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Jazz Listening: Cool 2

  1. General listening
    1. Stan Getz: ‘The Girl From Ipanema’
    2. Chet Baker: ‘How High The Moon’
    3. Gerry Mulligan Quartet
  2. Focused listening
    1. Miles Davis Sextet: ‘Flamenco Sketches’

General listening

Stan Getz: ‘The Girl From Ipanema’

Chet Baker: ‘How High The Moon’

  1. Identify the ensemble, e.g. sextet, septet, etc.

    Sextet
  2. Fill in the table to show the instrumentation

    Rhythm section
    • Piano
    • Bass
    • Drums
    Front line
    • Baritone saxophone
    • Trumpet
    • (Alto) Flute
  3. What decade was this recorded?

    1950s

Gerry Mulligan Quartet

  1. Fill in the table to show the instrumentation

    Rhythm section
    • Bass
    • Drums
    Front line
    • Baritone saxophone
    • Trumpet
  2. What decade was this recorded?

    1950s
  3. Find out what Gerry Mulligan plays.

    Baritone saxophone. He played on the Birth of the Cool sessions. This pianoless quartet with Chet Baker (Trumpet) was very famous.

Focused listening

Miles Davis Sextet: ‘Flamenco Sketches’

  1. Describe the music played by the bass in the introduction

    • Starts with an anacrusis, on the dominant
    • Dotted minim and crotchet rhythm
    • Sometimes two notes at once
    • Tonic pedal
    • Two-note ostinato
    • Focused on the tonic and dominant
  2. Name the scale degrees of the first two notes Miles Davis plays.

    Second and fifth. (Supertonic and dominant.)
  3. Name the scale that Miles Davis uses in his first four bars.

    Major scale.
  4. Name the mode that Miles Davis uses for the 8 bars at 1:11–1:44.

    Phrygian. D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb-C.
  5. This is the final track on the album Kind of Blue. What year was this album released?

    1959.
  6. Name another two important albums released this year.

    The most famous are:
    • Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out
    • John Coltrane: Giant Steps
    • Charles Mingus: Mingus Ah Um
    • Ornette Coleman: The Shape of Jazz to Come
    • Miles Davis: (Kind of Blue,) Porgy and Bess
  7. Fill in the blanks in this table to show musicians, instruments and the number of bars in each chorus.

    N.B.: The second chorus starts at the same time as the ride cymbal.

    Chorus #InstrumentMusicianNumber of bars
    1 Trumpet Miles Davis
    24
    2
    Tenor saxophone
    John Coltrane 25
    3
    Alto saxophone
    Cannonball Adderley
    34
    4
    Piano
    Bill Evans 28
    5 Trumpet Miles Davis 23, with pause