Formal control of improvised performance [Miles Davis]

Miles Davis - Time After Time - Casino, Montreux, Switzerland, 20 July 1990

Miles Davis (tp) Kenny Garrett (as, fl) Foley (lead-b) Kei Akagi (keyb) Richard Patterson (el-b) Ricky Wellman (d) Erin Davis (perc)

Over the last week I’ve listened to, I don’t know, say a dozen live versions of Miles Davis playing “Time After Time.” Some clock in at 9 minutes or so, others run 11 or perhaps more minutes. But they all have the same form, which I discussed earlier, a form not on the recorded version. Just how and when this form emerged – in rehearsal for the road, on the road, spontaneously or deliberately plotted – I don’t know, but once arrived at, it seems to have stuck. I’m guessing that if I listed to live versions of other tunes Miles was playing at the time that I’d hear the same thing, a consistent overall flow in the performance.

Two things are involved. There’s the overall flow of musical and emotional energy. But also occurrence of specific musical features, motifs, climaxes. In the case of “Time After Time” I’ve laid some of these out in my post.

My question: How common is this? First of all, with Miles, but then more generally in jazz performance.

In big band jazz the arranger controls the overall flow. But most jazz has been performed in small groups, from New Orleans jazz, to bebop, cool, and after, small groups have predominated, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and sometimes more. Leaving New Orleans jazz aside, bebop established the format for most of these performances: 1) head, unison or harmonized, 2) a string of solos, sometimes with the leader first, sometimes last, 3) trading phrases, often alternating with the drummer (optional), conclude with 4) repetition of the head. Sometimes there would be more complex arrangements, but the head-solos-head format seems to have predominated.

I’ve never sensed any overall structure to those performances, maybe here and there, but don’t really remember. There doesn’t seem to be any requirement that soloists echo or play off one another – except during tradeoffs – and sense of an overall climax. Each solo, however, generally had its own internal form. And perhaps the trade-off section would climax the performance. 

 

What Miles is doing in “Time After Time” is different than that. When did he start doing it? Have others been doing it? I’m thinking, for example, of Mingus. What about the avant-garde or “free” jazz? 

 

Has anyone written about this?