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Essay / Miles Davis in Jazz Fusion: Reform and Development
Among all musical genres, jazz plays an important role in art history. American jazz critic Ted Gioia states that “jazz has always been a fusion music. “Nothing in New Orleans is ever pure” — so goes an old throwaway phrase.” If we talk about the entire development of jazz, its history is long. Jazz is the result of traditional black African folk music and European classical fusion music. They clashed in the 19th century. Impure at its birth, jazz is divided into a myriad of genres. And jazz fusion is a hybrid derivative based on the evolution of jazz music. It refers to a specific type of rock-influenced jazz from the 1970s to the 80s. To assimilate deeper knowledge about the evolution of jazz, this essay will take an omnidirectional view of the history of jazz fusion on the formation and development, and there is an exceptional master who greatly influenced the history of jazz-rock: Davis Miles and his group. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay After the American Civil War, African slaves gained their freedom but still lived in poverty. Most of them were uneducated. Thus, they could only be entertained by the music cultivated in their hometown. This is how jazz was born from the African-American community of New Orleans at the end of the 19th century. It started from scratch and became the most distinguished genre of Native American musical art in a century. No matter Blues, Ragtime, March or Swing, each of them stands out from the others and has its unique characteristics. Until today, each category is active on stage with different interpretations of jazz. Strong and enduring vitality has broken geographic, racial and national boundaries. Whenever a musical style becomes rigid, a catchier style is generated to satisfy people's appetites. Jazz fusion is one of the branches of jazz and a typical form of musical expression. At the end of the 1960s, jazz faced a crisis: rock appeared on the scene, and young audiences preferred rock, older audiences were no longer obsessed with abstract and simplex jazz. Therefore, musicians have realized that if they want to win back the hearts of the audience, they must add and combine different musical elements to create a unique and new one to attract the attention of the audience. As the city's population was diverse, the music interacted with others as well. Jazz fusion absorbed different musical styles from different cultures and inherited traditional New Orleans jazz to gradually form a variety of fusion music today. The author of Genre of Popular Music Fabian also demonstrates that “this fusion mainly appealed to younger generations but not to specialists with a solid base in the tradition. The commercial interests of the producers were strong because a musical mixture with popular styles has the potential to spread and thus reach a large market.” The charisma of fusion lies in the fact that it highlights contemporary electric bass instead of using an acoustic bass, an electronic synthesizer instead of a piano, etc. It also adds more integration with classical and rock styles to make it sound more modern and edgier. Any musical element can be used as a recipe for cooking the jazz feast, refreshing and colored by jazz and enjoyed by more people. Compared to traditional jazz, fusion constitutes a great reform inthe history of jazz. Starting in the 20th century, crossover music spread around the world. How does fusion arise? For developing the existence of fusion, there is a man who should be named: Miles Davis. Miles Davis was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader and composer. Throughout his life, he conducted extensive research on many styles of jazz music. More importantly, he is the grandfather of Jazz Fusion. He studied at the Juilliard School in New York, left school and began performing at the 52nd Street bar. In 1964, when The Beatles went viral around the world, Davis discovered that traditional rock music matched the potential market of jazz and created Jazz Rock, later known as Fusion, which attracted many rock fans to join the jazz market. He was known for his slow, resentful and idiosyncratic tastes. He liked to imitate the train, the voices of old people and the sound of electric guitars. The author of Miles Davis: A New Revolution in Sound believes that "a major feature of Davis's playing was a new and different way of phrasing in which emphasis was placed on the relationship between space, tempo and the melody (and the intervals between notes). ) has become the hallmark of his style. In doing so, Davis significantly redefined and expanded the expressive and creative range of the trumpet's tonal palette and instrumental timbre. Kofi's appreciation accurately describes Mile Davis' work. As soon as his songs were released, they became a cult object for musicians to follow. He is a musician who is always eager to learn, to observe new objects every day and to be ready to accept new ideas. His obsession with jazz and his subversive spirit persisted for many years and made him successful. Miles Davis is a true revolutionary, he made a breakthrough on himself and on the entire history of music. Miles Davis' fusion transformation involves his impressive second quintet. He introduced a wider variety of musical visions into his band. His group shifted and changed for several years in the early 1960s. He ultimately settled on a classical quintet for four years. The band consists of Miles Davis on trumpet, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams. Davis hired the rhythm section of Hancock, Carter and Williams in 1963, and Shorter joined the group until September 1964. The group interacted at a high level in jazz history and later developed jazz-rock. The band incorporated electric bass, guitar, and keys into their sound. Wayne Shorter became the group's primary composer and they released six studio recordings from 1964 to 1968. Miles Davis even took over as composer and composed one of his masterpieces: In a Silent Way. During their cooperation with Miles Davis, the quintet explored a multitude of improvisation and accompaniment techniques that deviated from standard practice. The performers cooperated with unique strategies and shaped their jazz playing style. In the book The Studio Recordings of Miles Davis, 1965-1968, author Waters states: "They (the Quintet) also explored a multitude of improvisation and accompaniment techniques that deviated from standard hard-core practice bop. Musicians redefined spontaneous interaction in small groups, including working on techniques of harmonic substitution and layering, metrical conflict, and metric modulation. In works that used repeated chorus structure during improvisation, these techniques had important implications for form=679598