Modal Jazz - History

History

An understanding of modal jazz requires knowledge of musical modes. In bebop as well as in hard bop, musicians use chords to provide the background for solos. A song starts out with a theme that introduces the chords for the solos. These chords repeat throughout the whole song, while the soloists play new, improvised themes over the repeated chord progression. By the 1950s, improvising over chords had become such a dominant part of jazz, that sidemen at recording dates were sometimes given nothing more than a list of chords to play from.

Towards the end of the 1950s, spurred by the experiments of composer and bandleader George Russell, musicians began using a modal approach. They chose not to write their pieces using conventional chord changes, but instead using modal scales. Mercer Ellington has stated that Juan Tizol invented the melody to "Caravan" in 1936 as a result of his days studying music in Puerto Rico; where they couldn't afford much sheet music so the teacher would turn the music upside down after they had learned to play it right-side up. This technique became known as 'inverting', and has been referenced as an inspiration for Modal Jazz. Musicians include Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Bill Evans, Hancock, and Shorter.