Louis Armstrong and Davies Miles - Essay Example

Louis Armstrong and Davies Miles Introduction Jazz is a music style with its origin from the black communities living in the US in the 20th century. It is a mixture of European musical notes and the African musical aspects, for example syncopation. Over the years Jazz came to adopt the aspects of American music. Other qualities of this type of music are the improvisation and off beat rhythms that it possess. Louis Armstrong and Davies Myles are considered as some of the greatest jazz musicians in the history of jazz music. This is because of the influential role they played in transforming this genre of music from old to modern jazz music. Louis Armstrong on the other hand, was born in 1901to a poor family in New Orleans. His parents later on abandoned him leaving his sister to raise the small child. Louis became interested in music by hanging out in clubs. He considers Oliver as his father since Oliver mentored him in the area of jazz music. Armstrong posed technical skills and the ability to invent jazz music something that is still evident in his compositions to date. It is believed that only Parker Charlie was close enough to have such a big influence in jazz music like Armstrong did. Just like is overseer Oliver King Joe, Armstrong played the cornet. It is also this pioneer who gave him his first cornet after joining his band (Gioia, 1997). Armstrong was also a talented trumpet player; he astonished many people with his beautiful tunes gaining worldwide recognition. His solo performances with the trumpet enabled other soloists to step on stage in jazz. Armstrong usually blended old musical tunes with new tunes, giving jazz a characteristic mixture. In 1942, Louis formed the Louis Armstrong All stars group after struggling to maintain a band which disbanded. He also made movies in the 1950s and gained a lot of criticism for talking against racism. He then suffered a heart attack in 1959 and was warned by the physicians against the busy schedules. Armstrong ignored and produced one of his greatest songs Hello Dolly which retained number one spot for two weeks in 1964. He later dies in 1971. Miles Davies is also a respected figure in the field of jazz music. He played the trumpet and was a leading figure in the bebop style of jazz music. He played a role of combining the jazz and rock music something that greatly distinguishes him from jazz music Armstrong. He played the trumpet something that he gained from his father at age 13 when his father offered him as a birthday present. This birthday present saw him transform the world in terms of jazz music. His focus was on the rich clear tone which defined his sound in later years in music. He had experiences with many bands including the Billy Eckstine’s band. He gained his interest in bebop in New York where he had landed a scholarship to study music. He later formed a group of nine people in 1949. His band was large and the mood of the music was a bit subdued than the rest which led to the development of the cool jazz. In 1959 he endowed the 2 chord composition which led to the development of modal jazz. In the 60s and 70s he gained experience to play the electronic instruments and he died in 1991 after suffering from drug addiction and other health problems. This paper compares and contrasts the influences of Louis Armstrong and Davies Miles in the field of jazz music. The paper also analyzes their biographies and the impact they created in jazz music. The paper will conclude by ironing their major differences and highlighting their similarities. Miles Davies and Louis Armstrong Miles Davies and Louis Armstrong possess some similarities in their history of music. Both these artists were jazz artist. However, Miles Davies was different in the sense that he mixed some jazz music with rock. On the other hand Armstrong only majored in playing jazz music alone. Armstrong used a cornet as his major instrument having acquired it from his music pioneer who was also a great carnet player Oliver King Joe (Meckna & Satchmo, 2004). His self taught skills in playing the trumpet also saw him climb a notch higher in the world of jazz. Jazz music played under certain musical conditions in order to create emotional tones. This include following harmonizing rules together with good rhythm. The piano created the harmony required in the song while clarinets and other trumpets enhanced the chromatics and minor modes. The American jazz contained lots of raga that is fast and swingy. Armstrong just like Oliver discovered improvisation type of jazz music. After moving to Chicago, he became very famous with the Dixie type of music, which was a hybrid of jazz while playing the trumpet. The wah-wah-wah technique is also part of his unique inventions with different sound of horns. Being a great composer, he wrote many songs for jazz players. Some of his tunes still play to these days. Armstrong was a bandleader and cornetist with a nickname earned as a leading cornetist within New Orleans. On the other hand Miles is greatly remembered for his bebop styles of music something that greatly distinguishes him from Armstrong. His style of play is argued to have had a big influence of cool jazz music that was highly regarded in the west coast. A good example is the song ‘birth in the cool of 1949’. The composition of this song includes the use of unusual instruments like the nonet and tuba. The major reason as to why he incorporated these two instruments was to come up with a similar sound to human by careful arrangement compositions and an emphasized relaxed melodic approaches and improvisations (Tingen, 2001). On a different view Armstrong was considered a solo artist with his ability to produce solo turns while he created unique sounds. Listening to “Dippermouth Blues” indicates the manner in which different instruments blend. It is as if every instrumentalist does something different yet the overall sound has some cohesion, a texture described as “polyphonic” by many musicians. Within this recording are the three prominent passages of collective information (0:05-0:36, 1:10-1:26, and 2:15-2:32). In addition to this, some characteristic technique that is associated with the New Orleans style, the stop time is included. Time does not actually stop; the band instead initiates several repeated accents, which create some silent spaces that needs filling by some soloist. The stop time’s simplest version happens only if a bound sounds on the downbeat of every measure. In such a case, though everybody sounds on the first three beats of every measure thus opening the second half of every measure in an effective way. Oliver’s cornet solo over the three choruses (1:25-2:11) has some distinctive “wah wah” which formed part of the signature of the bandleader (Armstrong, 1944). The first four lines begin with rolling. The twelve bars ranging from 5-20 the trumpet and trombone remains silent. This means the drums and the banjo plays the part of maintaining the rhythm. The second 12 bars in this song include the chorus as the trumpet taking higher tones while the trombone carries the lower tones. The next third 12 bars include Johhny Dodds playing his clarinet with a solo performance, which plays in a stop time. Dodds repeats his performance in the fourth bar. The fifth bar experiences a change as collective improvisation sets in as two cornest play together without any distinctive difference in their sounds. The six bar, is the climax of the music as king Oliver gets on with the wa-wa muted cornet. Oliver continues with the play to in the seventh bar. In the eight bars, Oliver connects with Baby Dodds in vocal break as he sings, “Oh, play that thing”. The ninth bar consists of the chorus and the song takes approximately 2:22 minutes recording. The tonal improvisation expressed skillfully in this music is worth noting. He included mutes in this song creating the wah-wah a throaty effect from his vocal. This technique influenced most of the jazz musicians as per that time. The double breaking of the cornet is also among the most important feature of this music a skill that many jazz musicians did not possess at all. This was the style of play that Armstrong played. On the other hand, Miles embraced the quintets which earned him a lot of publicity. For example, the production of his album Round About Midnight was a masterpiece of hard bop. One of his songs in the album All for You features the 24 bit remastering (Cook, 2007). In addition to this the artist includes the use of a saxophone in production of some of this music. One of the major influences of Davies Miles was the ability to merge rock and jazz. This is quite different style from his counterpart Armstrong. The 60’s was a time of new creations and this is the time where Davies produced compositions like Bitches Brew and Silent Ways both quintets under jazz and rock influences. This also saw him blend the wah wah effect from his horn. Conclusion This paper concludes that Louis Armstrong and Davies Miles have had a significant role to play in the history of jazz music. Both of these artists showed similarity with the use of horns in embracing the famous wah wah effect introduced by Oliver Joe who was Armstrong’s pioneer. However, these artists have also had several differences in terms of the styles of their music. For example, Armstrong played some lively jazz music while Miles played cool jazz commonly known as bebop. In addition to this, Miles used the trumpet as his major instrument while Armstrong used the clarinet. Miles used the quintets in most of his productions while Armstrong encouraged the use of Solo performances with inclusions of bands. Bibliography Armstrong, L. (1944). Dippermoth Blues. New York: Bergreen. Cook, R. (2007). Its About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record. New York: Oxford University Press. Gioia, T. (1997). The History of Jazz. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Meckna, M., & Satchmo. (2004). The Louis Armstrong Encyclopedia. London: Greenwood Press. Tingen, P. (2001). Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991. New York: Billboard Publishers. Read More