gnifyin’, the real-life dialogic flux of meaning, never
groundable in a foundationalist epistemology, but
always grounded in a web of social practices, histories
and desires. Modernism and classicism can not take us
into notes, where the choices and details signify, nor
out of notes, onto that risky rhetorical terrain Miles
Davis never stopped exploring (Walser, 1993, 360).
1 Also see Oppenheim (2004).
2 Also see Pinheiro (2011).
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IRASM 51 (2020) 2: 259-273
R.N.F. Pinheiro: Freedom in Music, Freedom in Life:
Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
Even though Walser analyses Miles Davis’ My Funny Valentine interpretation
from the same 1964 concert in the light of signifying and criticizes the predomi-
nance of »classicizing strategies for legitimating jazz«3 (Walser, 1993, 347), other
authors like Brofsky (1997) followed the established use of »tools of the tradi-
tional analysis to the transcriptions« (Brofsky, 1997, p. 153). According to Walser:
But overall, academics (and some jazz musicians) seem increasingly drawn to what I
will call »classicizing« strategies for legitimating jazz. Now, it seems natural enough
that people who are trying to win more respect for the music they love should do so
by making comparisons with the most prestigious music around, classical music. But
the price of classicism is always loss of specificity, just as it has been the price of the
canonic coherence of European concert music (the disparate sounds of many centu-
ries, many peoples, many functions, many meanings all homogenized and made
interchangeably ‘great’). Too often, jazz education and scholarship mimic the elitist
moral crusade that created the cannon of classical music in the last half of the nine-
teenth century (Walser, 1993, 347).
With this article I intend to relate harmonic analysis with »meanings within
the context of performance, which shape and are shaped by the cultural and his-
toric traditions of jazz« (Pinheiro 2012).4
Miles Davis in the Early 1960s
In the beginning of the 1960s, Miles Davis’ career was at a turning point.
After the release of the seminal Kind of Blue (1959) and Sketches of Spain (1960)
recordings (Nisenson 2000), saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adder-
ley, and pianist Bill Evans went on to pursue solo careers, forcing Davis to
reorganize his ensemble (Giddins and DeVeaux 2009). In 1963, 37 years old and
with a prolific career as a leading figure in the bebop, hard-bop, cool jazz, third
stream and modal jazz realms, Miles Davis gathered a new group of young musi-
cians: Herbie Hancock on piano, Tony Williams on drums, Ron Carter on bass
and George Coleman on tenor saxophone.
With a new quintet – that became historically known as the Second Great
Quintet after Wayne Shorter joined the band in 19645 –, Miles Davis aspired to
develop new musical discourses that could bring fresh contributions to jazz.
According to Ashley Khan: »Davis sought ever more freedom from structure«
3 Also see Gabbard (1995) and Prouty (2010).
4 Also see the work of ethnomusicologists Ingrid Monson (1991, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999,
2000), and Travis Jackson (1998, 2000, 2002).
5 The recordings of the Second Great Quintet served as a model for the development of new
aesthetics of future generations of jazz musicians (Coleman, 2014).
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R.N.F. Pinheiro: Freedom in Music, Freedom in Life:
Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
(Kahn 2000, 186). Even though Davis was very critical about the aesthetics and
musical processes that guided the free jazz and avant-garde movements (Davis,
1990),6 the music of the Second Great Quintet featured the development of new
and looser approaches of musical interaction in the context of, at first, mostly
jazz standard repertoire,7 and after Shorter joined the band, mostly originals.
The standard repertoire, well known by the bandmembers, was played and
reconfigured repeatedly night after night, through the development of new,
free, and bold parameters of group improvisation such as: the absence of drums
or piano at certain moments of the performance and the subsequent reconfigu-
ration of the timekeeping role of instruments; loose interpretation of melodies;
ambiguity of form, rhythm and harmony; exploration of contrasting moods,
textures, tempos and grooves during the same piece; the use of free improvisa-
tion; and the constant reharmonization of standard harmonies. According to
Miles Davis (1990):
The music we did together changed every fucking night; if you heard it yesterday, it
was different tonight. Even we didn’t know where it was all going to. But we did
know it was going somewhere else and that it was probably going to be hip (…).
(Davis 1990, 278).
One of the driving forces of this group was seventeen-year-old drummer
Tony Williams. According to Davis (1990):
He changed the way we played every night and played different tempos for every
sound every night. Man, to play with Tony Williams you had to be real alert and pay
attention to everything he did or he’d lose you in a second, and you’d just be out of
tempo and time and sound real bad (…) All of this from a seventeen-year–old who
nobody had heard of before the beginning of the year (…) nobody ever played as well
with me as Tony did (Davis 1990, 264).
In order to illustrate some of the new parameters developed in the context of
the Quintet’s improvisation process, I will compare the harmony of Stella By
Starlight played by the Miles Davis Sextet in 1958 (released in ’58 Miles (1974),
featuring John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley (who doesn’t play in this piece),
Bill Evans, Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers8) with the one played by the early
6 Despite Miles Davis’s criticism, according to Coleman (2014), »In their immersed and energetic
playing, their kinetic group dynamic, and unrestricted expressivity, the change in Davis’s ‘Second
Quintet’ artistic direction can be unmistakably attributed to the innovations of the jazz avant-garde«
(Coleman, 2014, 142).
7 For a definition of jazz standard, see Pinheiro (2012).
8 https://open.spotify.com/album/4AaShKN3kdmQf53riBsYpi?si=k0Bf5cKBT6W3w5ckW2HWOA
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R.N.F. Pinheiro: Freedom in Music, Freedom in Life:
Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
Second Great Quintet in 1964 (released in The Complete Concert [1992]9, featuring
George Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams and Ron Carter10).
Stella By Starlight
Stella by Starlight is a famous jazz piece composed by Victor Young with lyrics
by Ned Washington that appeared originally in Lewis Allan’s 1944 film, The
Uninvited. In this movie, part of the song is played in the key of D on solo piano
(with no lyrics). Even though the structure of the tune is conventional in terms of
the number of bars (32 bars), the form is unusual for a Tin Pan Alley song. The
lack of the expected repetition of the first eight bars starting on measure nine
exposes, according to Ted Gioia (2012), the »through-composed misdirection«
character of the piece. Actually, the first 16 bars don´t repeat either (a typical
feature in ABAC or AA’ structure jazz standard tunes). A two-bar partial
recapitulation of the main theme comes as late as bar twenty-five, but the harmony
resolves in the first degree of the key coming from a different route than that of
the initial eight bar progression.
Even though the harmony of the piece has been prone to many different
harmonic adaptations (for example, the first chord that is heard in The Uninvited
is a D diminished, but many versions of the song start with a #IV-7b5 chord11),
Chet Baker’s recorded version (Chet Baker Sextet, 1954) sets the standard for the
most commonly used chord progression12 (see example 1 on pp. 269-70).
The 1958 and the 1964 Miles Davis’ Versions of Stella By Starlight
The 1958 Miles Davis’ recording of Stella By Starlight stars with a short piano
intro and a Bb bass drone, followed by the melody, accompanied by the whole
band in a two-feel brushes groove. As for the Complete Concert version, the perform-
ance starts with a solo piano intro,13 followed by a trumpet-piano duo in rubato
that lasts until the end of the eighth bar. In this version, Miles Davis opts to play
without a mute, contrarily to what happens in the 1958 version. Herbie Hancock
plays freely using arpeggios and broken chords, giving room to Davis’s spaced
9 Columbia Records first released the music recorded at this concert in two separate albums: My
Funny Valentine: Miles Davis in Concert (1965) and Four & More Recorded Live in Concert (1966).
10 https://open.spotify.com/track/1oVSfu0tdvPF3cKO2A2MKZ?si=zsBhk6CRSsKu5Nua613heA
11 With the exception of Harry James (1947), Frank Sinatra (1947), Charlie Parker (1995, recorded
in 1950), Bud Powell (1955, recorded in 1954), Nat King Cole (1956, recorded in 1955). Stan Getz (1952)
and Chet Baker (1954) use #IV-7b5.
12 Baker (1954) plays the piece in G, but the most frequently used key is Bb.
13 E-7b5(nat9), A7alt, D-7b5(nat9), G7alt, BbMaj7.
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Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
Example 1 – Harmony Stella by Starlight as played
by Chet Baker in Chet Baker Sextet (1954).
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Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
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R.N.F. Pinheiro: Freedom in Music, Freedom in Life:
Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
and restrained rendition of the melody, creating a dramatic setting to the perform-
ance. The abstract character of the 1964 version is also noticeable after the eighth
bar due to the sparse accompaniment of the drums (with brushes), bass and piano
and the slow tempo that lasts until the end of the piece (even though the rhythm
section resorts to different rhythmic feels and styles of groove). Due to the richness
and complexity of this performance, many other musical and interactive nuances
could be discussed here (e.g. free choice of particular grooves, textures, and rhyth-
mic aspects of comping). However, our goal is to focus on the harmonic features
of this rendition and the elasticity to introduce new chords and nuances, as the
harmony plays a key role in terms of the freedom musicians have in the construc-
tion process of the performance, in comparison to previous Miles Davis’ interpre-
tations of the same piece.
In the following example (Example 2 on p. 272), the chord progression used
in 1964 appears in the top staff.
The harmony played in the 1958 version of Stella By Starlight doesn’t change
throughout out the piece. The chord structure follows the tonal character of the
Chet Baker 1954 version, with few exceptions: the use of a Bb pedal in the fifth bar,
the II-V to the key of F in the twelfth bar, the E-7b5 chord in the fourteenth bar,
and the Eb Major chord in the fifteenth bar. The structure of the arrangement is
fairly standard as well: a short piano intro, one chorus of melody on the trumpet
(two-feel with brushes), one chorus of melody with variations on the saxophone
(walking bass with sticks), half chorus of block chord piano solo (two-feel with
brushes) and half chorus of melody re-exposition on trumpet.
Even though the harmonic approach of the 1958 version is deeply rooted in a
previously established canon, there are also some interesting connecting features
between this rendition and the 1964 one. The sound of the natural ninth of the E-7b5
(G-Maj7/E) is already noticeable in Bill Evans’s comping (on the first and fourteenth
bars, for example), as well as the alternation between rhythmic feels during the
piece (despite the fact that in the 1964 version, these changes are more extreme and
surprising, especially in terms of the place on the form where they occur).
According to Example 2, in the 1964 version we can frequently hear E-9 to
A713, instead of the standard II-7b5 - V7b9 to the third degree of the key of Bb
(D-7). Removing the b5 from the II chord (E) and the b13 from the V chord (A)
moves the harmony away from the diatonic context explored in the 1958 version,
bringing it closer to a more abstract modal setting. Another example of the modal
treatment of harmony can be found in bar 27, where the Ab7Sus13 chord replaces
the D-7b5.
Also noticeable in the 1964 rendition of Stella by Starlight is the introduction
of the tonic diminished chord in the second inversion (E dim7 on bar 23). This
chord delays the resolution to the I chord (Bb) and compels the bass to resolve in
F (BbMaj7/F) in bar 24. We can argue that the harmony is constantly being negoti-
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R.N.F. Pinheiro: Freedom in Music, Freedom in Life:
Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
Example 2 – Harmonic comparison of two Miles Davis
Stella by Starlight versions: ’58 Sessions Featuring Stella By Starlight (1991)
and The Complete Concert (1992).
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Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
ated between the soloist and the rhythm section during each solo, also changing
according to the soloist. For example, during Herbie Hancock’s improvisation, we
can identify a replacement of the B-7b5 and Bb-7 chords on the twelfth bar for the
II-V to the key of F (also present in the 58 version). Also, during Herbie Hancock’s
solo, the bass plays a G pedal from bar 17 to bar 20, then replacing the Eb-Maj7 for
a Gb pedal (GbMaj, Db/Gb, Gb and GbMaj7#5 - bars 21 and 22), creating a very
unique and intimate atmosphere. Also, the BbMaj7 chord in bar 31 is replaced by
Bbdim7 and the AbMaj7 chord in the same bar disappears.
Another important aspect of this rendition that helps the creation of harmon-
ic ambiguity is the rhythm section’s use of space. In some occasions, Hancock
plays sparse chords or only certain notes leaving out additional information,
giving the soloist more harmonic space to develop improvisational discourse. The
continuous and deep interaction between the band members is also clear in the
constant change of moods and textures during the solos. For example, during
Miles Davis’s solo, the band moves back and forth between different rhythmic
feels (two-feel, walking bass, double-time feel) and styles (ballad, swing, bossa
nova/even eights). At some point, the drums drop out leaving the bass and piano
comping, and join in later, creating contrasting dynamics and atmospheres
throughout the solo. About Miles Davis’s improvisational approach in that
particular concert, Robert Walser adds: »Davis (…) illustrates his freedom from
having to articulate all of the chords; rather, the chords are there as a field upon
which he signifies« (Walser, 1993, 357).
During the solos, the conventional segmenting of the song form in groups of
four, eight, sixteen or thirty-two bars is overshadowed by the concern with the
development of the piece as a whole. The chorus no longer represents a structural
unit, but can be looked at as something malleable, especially in terms of where the
solos start and end. The length of the solos is no longer subordinated to the chorus
as a unit (like in the case of the 1958 version) but can vary according to the devel-
opment of the improvisational discourse of each musician. For example, George
Coleman’s solo starts in the third bar of the form, while Herbie Hancock’s solo
starts on the ninth bar. Miles Davis comes in for the re-exposition of the melody
at bar 13. According to John Szwed (2002):
On ‘Stella by Starlight’ (on the February 12, 1964, concert recording titled My Funny
Valentine), Coleman breaks up the four eight bar symmetrical sections of the ballad by
transforming them with a variety of rhythmic and affective means. He begins with a
double-time feel that shifts back and forth to the time with which they began, but
moves further and further away from the ballad’s melody, becomes more abstract,
then takes on a blues feeling before finally returning to the melody. The rhythm
section telepathically goes in and out of double-time, Latin rhythms, and moments of
suspended rhythm behind him. Tony Williams on his own could also stop playing
suddenly, then start up again in surprising places. Though they were playing ballads
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Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
and pop tunes that were still recognizable, they had begun to take the form of these
melodies apart, restructuring them, making then new (Szwed, 2002, 240-41).
It is clear that the 1964 performance is not only more abstract, harmonically
complex and ambiguous in terms of functional harmony (more modal), but also
more open as it is constantly changing as the solos progress (sometimes after a
specific melodic cue). Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams
and George Coleman are continuously negotiating the harmonic grid that struc-
tures improvisation, but also tempo, space, the timekeeping role of the instru-
ments, comping options, textures and grooves.
Beyond the Music
Besides the audible key musical aspects of Miles Davis’s approach, his
conduct on stage was controversial. Davis didn’t announce the pieces or intro-
duce the band members, and often left the stage during his sideman solos (Mon-
son, 2001b). Even though this conduct was often understood by the public and
some critics as a sign of arrogance, Davis’s behavior was at the same time looked
at as an uncompromising political stand on biased idealizations of African Amer-
icans’ role in society, as he rejected »the Jim Crow expectation that African Amer-
icans smile, grin, and entertain for the pleasure of white folks« (Monson 2001b).
Elsewhere I have written that
Miles Davis (…) criticized [Louis] Armstrong’s attitudes evoking minstrelsy show busi-
ness discriminations. Davis, in his autobiography (1990), states: ‘But I didn’t like the
way he [Louis Armstrong] was portrayed in the media with him grinning all the time’
(ibid.: 318). ‘I wasn’t about to kiss anybody’s ass and do that grinning shit for nobody’
(ibid.: 181). Also, according to Davis: ‘I didn’t look at myself as an entertainer like they
both did. I wasn’t going to do it just so that some non-playing, racist, white mother-
fucker could write some nice things about me. Naw, I wasn’t going to sell out my princi-
ples for them. I wanted to be accepted as a good musician and that didn’t call for no
grinning, but just being able to play the horn good’ (ibid: 84). (Pinheiro 2015, 3-4).
One can argue that Davis’s stage conduct (that signifies the rejection of the
role of the jazz musician as an entertainer) and the freer musical processes he was
working on had an underlying and profound political substance: he was not only
stimulating freedom in music eliminating melodic, harmonic and rhythmic
pre-established canons, but also using new musical ideas and concepts that served
as a metaphor for an ideal society and that appealed for social change. I argue that
»this new model applied to jazz performance, had meanings that exceeded music
itself: it represented the main philosophies of the Civil Rights Movement« (Pin-
heiro 2015, 3). Miles Davis was conscious of the »symbolic and political conno-
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Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
tations of »black« (Smith 2010) long before the 1970s and incorporated the discus-
sion around race and politics in the musical processes his band was exploring.
In order to fully understand the musical processes that occurred in the 1964
Stella by Starlight version, and the practices of searching for musical freedom, it is
crucial to add the fact that this performance was recorded live at the Philhar-
monic Hall of the Lincoln Center on 12 February 1964, and that this concert was
organized with the purpose of raising funds for the NAACP (National Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Colored People), the Congress of Racial Equality,
and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee to support voter registra-
tion in Mississippi and Louisiana and fight the segregationist policy that was
firmly enforced in southern states. It is also important to note that this was part of
a wider movement in which many other jazz musicians were actively involved,
expressing political views through music. According to Pinheiro (2015), Mingus
(1971), Monson (2001a), Monson (2001b), Henry (2004), and Kofsky (1998):
Some of jazz’s most prominent personalities in the fifties and sixties, like Charles Min-
gus, Max Roach, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, or John Coltrane, were very active in
terms of associating jazz music with personal standpoints of disagreement, first, with
the way the music industry was operating (dominated by European-Americans in
charge of criticizing, writing, editing, promoting, analyzing, recording, and distribu-
ting the music), and second, with the white supremacy that prevailed in the United
States and the colonial world (Pinheiro 2015, 3)
John Myers offers an explanation for the development of freer improvisa-
tional tools by the Miles Davis’ Quintet (2015):
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that Davis’s music from this time period has been so
controversial, since it represents a shift in the materials and methods of jazz perform-
ance: away from signifyin(g) based on the audience recognizing a relationship
between a tune and an improvised performance and towards a conversation of musi-
cal styles and genre conventions (Myers 2015, 135).
I couldn’t agree less. I argue that the process of signification construction
incorporates not only audiences and musicians’ aesthetical and musical expecta-
tions, but also the social processes that frame musical performance and reception
and that occur in a specific period of time. Cultural, social, racial, and historical
implications are crucial for the process of building signification regarding a
specific recorded or live performance. Recognizing the power of music and its
intricate layers of understandings, implies pursuing the study of the complex
associations between musical process and embodied meanings, and more specifi-
cally, as ethnomusicologist Salwa Castelo-Branco (2010, 243) wisely pointed out,
»the relationship between ideology, political action, conflict, musical discourse
and social change«.
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and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
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and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
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Discography:
Baker, Chet. 1954. Chet Baker Sextet, Pacific Jazz.
Cole, Nat King. 1956. The Piano Style of Nat King Cole. Capitol.
Davis, Miles. 1974. ’58 Sessions Featuring Stella By Starlight, Columbia.
Davis, Miles. 1992. The Complete Concert 1964: My Funny Valentine + Four and More, Colum-
bia.
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IRASM 51 (2020) 2: 259-273
R.N.F. Pinheiro: Freedom in Music, Freedom in Life:
Miles Davis, Stella By Starlight, Harmony,
and the Advent of the Second Great Quintet
Getz, Stan. 1952. Times on My Hands. Clef Records.
James, Harry. 1947. As Long As I’m Dreaming/Stella By Starlight, Columbia.
Parker, Charlie. 1995. Charlie Parker With Strings: The Master Takes. Verve.
Powell, Bud. 1955. Bud Powell Trio – Vol. 2. Vogue Records.
Sinatra, Frank. 1947. Mam’Selle/ Stella By Starlight. Columbia.
Filmography:
Allen, Lewis. 1944. The Uninvited. Paramount Pictures.
Sažetak
Sloboda u glazbi, sloboda u životu: Miles Davis,
Stella By Starlight
,
harmonija i uspon Drugog velikog kvinteta
Jazz, moć i sloboda povijesno su usko povezani. Riječ »jazz« nosi »(...) brojne ‘poru-
ke’ koje sadrže mnoge stavove i principe, igrajući ključnu ulogu kao instrument diseminaci-
je političkih stavova« (Pinheiro, 2015). Članak raspravlja o povezanosti između koncepata
slobode u improvizaciji, društvene slobode i glazbenih procesa koje su 1960-ih godina
raz vili Miles Davis i njegov kvintet. Glavni cilj ovog članka – koji polazi od afro-modernistič-
ke i afrologičke perspektive (Ramsey 2003, Lewis 2000, Magee 2007) koje u istraživanju
afroameričkih improvizacijskih praksi ističe veću važnost društvenih fenomena od glazbe-
nog stila i estetike – jest identificirati fleksibilnost u harmonijskom pristupu koji je »Miles
Davis Quintet« razvio 1964. u svojoj verziji pjesme Stella by Starlight te otkriti vezu između
slobode u improvizacijskom procesu i slobode kao društvenog odnosa (Steiner 1994).