From Columbia Studio B to Carnegie Hall : the studio-to-stage creative trajectory in the fusion jazz of Miles Davis : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music in Musicology at the New Zealand School of Music, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
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Date
2015
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Massey University
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Abstract
This thesis proposes an interrelationship between the creative processes of the
recording studio and the concert stage in the fusion jazz of Miles Davis. Recent
scholarship highlights the importance of the recording studio to fusion jazz musicians
as they developed unique approaches to composition and improvisation. While
providing valuable insight into the studio-derived creative processes distinctive of
fusion jazz, this scholarship inadvertently obscures some of the live performance
practices of fusion jazz musicians. Turning attention towards live performance, yet
without neglecting the insights of this recent scholarship, I consider how the creative
processes forged by Davis in the recording studio manifested in his activities as a
concert artist. Combining commentary on Davis’s formative fusion jazz studio
recordings (produced between 1969 and 1972) with analyses of the live album Dark
Magus (exemplary of his mid-1970s concert performances), this thesis suggests a
reorientation in Davis’s conceptions of improvisation and composition during this
period by highlight some of the creative processes he engaged in, both in the
recording studio and on the concert stage.
Drawing on the accounts of several musicians who worked with Davis in the
recording studio during the late-1960s and early 1970s, I consider how postproduction
tape editing allowed Davis and his band a new means for composing and
improvising in the studio. Then, to demonstrate what I have termed a studio-to-stage
creative trajectory, I analyse two creative processes common to Davis’s mid-1970s
concerts as evidenced in Dark Magus: Davis’s on-stage direction of sudden, rhythm
section cuts in the midst of lead instrumentalists’ improvisations; and the featured use
of two accompanimental instruments unusual to jazz performance—a YC45 electric
organ (played by Davis himself) and a drum machine (played by percussionist James
Mtume). Finally, framing this studio-to-stage creative trajectory in terms of
performance theorist Philip Auslander’s concept of liveness, I claim that Davis’s
fusion jazz stands as an example of mediatization rich in agency. I then suggest that
the work of other fusion jazz musicians and musicians associated with other jazz
styles could be usefully reappraised using a similar methodology that explores the
role of record production in creative process.
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Jazz-rock (Music), Fusion jazz, Davis, Miles, Criticism and interpretation, Research Subject Categories::HUMANITIES and RELIGION::Aesthetic subjects::Music