Solar - Miles Davis Harmonic Analysis

[JuliusGroove]

Hi guys,

Currently studying a lot of jazz and as part of it have been doing harmonic analysis' of standards. I'm currently breaking apart 'Solar' a really nice Miles Davis tune, if you haven't heard it i'll leave a link below.

I've gone through the tune and worked out it's based on a major blues, which uses parallel minors to incorporate descending ii-v-i's like in 'How High The Moon'. Then in the final bar, the switch from Dbmaj7 to Dmin7b5 is smooth as it's effectively just moving the root up a semitone, followed by a G7b9 to resolve back to the beginning of the progression.
Here in lies my question..

I've seen a couple of charts (including my real book) which puts the first chord as a standard C-. However in IrealPro and many articles online about the piece, the first chord is a CminMaj7.

Is it just left as C- in the realbook with no 7th suggested so that the maj7 is an option for chordal instruments/walking lines? There is a B natural in the melody line in that bar which would obviously clash if there were a flattened 7th in the chord.

Because of the G7b9 in the last bar, it gives option to Harmonic Minor use for solos, so that would explain the choice of a minor ii-V to finish the progression on.

I realise I may have slightly rambled and possibly answered my own question. Was just wondering if anybody had clearer information to give on this matter, and whether there is a reason for the MinMaj7 chord, other than to accommodate for the natural 7 in the melody line.

I hope somebody has answers or if you haven't looked at the tune, hopefully I've given you some interesting points to look at!

Thanks guys

Jack


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QarhWvPQ610

[Bilbo]

The B in the melody defines the chord type just as much as the C root. It HAS to be a Cminmaj7. Real books are great but are seldom completely reliable.

[The Jaywalker]

[quote name='JuliusGroove' timestamp='1454508890' post='2970338']
Hi guys,

Currently studying a lot of jazz and as part of it have been doing harmonic analysis' of standards. I'm currently breaking apart 'Solar' a really nice Miles Davis tune, if you haven't heard it i'll leave a link below.

I've gone through the tune and worked out it's based on a major blues, which uses parallel minors to incorporate descending ii-v-i's like in 'How High The Moon'. Then in the final bar, the switch from Dbmaj7 to Dmin7b5 is smooth as it's effectively just moving the root up a semitone, followed by a G7b9 to resolve back to the beginning of the progression.
Here in lies my question..

I've seen a couple of charts (including my real book) which puts the first chord as a standard C-. However in IrealPro and many articles online about the piece, the first chord is a CminMaj7.

Is it just left as C- in the realbook with no 7th suggested so that the maj7 is an option for chordal instruments/walking lines? There is a B natural in the melody line in that bar which would obviously clash if there were a flattened 7th in the chord.

Because of the G7b9 in the last bar, it gives option to Harmonic Minor use for solos, so that would explain the choice of a minor ii-V to finish the progression on.

I realise I may have slightly rambled and possibly answered my own question. Was just wondering if anybody had clearer information to give on this matter, and whether there is a reason for the MinMaj7 chord, other than to accommodate for the natural 7 in the melody line.

I hope somebody has answers or if you haven't looked at the tune, hopefully I've given you some interesting points to look at!

Thanks guys

Jack


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QarhWvPQ610
[/quote]

Ok, forget about Solar being a major blues with parallel minors or modal interchange. That's way off the mark.
It's a MINOR blues spiced up with some key changes. Much simpler than you think.
The first chord is unequivocally Cminmaj7 - look at the melody notes; there's a b natural and an a natural in there - C Melodic Minor. Also, as we're going to be moving away from "Blues" harmony, the minmaj7 is a tonic minor chord. What we have is:

Iminmaj7 //// IIm7 V7
Imaj7 //// IIm7 V7
Imaj7 IIm7 V7 Imaj7 IIm7b5 V7

So, we start in Cmin and journey through Fmaj, Ebmaj and Dbmaj, before returning to Cmin.

Where you're going wrong in your analysis is that you are misunderstanding the harmonic motion by relating the minor 7th chords to their preceding major chord; rather than them being the related IImin7 of the dominant chord. Remember, in Functional Harmony it's dominant chords that provide harmonic motion. So, to illustrate; you were thinking that the Dbma7 is moving to Dm7b5 and then there's a V7 back to Cmin. Yeah, the Dbma7 voice leads beautifully to the Dmin7b5 - but the harmonic motion is a II-V-I in Cmin. It's there because that's how Harmony works - not to give the option of using mixolydianb9b13 in solos. In any case, we're dealing with Melodic Minor harmony; so mixolydianb13 may prove a more obvious option. In fact, the melody over this last bar includes an e natural, meaning the melodic analysis would indicate the use of locrian nat2, which also derives from Mel minor.

Hope this helps. It's easy to get tied up in knots with this stuff and end up confused.

As a footnote, this is almost definitely a Bill Evans tune. Miles was famed for nicking compositions from his band members. As a rule of thumb, it seems that any "Miles" tune Bill recorded in his own right was actually written by him eg, Blue in Green, Nardis.

Edited February 4, 2016 by The Jaywalker

[DaveFry]

I hear bits of Blue Bossa in it , but Solar was 9 years earlier .

[dlloyd]

[quote name='The Jaywalker' timestamp='1454579712' post='2970911']As a footnote, this is almost definitely a Bill Evans tune. Miles was famed for nicking compositions from his band members. As a rule of thumb, it seems that any "Miles" tune Bill recorded in his own right was actually written by him eg, Blue in Green, Nardis.
[/quote]

Have a listen to Sonny by Chuck Wayne, recorded 8 years before Miles recorded Solar:

[url="https://audioboom.com/boos/875326-sony-by-chuck-wayne-versus-solar-by-miles-davis"]https://audioboom.co...-by-miles-davis[/url]

Edited February 5, 2016 by dlloyd

[The Jaywalker]

Wow! Thanks for that :-)
Never heard that one before. Miles was a bad cat indeed!
I'd just looked at the melodic minor harmony and key changes and figured it was definitely in Bill's ballpark, especially as he liked to play it.
I wonder if Chuck Wayne's estate have ever raised any claim about it. Shame if they haven't.

[dlloyd]

Awesome, wasn't it?

[Joe Hubbard Bass]

Hey JuliasGroove- check out my new book Functional Harmonic Concepts, which breaks down a lot of these questions. In a minor key area, the one chord is usually a minor triad. The mistake most people make is thinking that the extension is the b7- which it is not. The one minor 7th chord is used less frequently, but when it is used it will be stated as a min7th chord- not a minor triad. The natural extension of the minor triad is the natural 7th or 6th. So when you are playing over the minor triad as the one chord in a minor key, you always want to be playing the min(maj7) or the min6th chord. In the context of Solar, the first chord can be played as C-, C-6 or C-(maj7).

In my book, I cover all of these concepts and analyse over 15 jazz standards.

Best

Joe

Edited February 22, 2016 by Joe Hubbard Bass

[Georg]

Hallo!

Solar (written by Miles, Bill or Chuck Wayne) derives from How High the Moon. The important notes of the melody and the changes show that clearly. Look, the changes are identical from bar 3 to bar 11, if you consider bar 10/11 as a tritone substitution of the original chords. But how How High The Moon happend to be a "Blues"? My opinion: Bill (it must have be Bill to check that sophisticated idea) did a short cut and went back to the top or he continues for the next two bars of How High, it´s all the same situation. There you find the tonic of How High: Gma7! Now spell the notes: G - B - D - F#, then drop down the F# an octave, build the tritone of that F#, it´s C, and you have a nice Cma7 power chord. Just fill in the decent thirt, much nicer a minor thirt, than a major. How it really happened, who knows? This is what the music is telling: A journey from the moon to the sun, from Sonny to Solar.

Regards Georg

 

[lowdown]

On 31/08/2019 at 07:59, Georg said:

Hallo!

Solar (written by Miles, Bill or Chuck Wayne) derives from How High the Moon. The important notes of the melody and the changes show that clearly. Look, the changes are identical from bar 3 to bar 11, if you consider bar 10/11 as a tritone substitution of the original chords. But how How High The Moon happend to be a "Blues"? My opinion: Bill (it must have be Bill to check that sophisticated idea) did a short cut and went back to the top or he continues for the next two bars of How High, it´s all the same situation. There you find the tonic of How High: Gma7! Now spell the notes: G - B - D - F#, then drop down the F# an octave, build the tritone of that F#, it´s C, and you have a nice Cma7 power chord. Just fill in the decent thirt, much nicer a minor thirt, than a major. How it really happened, who knows? This is what the music is telling: A journey from the moon to the sun, from Sonny to Solar.

Regards Georg

 

 

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