Ask an Artist: What Are Modes? by SJW Faculty Member Joe Gilman

Last month in Part 1, Joe defined what modes are and discussed how they relate to the development of music prior to the advent of jazz. Now, in part 2, we discover the important role that modes have played in the music of some of jazz's most distinctive artists, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Bill Evans. Read on (if you missed part 1, go to our newsletter archive).

Joe Gilman is a full-time professor at American River College. He has received Bachelor's degrees in Piano and Jazz Studies at Indiana University, a Master's degree in Jazz and the Contemporary Media from the Eastman School of Music, and a Doctoral degree in Education from the University of Sarasota. Joe has performed professionally with Eddie Harris, Bobby Hutcherson, Woody Shaw, Richie Cole, George Duke, Chris Botti and Slide Hampton, and has recorded with Joe Henderson and Jeff Watts. Joe recently won the 2004 Great American Jazz Piano Competition in Jacksonville, Florida and has twice been an International Jazz Ambassador through the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and USIA, traveling to West Africa in 1999 and East and Southern Africa in 2000.

Q: What are MODES? What is MODAL JAZZ? (PART TWO)

Hopefully, now you have a little background into what modes are and where they come from. Now let's focus on the development of modes in jazz.  Early jazz musicians created their improvisations from variations of melodies. As jazz musicians became more aware of harmony, they started to improvise on the chords of popular tunes, often abandoning the melodies altogether. This was especially apparent with musicians such as pianist Art Tatum and tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. In the bebop era, knowledge of harmony was essential, and musicians such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell were not only improvising on the chord structures, but also superimposing higher chord tones, altering chord tones, adding passing chords, and substituting chords in their improvisations. If you wanted to hang with the beboppers, you simply needed to know your harmony.

A pivotal but often overlooked player at this time was a composer, pianist, and drummer named George Russell. Russell was about to start a stint as Charlie Parker's drummer in 1945 when he contracted tuberculosis. He was hospitalized for 16 months. Although this would seem to be a tremendous setback for his career, the recuperation allowed him time to organize his thoughts about harmony, melody and scales into the  "Lydian Chromatic Concept."  Later in 1953, while he was a salesclerk at Macy's, the theory was published and became a major influence on Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Davis, who had been a longtime friend of Russell, had grown tired of the increasing complexity of jazz harmony. He felt restricted by the trend towards more frequent harmonic shifts as they made improvising too much like an exercise and restricted melodic freedom. The two compared thoughts about the potential developments of improvisation and the need to move to a simpler approach based on ease of melodic development. These ideas are evident in some of Miles' mid-1950's recordings, such as "Dear Old Stockholm," "Ah-Leu-Cha" (a Charlie Parker tune which Miles simplified to only a few chords), and "Milestones" (A variation of the 1956 Duke Ellington tune "Blue Rose").

Russell eventually recommended a new young pianist to Miles by the name of Bill Evans. Bill's approach to harmony was less based on frequency of chords; he veiled harmony with unusual intervals, borrowed from Impressionistic composers, and developed a rich texture from inner voice movement. Bill joined Miles for eight months in 1958. Some of their most beautiful collaborations are "One Green Dolphin Street" and "Love For Sale.” 

After leaving the Miles Davis sextet, Bill Evans sat down to record a Leonard Bernstein tune called "Some Other Time." The intro to his solo piano version consisted of two chords; C Major 7 and G suspended 9. Evans played through the intro, improvising freely over the two hypnotic harmonies. As the intro progressed, it became its own composition, as Evans never proceeded to the Bernstein melody. This "intro," nearly seven minutes in length, became a classic solo piano improvisation and was titled "Peace Piece.”

This track had a significant impact on the musical direction of Miles Davis. Although Evans had already left the Miles Davis sextet, Miles approached Evans and asked him to record "Peace Piece" together with him on an upcoming album. Evans was flattered but stated that a sextet arrangement of a ballad with only two chords would be difficult to pull off. Nevertheless, Evans stated that a similar concept with a few more chords might have possibilities. Davis and Evans sat down and wrote "Flamenco Sketches,” a tune with no melody. “Sketches” started with essentially the same intro as "Peace Piece," but progressed into a few different scales: "C" Ionian, "Ab" Mixolydian, "Bb" Ionian, "D" Phrygian, and "G" Dorian. The duration of each scale was left to the discretion of the improviser.
      
"Flamenco Sketches" and "So What," a 32-measure tune that alternated between the "D" and "Eb" Dorian modes, are the primary modal jazz compositions on one of the most classic recordings in jazz history, "Kind of Blue." The other tunes, "Freddie Freeloader," "Blue in Green" and "All Blues," also have a modal feel, but are more based in the jazz tradition of the time.
       
Almost as soon as Davis and Evans developed the framework for "modal jazz," they seemed to abandon the technique. Few of Davis' subsequent albums really continue the initial concept, and Evans preferred to record harmonically sophisticated originals and reharmonize standards. Interestingly enough, the most harmonically complex member of the Davis sextet became the next pivotal figure in "modal jazz." Shortly after the "Kind of Blue" session, John Coltrane discontinued his "Giant Steps" technique and recorded many beautiful tracks based on the modal practice. Among others these included "My Favorite Things," "Crescent," "Wise One," "Impressions," "Greensleeves," “Miles Mode” (a 12-tone melody with modal improv!) and "India."

The next generation of jazz musicians discovered their own twists on modal jazz. Some of the classic examples are Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage," Curtis Fuller's "A La Mode," Wayne Shorter's "Witchhunt," Bobby Hutcherson's "Herzog," and Freddie Hubbard's "Little Sunflower." This same group found some beautiful ways to combine modal jazz with traditional harmonic progressions; a format sometimes called a "hybrid tune." Examples are Herbie Hancock's "One Finger Snap", Joe Henderson's "Recordame", Wayne Shorter's "Yes and No", and Cedar Walton's "Bolivia." Modal jazz also progressed to modes other than the church modes, such as modes of melodic minor. It also progressed into a blend with free-jazz; just listen to Miles albums such as "Nefertiti," "The Sorcerer" and "Miles Smiles."

So in a nutshell, you can think of "modal jazz" as improvising on scales instead of chords; letting melody dictate harmony; hearing horizontally instead of vertically. Now listen to some Gregorian chant and Miles' "So What" and hear the connection!