Electric Miles - Splash

Well, after five years I'm finally making good.

"Splash" was recorded on November 12 1968 in Columbia's Studio B, with Miles's then-touring band: Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Chick Corea, and Tony Williams; Herbie Hancock was added to the session as a second pianist.

An edited version of "Splash" was included on Circle in the Round, a compilation of various materials that was released during Davis' hiatus in the late 1970's. (Water Babies and Directions are similar collections.) But the full take was unreleased until 2002's Complete In A Silent Way Sessions.

To hear the edited version of "Splash", scan to 1:03:20 in the video above. It begins at Letter D in my transcription.

It's something of a myth among jazz musicians that Miles Davis didn't actually write any music, that all of the tunes attributed to him were actually written by other people. But this is to take a few cases (Solar, Four, perhaps Blue in Green) and draw a false conclusion (some, therefore all). Miles was an accomplished and thoughtful writer, evidenced even in the late 40's with "Donna Lee". His work in the late 60's is groundbreaking in the way it embeds open modal improvisation within a larger composed scheme. Other tunes that do this: Frelon Brun, Shh/Peaceful, and the Ghetto Walk, all from 1968.

Paul Tingen describes "Splash" as "almost a cross between 'Two Faced' and 'Dual Mr. Anthony Tillmon Williams Process,' [both recorded the previous day - ME] employing both the stop-start device of the former and echoes of the twist rhythm in the latter." (2001, p. 53)

Download Splash (Concert pitch).
Eb version
Bb version

Wayne Shorter - Face of the Deep

Wayne Shorter - Face of the Deep

This song is transcribed from Shorter's fourth Blue Note LP, The All Seeing Eye. Recorded in one day (October 15th, 1965), the record featured his most ambitious composing and arranging to date. Shorter's record-buying audience would have gone straight to this from 1965's Speak No Evil (recorded in December 1964); a huge musical leap, even considering the "missing links": The Soothsayer and Etcetera. I call these "missing links" because although these were recorded in March and June 1965 (respectively), they apparently weren't released until 1979 or 1980.

The material on The All Seeing Eye was written for septet. The group featured Shorter, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, trombonist Grachan Moncur III, alto saxophonist/flautist James Spaulding, and a rhythm section of pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Joe Chambers. (Wayne's brother Alan Shorter replaces Hubbard on the final selection, "Mephistopheles", a tune which was also recorded on the Marion Brown date which the JTA previously featured.)

Therefore, this transcription should be considered a "piano reduction" of whatever the actual score may have looked like.

This transcription is a collaborative effort between myself and Michael Malis, a pianist, composer and teacher living in Detroit. Mike's a good friend of mine -- we were both students of Geri Allen at the University of Michigan. You can learn more about him by checking out his website. Thanks for the collaboration, Mike! (For the record, Mike did the initial transcription. I made some edits, which Mike agreed with.)