You sound almost like you're about to explain why a modal approach to jazz became a part of the music's progress. I'm sure Miles and some other guys started thinking, "You know, all these chords passing in a complex way make it easy to sound good when you're soloing, as long as you obey the systematic rules. What if we didn't have so many chords? Then we'd have to WORK at sounding interesting. We'd have to come up with ideas that would be compelling even though the harmonic playing field itself is not compelling." Next thing you know -- boom! -- KIND OF BLUE, where most of the songs have less chords than anything this side of "Sing Sing Sing". But, in the hands of an imaginative improvisor, these simplistic structures become a new, unfettered open sky. skip h on 4/9/03 10:05 AM, Robert Pleshar at rpleshar@midway.uchicago.edu wrote:
I believe the great Mr. Monk once said "Simple ain't easy."
Also, it is certainly the case that even the most complex systems of biology, music or anything are composed of different combinations of simpler units or elements.