All Blues
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"All Blues" is a jazz composition by
Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...
that first appeared on the influential 1959 album ''
Kind of Blue ''Kind of Blue'' is a studio album by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released on August17,1959, by Columbia Records. For this album, Davis led a sextet featuring saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianist Bill Ev ...
''. In the original liner notes, pianist
Bill Evans William John Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer who worked primarily as the leader of his trio. His use of impressionist harmony, block chords, innovative chord voicings, a ...
describes the piece as "a 6/8 12-measure blues form that produces its mood through only a few modal changes and Miles Davis' free melodic conception."


Background

Davis told jazz critic Ralph Gleason that "All Blues" originated as a live number, evolving over six months and benefitting from "a workover by
Gil Evans Ian Ernest Gilmore Evans (né Green; May 13, 1912 – March 20, 1988) was a Canadian Americans, Canadian–American jazz pianist, Music arranger, arranger, composer and bandleader. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest orchestrators i ...
." Bill Evans recalled that at the ''Kind of Blue'' session, nothing was written out for "All Blues", as was also the case for " Freddie Freeloader" and "
So What So What may refer to: Law *Demurrer, colloquially called a "So what?" pleading Music Albums * So What (Anti-Nowhere League album), ''So What'' (Anti-Nowhere League album) or the 1981 title song (see below), 2000 * ''So What?: Early Demos and L ...
". In addition, the piece didn't yet have an official title and was referred to in the session notes as "African". Although it opens side B of the LP, it was the last piece recorded for the album. On the original 50,000 copies of the first pressing of the album, though, the names of the pieces on the B side were reversed, given in the order they were recorded rather than in the order on the actual record, so "All Blues" was identified as "Flamenco Sketches" and vice versa, creating long-persisting confusion among fans as to which was which.


Original Recording

Take 1 broke down quickly because of a late entrance by bassist
Paul Chambers Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers Jr. (April 22, 1935 – January 4, 1969) was an American jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, he has become one of the most widely-known jazz bassists of the hard bop er ...
. Take 2 is the only complete take. Evans noted that the tremolo effect he creates at the beginning was "just something I threw in." After the 10-second intro, the saxophones play the recurrent vamp and then Davis enters, playing the main melodic line, accompanied by drummer
Jimmy Cobb Wilbur James "Jimmy" Cobb (January 20, 1929May 24, 2020) was an American jazz drummer. He was part of Miles Davis's First Great Sextet. He was awarded an NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship in 2009. Early life Cobb was born in Washington, D.C., on J ...
on brushes. Davis takes the first solo as Cobb switches to drumsticks. Then the established order from earlier tracks changes, as alto saxophonist
Cannonball Adderley Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928August 8, 1975) was an American jazz Alto saxophone, alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley is perhaps best remembered by the general public for the 1966 soul ...
comes second, followed by tenor saxophonist
John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...
. Evans, who has been extensively comping during the other solos and playing the vamp between solos, comes last, playing a sequence of fourths and mostly on the white keys. The band returns to the main theme, and Davis delays the ending by playing another extemporized passage that echoes his main solo. Throughout the entire 11½-minute piece (the longest track on the album), Chambers plays an incessant ostinato figure. At the end on the session tape, he can be heard panting and saying, "Damn that's a hard mother!" This was the last time Davis and Evans ever recorded together.


Personnel

*
Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...
trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...
* Julian "Cannonball" Adderley
alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgians, Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in the key of E♭ ( ...
*
John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...
tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (whi ...
*
Bill Evans William John Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer who worked primarily as the leader of his trio. His use of impressionist harmony, block chords, innovative chord voicings, a ...
piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
*
Paul Chambers Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers Jr. (April 22, 1935 – January 4, 1969) was an American jazz double bassist. A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, he has become one of the most widely-known jazz bassists of the hard bop er ...
double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...
*
Jimmy Cobb Wilbur James "Jimmy" Cobb (January 20, 1929May 24, 2020) was an American jazz drummer. He was part of Miles Davis's First Great Sextet. He was awarded an NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship in 2009. Early life Cobb was born in Washington, D.C., on J ...
drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...


Analysis

"All Blues" is a
twelve-bar blues The twelve-bar blues (or blues changes) is one of the most prominent chord progressions in popular music. The blues progression has a distinctive form in lyrics, phrase, chord structure, and duration. In its basic form, it is predominantly ba ...
in ; the chord sequence is that of a basic blues and made up entirely of
seventh chord A seventh chord is a chord (music), chord consisting of a triad (music), triad plus a note forming an interval (music), interval of a Interval (music), seventh above the chord's root (chord), root. When not otherwise specified, a "seventh chord" ...
s, with a VI in the turnaround instead of just the usual V chord. In the composition's original key of G, this chord is an E7. The
Mixolydian mode Mixolydian mode may refer to one of three things: the name applied to one of the ancient Greek ''harmoniai'' or ''tonoi'', based on a particular octave species or scale; one of the medieval church modes; or a modern musical mode or diatonic s ...
of the song launched the fad for
modal jazz Modal jazz is jazz that makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece. Though exerting influence to the present, modal jazz was most popular in th ...
. A particularly distinctive feature of "All Blues" is the bass line that repeats through the whole piece, except when a V or VI chord is reached (the 9th and 10th bars of a chorus). Furthermore, there is a harmonically similar vamp that is played by the horns (the two saxophones in the case of ''Kind of Blue'') at the beginning and then (usually) continued by the piano under the solos. Each chorus is usually separated by a four-bar vamp, which acts as an introduction to the next solo/chorus. In his solo, Davis plays many altered ninths, whereas Coltrane relies heavily on his characteristic use of
chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, es ...
cells of notes. While comping, Evans typically omits fifths, voicing his chords with thirds, sevenths, and ninths.


Notable Later Recordings

"All Blues" has subsequently been recorded more than 400 times. Davis himself recorded a much faster live version in 1964 on the album '' My Funny Valentine: Miles Davis in Concert''. Some other notable recordings include: *
Mary Lou Williams Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and ...
, ''Live at the Cookery'' (1975) * The Great Jazz Trio (
Hank Jones Henry Jones Jr. (July 31, 1918 – May 16, 2010) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians have described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts h ...
, piano;
Ron Carter Ronald Levin Carter (born May 4, 1937) is an American jazz double bassist. His appearances on 2,221 recording sessions make him the most-recorded jazz bassist in history. He has won three Grammy Awards, and is also a Cello, cellist who has reco ...
, bass; Tony Williams, drums), '' Kindness Joy Love & Happiness'' (1977) *
Freddie Hubbard Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...
&
Oscar Peterson Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (August 15, 1925 – December 23, 2007) was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. As a virtuoso who is considered to be one of the greatest Jazz piano, jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordin ...
, '' Face to Face'' (1982) *
World Saxophone Quartet The World Saxophone Quartet was an American jazz ensemble founded in 1977, incorporating elements of free jazz, R&B, funk and South African jazz into their music. The original members were Julius Hemphill (alto and soprano saxophone, flute), ...
, '' Selim Sivad: A Tribute to Miles Davis'' (1998) *
Roland Hanna Roland Pembroke Hanna (February 10, 1932 – November 13, 2002) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and teacher. Biography Hanna studied classical piano from the age of 11, but was strongly interested in jazz, having been introduced to i ...
, '' Everything I Love'' (2002) *
Gary Bartz Gary Bartz (born September 26, 1940) is an American jazz saxophonist. He has won two Grammy Awards. Biography Bartz was first exposed to jazz as the son of the owners of a jazz nightclub in Baltimore. In 1958 he left Baltimore to study at the J ...
et al., '' Miles from India'' (2007) layed in 5/4 with sitar and ghatam">sitar.html" ;"title="layed in 5/4 with sitar">layed in 5/4 with sitar and ghatam] * Chick Corea, ''Trilogy 2'' (2018) The Corea recording of "All Blues" won the Grammy Award for Best Improvised Jazz Solo.


Legacy

Oscar Brown Jr. added lyrics to his 1963 recording of "All Blues" on the album ''Tell It Like It Is!'' Various singers have subsequently recorded Brown's version, including
Dee Dee Bridgewater Dee Dee Bridgewater (née Denise Garrett, May 27, 1950) is an American jazz singer and actress. She is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, as well as a Tony Award-winning stage actress. For 23 years, she was the host of National ...
(1987), Mark Murphy (1990, released 2004), Ernestine Anderson (1996), and
Ann Hampton Callaway Ann Hampton Callaway (born May 30, 1958) is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and actress. She wrote and sang the theme song for the TV series ''The Nanny''. Career Callaway is a native of Chicago. Her father, John Callaway, was a journalis ...
(1997). In 1970, guitarist
Dickey Betts Forrest Richard Betts (December 12, 1943 – April 18, 2024) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was best known as a longtime member of the Allman Brothers Band. A co-founder of the band when it formed in 1969, he was central ...
composed an instrumental for
The Allman Brothers Band The Allman Brothers Band was an American rock music, rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1969. Its founding members were brothers Duane Allman (slide guitar, lead guitar) and Gregg Allman (vocals, keyboards), as well as Dickey Betts ( ...
titled "
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed IN, In or in may refer to: Dans * India (country code IN) * Indiana, United States (postal code IN) * Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN) * In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast Businesses and organizations * Independen ...
", which is based on "All Blues". The most acclaimed recording of it appears on the live album ''
At Fillmore East ''At Fillmore East'' is the first live album by American rock band the Allman Brothers Band, and their third release overall. Produced by Tom Dowd, the album was released on July 6, 1971 in the United States, by Capricorn Records. As the title ...
'', which features a famous guitar solo by
Duane Allman Howard Duane Allman (November 20, 1946 – October 29, 1971) was an American rock and blues guitarist and the founder and original leader of the Allman Brothers Band, for which he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fam ...
, who said, "that kind of playing comes from Miles and Coltrane, and particularly ''Kind of Blue''. I've listened to that album so many times that for the past couple of years, I haven't hardly listened to anything ''else''." In the 1993 film ''
In the Line of Fire ''In the Line of Fire'' is a 1993 American political action thriller film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich and Rene Russo. Written by Jeff Maguire, the film is about a disillusioned and obsessed former ...
'',
Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western (genre), Western TV series ''Rawhide (TV series), Rawhide'', Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Ma ...
's character, Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan, listens to "All Blues" during a pensive moment."Miles at the Movies"
Slate.com, August 17, 2009, Accessed May 29, 2025.


References


External links


"All Blues"
Analysis, Melody, Chords & Improvisation {{DEFAULTSORT:All Blues Songs about blues 1950s jazz standards 1959 compositions Compositions by Miles Davis Jazz compositions in G major Real Book Song