Miles Davis piece "Solar"

[Milestones]

How do others regard this piece?  I've always thought it was quite good, though I find only one case of Miles recording it--the original, I assume, in 1954.  But is this such a great piece, one of the finest composed be Miles?  It has been covered a great deal; I find at least 16 versions in my collection, with three by Keith Jarrett.  It's a good tune, but is it right up there with "So What," "All Blues," and "Milestones"?

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Milestones

[Larry Kart]

As has been well known for years, guitarist Chuck Wayne wrote "Solar." Miles just copped it.

[Milestones]

Ah...interesting.  In any case, a popular tune.

 

[Rooster_Ties]

I understand the this is Chuck Wayne in 1946.

More in the YouTube description about the tune — but I’ll quote the most relevant part to the topic at hand:

Nearly 50 years after Miles Davis' recording from Walkin' the United States Library of Congress unearthed an obscure live recording of Chuck Wayne performing a strikingly similar composition at a jam session in Oklahoma in 1946; he referred to the composition as "Sonny". Although Prestige Music registered the composition for Copyright in 1963 Wayne claims to have been the original composer while Miles was merely the appropriator. While there are slight differences between both recordings the sameness is undeniable and Wayne's recording clearly predates Miles' by over a decade.

More, but pretty much the same info — maybe a couple more details — here (in the ‘authorship’ subsection):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_(composition)

Edited January 24, 2023 by Rooster_Ties

[Milestones]

Probably so, although I will note that in Jack Chambers' Milestones (last updated in 1998) he treats "Solar" as a Miles Davis original.

But let's face it, there is a lot of "borrowing" and plagiarism in jazz--as well as in other music. 

 

 

Strange things abound...two measures of the tune are on Miles' tombstone, yet also it was a piece he apparently never played in concert.

 

[Gheorghe]

Too often played at jam sessions. Everybody knows it, but it´s one of the tunes I don´t have on my playlist since I had to play it too often with guys who would sit in on jam sessions. 

The strange thing is that the first time I heard that tune was a Big Band recording featuring Dusko Gojkovic on trumpet. Then as a boy I fell in love with the tune and on the festivities of the end of a high school year I played it with 3 school buddies , ts, p, b, dr., it was a kind of potpourrie of stage performance by kids who played an instrument, so it was a mixture of classical, pop, and in my case of course jazz....., so that´s a nice memory 47,48 years ago.....

[Jack Pine]

On 1/23/2023 at 10:32 PM, Milestones said:

Probably so, although I will note that in Jack Chambers' Milestones (last updated in 1998) he treats "Solar" as a Miles Davis original.

But let's face it, there is a lot of "borrowing" and plagiarism in jazz--as well as in other music. 

 

 

Strange things abound...two measures of the tune are on Miles' tombstone, yet also it was a piece he apparently never played in concert.

 

Hilariously it is notated incorrectly on the tombstone! They copied it from the Real Book 😂

Stolen from Chuck Wayne it may be, I still think it's a great tune and I play it out often. Didn't Chuck Wayne borrow the changes from How High The Moon anyway?

[Rooster_Ties]

Sometimes I get “How High the Moon” and “Solar” confused for a second, until I try and fit (sing) the lyrics in my head.

Not sure if the changes and the form are super similar, but obviously there must be some similarities.

Meaning I always know “How High the Moon” when I hear it — but sometimes I’ll initially think “Solar” is HHtM, especially if I’m not paying close attention and it gets into the solos before I’ve considered the question.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Rooster_Ties

[Jack Pine]

They are not only similar but identical, save for the first chord. Solar has a very different vibe though, with the minor(major7) sound adding that mysteriousness.

[JSngry]

Not "identical".

[Jack Pine]

7 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Not "identical".

Indeed I phrased that carelessly. Functionally identical is a hill I would stand on.

[Rooster_Ties]

28 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Not "identical".

Agree, but can you expound? I’ve never thought they were anything other than similar — but I’m not sure how to quantify how similar they are.

All I know is I often find myself second-guessing what “Solar” is when I hear it — and less often have to second-guess “HHtM”.

[Jack Pine]

In my eagerness to get into a fight over chord changes I neglected to refer to the actual sheets, which seem to show two songs not even in the same key and not actually sharing as many chords they were in my head.🤡

I'm still going to say the functional harmony is basically the same between the two songs, though Solar does make some hip additions, substitutions. Both have a series of 2-5-1's leading through 3 key centers(I guess technically 4 in Solar). I also must have read elsewhere that this is the case... Iverson blog maybe?

 

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, Jack Pine said:

 Functionally identical is a hill I would stand on.

Nope.

Take both in totality. There is a bit of similarity when a tonic goes to a minor, but that's about it.

Otherwise, 16 vs 32 bar, and cadences moving in different intervals.

The "similarity" is a neat slight-of-ear trick, but a trick it is 

Need proof? Simultaneously play the changes of one in one hand, and the other in the other hand. The differences will be immediately apparent. 

[medjuck]

Can you play Ornithology along with it? 🙂

[Jack Pine]

I feel like I'll probably have to prove this in some way or look like a shmuck, but I can pretty seamlessly transition between the two tunes and incidentally yes also Ornithology, on piano. I don't think I came to the idea independently, I must have read about it somewhere and started messing around with it, but it has been my custom to quote from Solar in HHTM and vice versa for some time now. They fit together nicely in many different arrangements.

I do respect your opinion though JSngry and admit I overstated my case at first.

[JSngry]

Well, yeah, you can "transition between: them because there are a few commonalities, pivot cadences, that allow for that. But they are in no way "identical", not in least.

Identical means identical, not "similar for a bar or two". That's not how it works.

 

[Rooster_Ties]

I’m just relieved that I’m not an idiot (at least not for this!) for thinking they were pretty similar somehow, and for getting them confused sometimes.

To confess, I have genuinely (literally) felt silly when I’ve heard “Solar” played live on more than a couple occasions, and thinking “damn, that sure sounds like ‘HHtM’ — but clearly it isn’t!!”. 

[Guy Berger]

On 1/23/2023 at 7:32 PM, Milestones said:

Probably so, although I will note that in Jack Chambers' Milestones (last updated in 1998) he treats "Solar" as a Miles Davis original.

Another example of why the Chambers bio is bad

[Rooster_Ties]

1 hour ago, Guy Berger said:

Another example of why the Chambers bio is bad

I don’t remember the details, and I don’t mean to pile on — but I too have heard all sorts of complaints about the Chambers bio of Miles over the years — fwiw.

[Gheorghe]

Ornithology similar to Solar ????

Ornithology is in G, and Solar is in C minor as I hear it.

[JSngry]

7 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

I don’t remember the details, and I don’t mean to pile on — but I too have heard all sorts of complaints about the Chambers bio of Miles over the years — fwiw.

It was quite welcome at the time, before its shortcomings slowly revealed themselves.

[Jack Pine]

13 hours ago, JSngry said:

Well, yeah, you can "transition between: them because there are a few commonalities, pivot cadences, that allow for that. But they are in no way "identical", not in least.

Identical means identical, not "similar for a bar or two". That's not how it works.

 

I concede the 'identical' point, it was only so in my head. 'Transition' maybe didn't make a strong enough case, how about 'with a minimum of finesse, the melody of HHTM can be played over the changes to Solar, or vice versa.' I still tend toward Solar/Sonny being 'inspired by/based on' HHTM.

The odd thing is, like Rooster Ties, I've somehow come to believe this is the case, hearing it and/or reading about it, trying to put it into practice. Doesn't it just make some sense too that both songs refer to  one of the two most intimate celestial bodies, wasn't that sort of a convention for songs that were based on earlier changes? Confirmation-Denial.

3 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Ornithology similar to Solar ????

Ornithology is in G, and Solar is in C minor as I hear it.

You are not wrong regarding the key signatures, yet this is the hill I have staked on.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Jack Pine

[Mark Stryker]

The commonalities are that the changes are the same in bars three through eight. In concert pitch: G minor 7/C7/ F major/ F major/F minor 7/ B-flat 7.  From here they diverge, with Solar going to E-flat major and Ornithology (How High the Moon) going to E-flat 7 -- though the common root keeps an illusion of similarity for another bar. Of course, Solar is a 12-bar form and Ornithology/How High the Moon is 32 bars (16 + 16) and the songs have completely different characters, especially in Miles' version where he leans into misterioso implications of the opening melodic phrase by emphasizing the sound of a minor chord with a major 7th. And the overlap of the changes for those six bars is also simply a common harmonic formula that appears all the time -- a ii-V-I sequence moving down in whole steps as the major chord becomes a minor on the same root to start the cycle again. The A sections of John Lewis' Afternoon in Paris employ the same idea, though the changes there move twice as fast. 

When Wayne conceived of what we now call Solar, Ornithology/How High the Moon was ubiquitous.  I have no idea if it was a conscious decision or intuitive decision for Wayne to create a harmonic scheme that winks at the changes everyone was playing nightly at the time -- did anyone ever ask him? -- but I have no doubt that once he wrote it, he was aware that a connection existed. 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, Mark Stryker said:

 And the overlap of the changes for those six bars is also simply a common harmonic formula that appears all the time -- a ii-V-I sequence moving down in whole steps as the major chord becomes a minor on the same root to start the cycle again. The A sections of John Lewis' Afternoon in Paris employ the same idea, though the changes there move twice as fast.

Consider also the first half of the bridge to "Four Brothers".

"Devices" abound in diatonic harmony-based musics. At this point (and at that one) they're pretty much built in to the notion of "songs".