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Miles Davis and Karlheinz Stockhausen: A Reciprocal RelationshipAuthor(s): Barry BergsteinReviewed work(s):Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), pp. 502-525Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/742474 .Accessed: 07/06/2012 20:36

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Miles Davis and Karlheinz Stockhausen: A Reciprocal Relationship

Barry Bergstein

In June of 1980, Miles Davis was joined by the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in the studios of Columbia Records; the recording of this collaboration is still unissued. Though this historic occasion is the only documented meeting between the two,1 the years leading up to this event, and following it, provide ample evidence that they frequently influenced each other's work. Davis's impact on Stockhau- sen was manifested in Stockhausen's adaptation of the electric trumpet, his use of wah-wah pedal, mutes, improvisational elements, and jazz stylization. Stockhausen's conceptual development of process, intuition, and use of found elements were in return adopted formally by Davis. The beginning of their reciprocal relationship can be traced to the early 1970s when they became aware of each other's innovations.

In 1975, Stockhausen recorded his compositions Ceylon/Bird of Passage on the rock label Chrysalis Records, which featured his son Markus on trumpet. The release of Ceylon/Bird of Passage was greeted by a skeptical press. Stockhausen was recording on a label that primarily featured rock bands, and reviews in Downbeat and Melody Maker seemed inappropriate for a leading avant-garde composer. At the time, Stockhausen and his son gave numerous interviews to the rock and jazz press, during which they mentioned Markus's jazz-rock group. In an interview in the British pop-culture magazine Melody Maker (24 Apr. 1976, 25) Markus mentions performing in his own group (pre- sumably a rock or jazz group) and says that he would periodically ask his father for pointers. During these exchanges the elder Stockhausen became aware of the electric innovations of Miles Davis.

I think that Karlheinz Stockhausen's renewed interest in writing for trumpet in so many different contexts during the 1970s and 1980s was stimulated not only by his son's trumpet studies, but also by Markus's interest in Davis's music. While Karlheinz Stockhausen's knowledge of jazz and the work of Miles Davis existed before this time, elements of Davis's electric style began really to influence him

502

Miles Davis and Karlheinz Stockhausen 503

during his son's formative trumpet studies. The appropriation of electric trumpet and wah-wah effects in Stockhausen's music dates from this time--in the operas Sirius (1975-1977), and Donnerstag aus Licht (1978)-and, no doubt, reflect his son's listening and playing habits.

Miles Davis first heard Stockhausen's music in 1972,2 and its impact can be felt in Davis's 1972 recording On the Corner, in which cross-cultural elements are mixed with found elements. There is also a similarity between Stockhausen's process texts and poetic performance instructions and Davis's cryptic statements to the musicians in his ensembles. In addition, Davis adopted Stockhausen's newly designed role for the conductor; he began to conduct his ensemble in a similar manner, using bodily conducting signals to effect a smooth change from one complex rhythmic pattern to another.

There are many other influences between the two musicians. In this study, they will be divided into eight categories: early influences and contemporaneous cross-cultural inspiration; electro-acoustic applications; process composition; intuition and improvisation; integration of cross-cultural elements; jazz hybrids; found elements; focus on the trumpet.

Early Influences and Contemporaneous Cross-Cultural Inspiration

Stockhausen, a leading twentieth-century composer in the European concert tradition, and Miles Davis, an innovator and composer of American jazz, seem at first to have little in common. Each came from a different musical world and educational background. However, they are similar in their inevitable and frequent changes of artistic direction. Stockhausen moved from total serialization to electronic applications to the incorporation of process and intuition. Davis went from bop to cool, modal to free, straight ahead to funk, and acoustic to electronic instrumentation. This continual metamorphosis and artistic renewal found throughout their careers may stem from the fact that their early years included both jazz and concert traditions.

Stockhausen's training is based firmly in the Western art music tradition, but from early on, he was involved with American jazz. He discovered a liking for jazz during his stint as a high-school, dance- band pianist. In March 1947, he enrolled in a four-year course at the State Academy of Music (Musikhochschule) in Cologne where he majored in piano and studied harmony and counterpoint. In 1950, he

504 The Musical Quarterly

worked as a jazz pianist in local bars and accompanied a touring magi- cian named Adrion.

Davis's early training also combined European concert techniques with jazz experience. In high school, he began studying with a Ger- man teacher, Gustav, who played first trumpet with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and who paid attention to embouchure and technique. Elwood Buchanan, Davis's high school music teacher, stressed studying Sousa marches and overtures and playing without vibrato; the combined influences of Gustav and Buchanan gave Davis a solid technical and theoretical education. In 1944, Davis left East St. Louis and successfully auditioned for Juilliard. He persisted there for a semester and a half, but his attention to studying was diverted by his recording debut and a rapid climb up the ranks of the jazz scene on Fifty-second Street. With help from such jazz musicians as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, and Ben Webster, Davis discovered a pathway to freedom in music. Davis states, "I would go to the library and borrow scores by all those great composers, like Stravinsky, Berg, Prokofiev. I wanted to see what was going on in all of music. . .. I took advantage of these music libraries. We would take advantage of everything we could. . . . We were all trying to get our Masters degrees and Ph.D.'s from Minton's University of Bebop under the tutelage of Professors Bird and Diz."3

While Stockhausen was working as a jazz pianist he began composition lessons with the Swiss composer Frank Martin; his earliest compositions date from this period. The influences of these pieces come from the contemporary piano literature--Arnold Schoenberg's Three Pieces, op. 11, and Bdla Bart6k's Out of Doors Suite and Mikro- kosmos. His thesis was devoted to an analysis of Bart6k's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Contact with Herbert Eimert led to Stock- hausen's appointment at the electronic music studio of Cologne Radio. Eimert greatly helped Stockhausen, getting his Bart6k analysis aired on Cologne Radio and having his early Sonatine for violin and piano (1951) performed.

Similarly, Miles Davis's early experience with Charlie Parker paved the way for his recording and concert career. Davis's debut on Savoy Records in the 1940s as a sideman with Parker brought him recognition as an up-and-coming talent. The young Davis was getting started during the height of one of the most important artistic revolu- tions in jazz history, bebop, a 1940s style, sparked by Parker, that altered the harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, and structural elements of jazz. Thus, Davis's apprenticeship with Charlie Parker is doubly significant because of Parker's "enduring innovation of precisely splitting


the four beats in a bar into eight," just as an African musician would use the eighth note as his basic rhythmic unit.4 The quarter-note division common in European music was replaced by the innovations of the bebop movement and internalized by the young Miles Davis. Amiri Baraka states that "the re-establishment of the hegemony of polyrhythms (in the Bop movement) and the actual subjugation of melody to these rhythms are much closer to a purely African way of making music."5 It can be argued that these African derivations were fused with American and European concepts.

Stockhausen's study of Bart6k's music revealed to him the importance of African and Asian derivations. His thesis on Bart6k provides evidence of the roots of the influence of cross-cultural integration in his music, for Bart6k's music is very much influenced by the folk music of Eastern Europe, especially Rumania. It was his study of Hun- garian and Rumanian music that made Bart6k look deeply into the musical world of the East and ultimately to aim at a synthesis of East and West. Bart6k's collection of North African folk music and refer- ences to Balinese music were apparent to Stockhausen. The Mikrokos- mos composition "From the Island of Bali" and the Chinese influences found in the Miraculous Mandarin provided Stockhausen with Asian models that he would not draw upon until his Telemusik (1966).

The greatest impact on the development of African and Indian influences in jazz came from John Coltrane, who was twice a member of Miles Davis's band. Letters to Alice Coltrane document that Col- trane's interest in African music dates from early 1960, just after his second stint with Davis. Coltrane's study of Eastern music had already combined with Davis's method of using uncommon modes; the addition of new African techniques first appears in Coltrane's "Africa" from the album Africa Brass (1961). During the same year, he also composed "India." Although the presence of Indian influences in this piece is controversial, conversations and letters between Ravi Shankar and Coltrane have been documented, and even though there was never a recording session, Coltrane did name his first son Ravi, after the Indian master.

Coltrane's contact with the Nigerian drummer Michael Olatunji resulted in "Tunji," which features pared-down harmony and new scales. The impact of Coltrane's explorations of African and Indian music on Miles Davis has yet to be explored, but it is certain that Davis was aware of them. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he integrated Indian instruments, such as the sitar and tabla, directly into his ensemble. African concepts became apparent not only in his use of drum choirs, but also in the multilayering of electric keyboards and


guitars on records such as In a Silent Way (1969), Bitches Brew (1969), and On the Corner (1972).

Hindu rhythms were also important in the development of Stockhausen's music. At the Darmstadt New Music courses (1951), Stockhausen was first exposed to Olivier Messiaen's Mode de Valeurs et d'Intensites. Messiaen's music was so powerful that Stockhausen went to Paris to study with him during the 1952-1953 academic year. Mes- siaen's influence manifested itself in Stockhausen's approach to total serialization and interest in complex Hindu rhythms. In 1948, Messi- aen's Canteyodjaya employed Hindu Sanskrit rhythms and patterns from the South Indian Carnatic system. At the same time, this work uses an innovative technique, employing the serial organization of durations, intensities, and pitches. These developments made possible a "totally serial" music. Messiaen's 4 etudes de rythme (1949) attempted to explore new and different types of rhythmic writing. Mode de Valeurs applied the serial approach to rhythm, dynamics, and attack as well as pitch, and it was this piece that stimulated Stockhau- sen toward total serialization and later radical methods of organizing time. It is important to note that Messiaen's rhythmic innovations lead to total serialization in concurrence with his application of Hindu rhythms.

Stockhausen's affinity for Asian music can also be traced to Mes- siaen's Turangalila-symphonie. Completed in 1948, it uses Hindu rhythms as ostinatos and pedals. A large percussion section simulates the effect of the gamelan found in Java and Bali. The work was premiered in the United States in 1949 during Stockhausen's student years. Messiaen's attendance at the French Colonial Exposition (1931) stimulated his interest in Hindu rhythmic patterns, and further study of the Indian talas listed in the Lavignac Encyclopidie de la Musique et Dictionnaire du Conservatoire had a catalytic effect. Messiaen also sur- rounded himself with Hindu and Indian musicologists and friends. In a conversation with Mya Tannenbaum, Stockhausen states, "I learned all about rhythm from Messiaen, beginning with analysis of Indian rhythms and the rhythms in his compositions. That's something that's as important as studying scientific subjects."6

Davis, too, cites the importance of continually changing rhythms. He has made reference to the impact of his attending a performance by the Ballet Africaine during the late 1950s. The rhythm and acrobatics of the dancers, combined with the continually changing rhythms (5 , 8, 4), made a powerful and lasting impression: "It's African. I knew I couldn't do it from just watching them dance because I'm not African, but I loved what they were doing. I didn't


want to copy that, but I got a concept from it."7 Davis also comments that his compositional method during the Kind of Blue (1959) recording sessions was based only on sketches to preserve the spontaneity of improvisation and to attempt to capture the "interplay between those dancers and those drummers and that finger piano player with the Ballet Africaine."8

Electro-Acoustic Applications

A discussion of recording technique and electronic effects will help to demonstrate the ingenuity used to articulate Stockhausen's concept in Telemusik (1966) and serve to highlight another point of comparison between Stockhausen and Miles Davis. Stockhausen used a special, six-track tape recorder that allowed material to be edited and mixed on different tracks of the same section of tape. Five tracks could be recorded and mixed onto the sixth track with a short time delay due to the distance between the recording and playback heads. Paul Buck- master reported that Telemusik was the first Stockhausen recording that captured Davis's interest (in 1972), although he had himself already experimented with cut-and-splice methods.

In a Silent Way was recorded by Davis in February 1969 and is an important development of his work because of the use of electric instruments and innovative recording techniques. The editing employed moves the work away from the traditional jazz form of composed sections and improvised solos and connects it with Stockhau- sen's Telemusik, which also relies heavily on splicing techniques.

Telemusik is the first example of integration of exotic music in Stockhausen's work and is a parallel development to Davis's incorporation of West African rhythmic stratification. Telemusik combines electronic music passages with tape recordings of music from the southern Sahara, the Shipibos of the Amazon, a Spanish village festival, Hun- gary, Bali, and temple ceremonies from Japan and Vietnam. Stock- hausen transforms the music so that you do not hear it as it originally sounded. By modulating from one musical event to another, he combines the rhythm of one event (such as a priest's song) and the amplitude curve of another. In combining electronic chords with preexistent music, Stockhausen brings into new relation music that is 3,000 years old with original electronic sources. The purpose is not to attempt a synthesis or collage, but to preserve the independence of the individual phenomena in a kind of polyphony. The essential technique of Telemusik is that material is transfigured by ring modulation, filtering, transposition by varying tape speed, and amplitude modulation.


Freely I acctl.

> rit. _._acc-l.

rit.

S I _LI I - _-

> Tempo change

X., v

I..7M steady, quick time

~pp i

ftt 0 ? " _ - _ ? '

b ,

I) ItI

plil

---,...._.

aili

Example 1. Miles Davis--In a Silent Way (1969), Measures 1-14 by Josef Zawinul (copyright 1969 by Zawinul Music, a division of Gopam Enterprises Inc.). After the "Tempo change" transcribed by Barry Bergstein.

A linear amplitude modulator is employed, thus changing the amplitude or loudness of a signal in accordance with a control signal. The most widely used technique, however, is ring modulation. Ring modulators offer convenient instruments for the creation of metallic sounds and clangs. By combining ring modulators and a tape recorder of continuously variable transmission speed, Stockhausen is able to create a new vocabulary of electro-acoustic effects.


The splicing and editing of a jazz performance was a new frontier created by Davis. Davis's live performances had always incorporated the concept of continuous sets; now he began to integrate this idea into his recordings. His long-time producer Teo Macero recalls that the recording procedure would explore some fragmentary elements that would later be edited into a cohesive piece of music. As soon as the musicians entered the studio, the recording machine began rolling and did not stop until everyone left. When the recording session was over, four, sixty-minute reels of tape had been recorded. Then, after whit- tling and cutting it down, they put it all together. At the end, only eight and a half minutes remained. Macero states, "I took the eight and a half minute side in stretches and took the little bands, repeated them over and over again in different spots and stretching them out until there was approximately seventeen or eighteen minutes on each side. If you listen carefully, you'll understand what I am talking about.'"9

The entire second side of In a Silent Way illustrates the cut-and- splice method used to articulate the form of the composition. The side begins with the quiet strains of three electric keyboards and guitar. The opening theme, written by keyboardist Josef Zawinul, is performed by Davis on trumpet and Wayne Shorter on soprano saxo- phone. The use of electronic instruments (four and five at once) is crucial to the new sound that was created. Davis uses precomposi- tional sketches, improvisation, and postsession editing. He reduces Zawinul's tune to a melodic statement performed four times over an arco bass pedal and glittering timbre of the electric instruments. The pulseless melody is hypnotic and is edited onto the end of the side, framing the middle section called "Its about Time."

With the layering of electric instruments and their unique timbral blend, which added up to a West African retention of stratification, new sonorities are created. The drums are confined to a steady repetition of figures. By giving each performer improvising figures over a steady rock-influenced pulse, Davis reworks the collective improvisational technique used in traditional New Orleans jazz. After the splice and tempo change, there is a Davis solo which is blues derived (see Ex. 1). The solo is followed by chords built of fourths, which eventu- ally give way to bass ostinatos.

Davis's work Bitches Brew, recorded in August 1969, six months after In a Silent Way, illustrates his concern with electro-acoustic effects and African retentions. The integration of electro-acoustic effects was rendered through the use of devices such as an echoplex. An echoplex causes a note or pattern played to repeat itself immediately. It consists of a tape-loop device that can be set to record and playback


simultaneously; thus, a note could repeat once or an infinite number of times, immediately or after a delay, and more softly or louder than the original note. Ring modulators were also used to create the new sound. Davis altered his trumpet style by playing fast cascading runs toward the extreme high register. His trumpet was wired to an ampli- fier after running through several electronic attachments. The alter- ation of color and tone formerly achieved by using plunger mutes was now replaced by the wah-wah pedal, which makes possible the plunger-mute technique in an electrified setting, enabling its effect to occur in a high-volume performance setting. As the wah-wah pedal is rocked, it takes the bass off and puts the treble on, so in fact, the volume does not go down; it is the tone that produces the wah-wah sound. This device gave Davis the ability to sound more like a rock guitarist or to play in a more gentle, lyrical manner. He incorporated a ring modulator in series with his wah-wah pedal and echoplex units, though the ring modulator was used more sparingly. The use of ring modulation is common to both Davis and Stockhausen, and although a direct reference by either composer to one another was still to come, the ground work for a reciprocal relationship was apparently already in place by the late 1960s.

Structurally, Telemusik contains thirty-two Moments of various durations, each beginning with the stroke of a Japanese instrument. These Moments are termed structures in the score, and the form- making cycle of percussion is adopted from various oriental musics that use cyclic notions of time and are end-accented (colotomic). The durations in seconds of the thirty-two Moments are derived from the Fibonacci series.10 Stockhausen selected temple instruments according to their natural resonance (decay-time) to mark the beginnings of various duration scale steps.

Davis's articulation of form is delineated throughout Bitches Brew. This recording also makes use of editing and consists of two contrast- ing blocks of music that alternate: the first (sections 1, 3, and 5) is free-metered and rhapsodic, the second (sections 2 and 4) is based on an ostinato. 11 Davis's use of three drummers and a percussionist gives the session a rhythmic complexity, comparable to African drum ensembles. When coupled with an auxiliary percussionist such as Airto Moreira-who would perform on conga drums, shakers, rattles, gongs, whistles, and many instruments native to Africa, South Amer- ica, and India-a parallel development can be seen between Davis and Stockhausen. Both composers are stretching the bounds of composition by exploring electro-acoustic devices and integrating cross- cultural influences.


Process Composition

In 1968, Stockhausen composed fifteen text-compositions of intuitive music that have been published under the title Aus den sieben Tagen; they, in turn, seem to have had an effect on Davis. The tenth of Stockhausen's fifteen texts, Set Sail for the Sun, is an example of process music, which places emphasis on aspects that unfold in performance rather than on a predetermined score. Set Sail for the Sun uses "a process which happens for each player in four stages: listen to a tone--listen to the tones of the others--move one's tone--achieve harmony" (booklet for the recording of Aus den sieben Tagen, DGG 2720073); these stages are rehearsed before performances. By using process, the performer is given the responsibility of composing-out, which may or may not produce the results desired by the composer. Stockhausen's tendency to turn over certain parts of the realization of the piece to others grew from the collaboration with studio techni- cians in his early electronic compositions.12 These verbally formulated processes of 1968 are related to the symbolically notated process plans of Kurzwellen (1968) and Spiral (1968). In his notes to Spiral, Stock- hausen directs the performer to "repeat the previous event several times, each time transposing it in all parameters and transcending it beyond the limits of this playing/singing technique that you have used to this point and then also beyond the limitations of your instrument/voice at the spiral-sign."13 He felt that he had created space and time for those who play intuitively at the moment of performance.

Miles Davis seems to have had his own notions about performer realization reinforced by Stockhausen's theory of process composition. In statements on the subject, Davis has revealed a strikingly similar conception to Stockhausen's: "I'm through with playing from eight bars to eight bars. I always write in a circle. I never end a song. It just keeps going. The public likes starts, confusions, and happy endings."14 Stockhausen defined process in the following remark: "What one hears in music is only an excerpt, what I call a window, in an unlimited time . . . to present a work of art with a particular beginning and end, and to reinforce the impression is only an illusion. It is one prop- osition of an excerpt of time, the timeless time."15 Davis had incorporated the same concept years earlier, before Stockhausen's statement, in his post-recording, edit-and-splice techniques and in his continuous live performance sets. The similarity between Stockhausen's symbolic notation of a spiral and Davis's conception of circular writing is striking, as is their shared conceptualization of time.


In addition Stockhausen's process texts and poetic performance instructions and Davis's cryptic statements to musicians are similar. One such instance was recalled by guitarist John McLaughlin. During the recording of In a Silent Way, McLaughlin recalls, "We played it and Miles didn't like it. He wanted me to play it solo . . . finally he said the first of his many cryptic statements to me and that was, 'Play it like you don't know how to play the guitar.' " Bassist Dave Hol- land, who also performed on In a Silent Way, tells of a similar instance: "Davis said to me: 'Don't play what's there. Play what's not there.' . . . He's saying, 'Don't play what your fingers fall into. Don't play what you go for. Play the next thing.' He was always trying to put you in a new space all the time where you weren't approaching the music from the same point of view all the time, or from a pre- conceived point of view. It was almost like a Haiku kind of thing or a Zen thing where the master says a couple of words and the students get enlightened. "16

Intuition and Improvisation

There is an important connection between compositions that employ process as a formal concept and what Stockhausen has termed intuitive music. Intuitive music borders on and overlaps with improvisation and is central to the art of both Davis and Stockhausen. Stockhausen voiced dissatisfaction with musicians who have become living tape recorders separated from one another. His wish was to change that situation "so as to influence every note with spiritual intention and thus attain maximum quality. I must therefore also seek other qualita- tive prescriptions. That is why some of my scores are reduced to just a few sentences as a basis for music that can last thirty minutes or longer."'17 Specific works became dependent on intuitive players capa- ble of working as a group. This was a radically new development since it was no longer solely within the domain of a rationally determined music. Stockhausen pointed to free jazz and Indian music as precursors to his concept, but noted that these traditions also are governed by rules and frameworks they used in their improvisation. He stated, "A group of musicians playing purely intuitively is an innovation in all traditions. Intuitive music is no longer improvisation either. It goes far beyond improvisation."'18 Therefore intuitive music is the name Stock- hausen has given to the outcome of musicians' attunement to short texts. The outcome of intuition is based on the reciprocal feedback or attunement among the group of performers.

A comparison of Stockhausen's intuitive advances, including the training and performing of a small group, with Davis's approach yields


significant similarities. Early in 1973, Davis began rehearsing his musicians individually, often at his home in Manhattan. He would intro- duce each player to rhythmic patterns that were designed for different pulses and a variety of tempos. At this time, Davis began to conduct his ensemble by playing and using hand and body signals. For example, a simple wrist motion would signal a smooth change from one complex rhythmic pattern to a new one.

Saxophonist Dave Liebman discusses how instructions to the performers and interaction within the band made performing in Da- vis's group a unique experience: "Miles plays one note and everybody gathers to that note, or he plays something and lets the band take it from there. He said, 'Don't finish your idea; let them finish it'; and 'End your solo before you're done.'.. . before I would always take it through a cycle, up and down like Coltrane. But Miles creates an overall mood where each solo is just a little part of a larger picture. . . . So the thing is to give the essence to the musicians without creating their parts for them."19

Stockhausen reported something similar to Jonathan Cott:

When I play with my friends or when we do intuitive music together, the first step is that of always imitating something and the next step is that of transforming what you're able to imitate. The best musician is one who could immediately play what he has heard, either on the radio-any tune-or who can immediately find the pitch of a bird and play that too. But then the next step after you're a wonderful imitator is that of transforming what you imitated before. You first absorb and then transform it, and this is very important.20

The transformation process vital to Stockhausen's intuition is very like the Miles Davis concept of giving the essence to the musicians without creating their parts. Intuition plays an important role in the improvisational music of both composers.

Sonic and timbral similarities are inherent in both Stockhausen's Set Sail for the Sun (1974) and the fourth side of Miles Davis's Agharta (1975). Both compositions apply process, intuition, and are of an improvisatory nature. Set Sail for the Sun was recorded live in concert by the Negative Band at the Theatre Vanguard in Los Angeles in May 1974; the fourth side of Agharta is a live version of the "Theme from Jack Johnson," recorded in Japan. The Negative Band was an ensemble, trained by Morton Subotnick, that recorded this all-Stock- hausen album, released in 1975. The band members were all former students at the California Institute of the Arts. The written instructions mentioned previously were performed by the regular five-player ensemble, plus two additional players, one on percussion and the other on recorders. The regular members included two percussionists,


a saxophonist, a pianist and synthesist, and a performer who regulated filters. During the second half of the performance, a continuous cym- bal roll served as a foundation for high-frequency pitches and chirps made by processed recorders and lower-sounding synthesizer washes.

A striking comparison can be made to Miles Davis's Agharta (side four), where in the opening two minutes, a high, piercing frequency is performed by Pete Cosey who uses guitar feedback and synthesizer washes. The noncontinuous rolls, performed as crescendos by James Mtume Foreman on his ethnic percussion instruments, combine with the high frequency feedback and demonstrate a remarkable similarity to the Stockhausen recording. Even though the occasional bass guitar and drum set punctuations separate the Davis composition from the Stockhausen, these two recordings reveal similar end results.

Stockhausen's 1975 recording Ceylon/Bird of Passage (Chrysalis 1110) demonstrates a strong Miles Davis influence. The form plan of Ceylon interprets the verbal instructions in great detail, dividing the piece into seven parts, each with a specified number of players (even specific players), tempo, duration, and, in the last part, dynamic indications. Ceylon, the last text of the second cycle of text-compositions of intuitive music, includes two pages with an ornate "festive rhythm" specifically composed for the Kandy drum (a Ceylonese two-headed cylindrical drum played with the fingers and hand in a similar manner to Indian tablas). Stockhausen performs on the Kandy drum, chants Hindu services, and plays lotus flute, Indian bells, and bird whistle, along with the other members of the ensemble. The ever-present influence of Davis on Stockhausen becomes magnified during the wan- ing moments of side one when Markus Stockhausen's electric wah-wah trumpet is featured in a duet with a second open trumpet. Miles Davis already had made use of two tabla players on his recordings On the Corner, Live In Concert (1972), Big Fun (1970), and Get Up With It (1974). Davis used Badal Roy, an Indo-Pakistani musician, and Colon Wolcott, an American who had studied with Ravi Shankar. The combination of bird whistle and tabla drums with wah-wah trumpet had been used by Davis on his recording of "Black Satin," the last selec- tion on the first side of On the Corner.

Cross-Cultural Integration

On the Corner (1972) was the first recording made after Davis's intro- duction to Stockhausen's music. Though many journalists believe that it had nothing to do with Stockhausen, they neglect the significance of his Telemusik. In this work, Stockhausen attempted to combine


ethnic music from many cultures in an electronic composition. Miles Davis developed an interest in Stockhausen's music through the Brit- ish composer Paul Buckmaster, who gave him a recording that included Stockhausen's Telemusik and Mixtur. Ian Carr reports that Davis "sat upstairs for a whole day listening to this record, and had it blaring through the whole house."21

At this time Davis was preparing for a recording session. Buck- master's suggestion was to use the nonregular temporal music (out-of- time passages), which Davis had used in his recent recordings and which were also found in passages in Stockhausen's work. These passages probably refer to the melodic statement that begins In a Silent Way (see Ex. 1), which freely ritards and accelerates, and to the trumpet blasts from Bitches Brew that incorporate an echoplex device. Buckmaster described the changes that the music underwent in the studio:

There would be a bass figure, a drum figure, a drum rhythm that was notated, tabla and conga rhythm and a couple of keyboard phrases which fitted. In fact, I would write out a whole tune, but what actually happened in the studio was that the keyboard players related to these phrases and transformed them. They played them more or less accu- rately to begin with and transformed them in the Stockhausian sense making them more unrecognizable until they became something else. . . . If Miles wanted it to be more bouncing or raunchy rhythmi- cally, he would signify by a characteristic shrugging of the shoulders. He would indicate coming down with body movements . . . arm gestures.22

On "Black Satin" and "Mr. Freedom X" (final tracks, respec- tively, on sides one and two from On the Corner), Davis applies Afri- can and Indian concepts. If one plays select parts of Telemusik and "Mr. Freedom X" consecutively, the similarity in the use of African and Indian musics becomes apparent. In Telemusik, each of the thirty- two Moments begins with the stroke of a Japanese instrument, and the Moments are a form-making cycle marked by percussion found in many Oriental musics. The use of cyclic notions of time in Stockhau- sen's work is comparable to Davis's formal procedure of moving from one rhythmic groove to another and from African drum choirs to Indian instrumentation. The Indian influence on "Black Satin" (and on the tune that leads into it, "Vote for Miles") is apparent in the specific rhythmic feeling that combines a traditional Indian tal with funk. It is a study in contrapuntal rhythm, which assigns specific parts of the drum set to specific parts of the beat. The cross-cultural context


applies to the tal-how many beats are in the song. Over the tal, the tehai is played: a unison line that covers a set number of beats. This is played in "Black Satin" by Davis's wah-wah trumpet, synthesizer, and saxophones.

Miles Davis met the challenge of assimilating the classical Indian tablas and added them to a hybrid of Western styles-jazz, rock, Afri- can, Latin, and other free forms. The African influences that occur throughout On the Corner were described by the German critic Man- fred Miller: "It is music based on principles of West African ritual dances, with a multi-woven rhythmical line (drum-choir) as a basis for a 'soundstream' and a collective choir which, instead of fragmented solos, takes the place of the lead singer. "23 Instead of continuously playing the trumpet, Davis devoted long segments of the recording session to directing the ensemble. Davis said, "It's just about three bands in one. We have African drums, an eastern section, and melodies, although the melodies are shorter and most times the things I play are based on rhythm. . . . In melody you have usually heard it somewhere before so I use polyrhythms and things I write might be in the bass or drums.'"24 "Black Satin" features sections in which the sitar and tabla disappear and are replaced by African drumming. The fading out of African instruments and the change to Indian instrumentation in the foreground is an obvious link to Stockhausen's Tele- musik.

Stockhausen stressed the importance of Hindu rhythms in his work, a result of his studies with Messiaen. Ceylon/Bird of Passage directly incorporates the use of the tabla-like percussion played by Stockhausen himself and uses specific ethnic rhythms; Telemusik contains a host of cross-cultural source materials, including African drumming. Stockhausen's interest in the electric music of Miles Davis at this time reveals a common thread in their application of cross- cultural music.

Found Elements

The influences of rock and popular music were widespread during Miles Davis's electric period and evident in his combining new rhythmic elements with electric sonorities. This parallels the development of Stockhausen's use of found materials that resulted in his extensive use of short-wave radio signals. While Davis incorporated the sounds of rock, funk, and pop within an exotic world music that enriched a jazz context, Stockhausen employed music from all over the world in


Telemusik and Hymnen (1967). Kurzwellen (1968) uses the found material of short-wave radios, which Stockhausen felt "opens the musicians to a whole universe of sounds . . . to always be on the alert to the call of the unknown. . . . Kurzwellen is intended primarily as a spiritual journey in which enlightenment may come for both players and listeners from the channeling of impulses received from out- side. "25

In Kurzwellen, each musician has a short-wave receiver and plays a succession of events, separated by pauses. Instrumental imitations of short-wave events by the players make use of the entire acoustic potential of the instruments. A player may react with one short-wave event to another, but when and how often each individual player alternates between radio and instrumental events is for each player to decide. The found material in this composition, which emanates from short-wavebands, never reveals who has composed the sounds. Stock- hausen reports,

What can be more world-wide, more ego-transcending, more all- embracing, more universal and more momentous than the broadcasts which in Kurzwellen take on the guise of musical material? How can we break through the closed world of radio waves which spread as it were a cutaneous network of music around the globe? Does it not already hold many sounds to be picked up by our short-wave receivers that seem to come from utterly different worlds-worlds beyond speech, beyond reportage, beyond music, beyond morse signals?26

By using short-wave radio signals, Stockhausen based his composition on preexistent sources. This interest in found sounds is comparable to Davis's reliance on rock and popular music as new source material. For him, there was a direct link with the found sounds of Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and James Brown. Davis told his guitarists that if they like Hendrix or Sly, they should play something in that vein just to open it up. Sly Stone and James Brown were singled out because they greatly contributed to creating rhythmic grooves that mixed African retentions with American funk and blues. Davis employed the Sly Stone bass application of slap and funk bass to expand his rhythm section vocabulary. Sly's bassist Larry Graham invented the slap bass technique within a funk context. Graham's funk rhythm nearly always implied a sixteenth-note feel. His use of accents, played across groups of sixteenth notes and his accents on 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 11 of even sixteenth notes had an enormous impact on Davis. Funk refers specifically to bass and drum patterns. A funk bass line is the repetition of highly syncopated bass figures that are often


filled with staccato notes. Improvising such lines and figures involves omitting many notes and playing only those that will make a contri- bution to the bass and drums. The combined accents on specific sub- divisions of the beat create the characteristic groove. Funk served as another found element for Davis in his new approach to rhythm and electric compositional style.

The music of James Brown was well established by the late 1960s when Davis began to use similar rhythmic conceptions. Brown's music was a found element to Davis because it could be heard on both white and black radio stations, as well as on television programs like "Soul Train." Brown's soul and funk grooves permeated the European and African popular music scene, and Davis's extensive touring put him in touch with this global phenomenon. This application of Brown's alternating metric patterns is a found element comparable to Stockhausen's use of short-wave radio signals to tap into "a cutaneous network of music from around the globe," but it was the richness in rhythmic complexity of Brown's music that really attracted Davis.

The importance of James Brown to Davis's rhythmic conception derives from Brown's African-American adaptation of West African polymetric rhythms. James Brown divided a 4 meter into a pattern of alternating meters (3 + 3 + 2). Within this context, he would set up three simultaneous metric patterns with a resulting interrelationship among the horns, guitar, and drums. This polymetrical composite rhythm is found throughout Davis's music of the 1970s and 1980s.

To Davis, guitarist Jimi Hendrix, who was slated to record an album with Miles Davis and Gil Evans at the time of his death, was an artist who had transcended the commercial field and had become an international influence on guitar playing. Hendrix extended the range of the electric guitar by incorporating new systems of harmonics that were linked to an in-depth knowledge of amplification and the overdrive of vacuum tube circuitry. His use of studio-recording technique and his virtuosity had an enormous effect on jazz, blues, rock, and the avant-garde.

Davis was the first jazz musician to amalgamate Hendrix's innovations into his music and that influence is still present in the 1990 Miles Davis ensemble. Davis applied many of Hendrix's advances by incorporating wah-wah pedals, over-driven amplification, and expressive use of electronic effects in his own trumpet playing. Beginning with guitarist John McLaughlin, Davis insisted on the use of Hendrix- inspired techniques such as hammer-ons and pull-offs and long, sustained bent notes, which were then not regularly employed by jazz guitar players. Harmonically, the use of Hendrix-style rock power chords and shuffle or boogie rhythms became standard fare for any guitarist who joined the Davis band.


Stockhausen summarized the use of found elements in Kurz- wellen: "It is the utterly unpredictable sounds received on short-wave radio to which the six players react on the spur of the moment of performance . . . so that together they can observe a single event passing amongst them for a stretch of time."27 For Davis, found elements refer specifically to the integration of funk bass, polymetric rhythms, and over-driven guitar amplification, as found in the popular music of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Jazz Hybrids

From his high school years, jazz had an impact on Stockhausen. Maconie claims that the big-band sound of swing music and the free- ing of a strict beat regimentation was vital to Stockhausen's development. "In jazz's accentual rhythms, and intricate combination of meters, its opposition of latent (frequently cyclical) formal rigidity and surface freedom underlying continuity and outward elision and frag- mentation, we may see elements of Stockhausen's own style. Even Stockhausen's serial method may have derived in part from analysis of the rhythmic divisions of time in the jazz classics."28

Jazz is felt in Stockhausen's Refrain (1959), scored for vibraphone, celeste, woodblocks, cowbells, and antique cymbals. The combination of vibraphone with keyboard may have been inspired by the Modem Jazz Quartet. In 1958, Stockhausen joined the pianist and leader of this group, John Lewis, at New York's jazz club Birdland. While this was not a direct encounter with Davis, it did bring Stock- hausen close to him, for Lewis had recorded with Davis in 1953 on Prestige 2402 (with Davis as leader). Stockhausen remarked about this experience, "I learned a great deal, above all from their instrumentation and technique . . . also the way they played, their gestures, their level of sympathy.'"29 But Stockhausen's instrumentation already had showed signs of jazz influences "in its opposition of solo and blocked sonorities, its delineation of structure by changes of timbre and den- sity, and its characteristically 'sprung' rhythms. An awareness of jazz timing and of its intuitive discipline, peculiar instrumental combina- tions, and exceptional blend of sonorities, all are constant features of Stockhausen's approach to music."30

Jazz and Japanese music are integrated in Stockhausen's Der Jahres- lauf (The Course of the Years), 1977. The work can be performed as an opera scene, a ballet, or a concert piece. The plot concerns four devil- ish temptations that interrupt the ritual march of time. It was composed for the Japanese National Theater (Tokyo) and featured dancers and musicians of the Imperial Gagaku Ensemble with additional actors


and assistants. Two versions of the piece exist; it may be performed by traditional Japanese instruments or their Western equivalents. The Deutsche Grammophon recording uses Western instruments and includes the jazz musician Gunter Hempel. The piece has been said to "be making an ironic commentary both on the nature of the western organization of time, and on the implication of Japanese assimilation of a Western culture organized by the clock.""31

Jazz occurs in the fourth temptation, which interrupts the flow of time. Each temptation stops it, and then an incitement starts it again. These temptations and incitements are heard through loud speakers. The fourth temptation is a recording of what Stockhausen labels "soft, sultry light music, as in a night club." A taped big-band jazz recording in the Count Basie style, probably emanating from a German radio broadcast, is heard; it begins at a low volume and is combined with live electronic drones and percussion. The volume of the jazz recording gradually comes into focus, and Stockhausen's voice is heard.

This fourth temptation symbolizes the creative struggle between the calculating self and the spontaneous impulse32-East vs West, European art music vs jazz, composition vs improvisation. This work was written long after Stockhausen had first utilized intuition and improvisation. Here, Stockhausen is commenting on the unwillingness of the proponents of the European classical tradition to embrace spontaneous composition.

Focus on the Trumpet

The trumpet is prominent in much of Stockhausen's work. He scores for groups of trumpets with other brass instruments, but often uses solo trumpet material incorporating highly specialized expressive devices. Commenting on the second half of his 1971 work, Trans (mm. 385- 403, Ex. 2), he states, "You see a trumpet player appearing out of the dark on top of the platform. . . . He begins an incredibly hair-raising solo. And he makes mistakes; you hear them because he's trying to repeat a note at certain times and misses it. He makes furious comments to himself with glissandos. ... The solo ends with a few of the lowest possible sounds of the trumpet-Loud, flutter-tongued, splutter- ing sounds, spit in the trumpet."33

The use of repeated notes and flutter-tongue is also found throughout the recorded works of Miles Davis. An example is Davis's recording of "Sweet Sue, Just You" (Ex. 3). In the "My Funny Valen- tine" solo (Ex. 4), Davis makes use of a descending figure, which is


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Example 3. Miles Davis-"Sweet Sue, Just You." Transcribed by Stuart Isacoff.

repeated in various ways (F, E, E-flat and F, E, D): rhythmic alter- ation, pitch order, and augmentation. In the Trans trumpet solo, Stockhausen's repeating figure (F, D-flat, F, G) also employs alter- ations of pitch and augmentation (see Ex. 2).

Davis's technique of bending notes and using fall-offs is similar in effect to the downward glissandi and spit-out notes in Stockhausen. In fact the spit-out notes centering on A in the first measure of "My Funny Valentine" achieve the same dramatic effect that Stockhausen


Dm Dm maj 7 Dm7 Dm6

Rubato a tempo B? maj7 E7 A7 D7 D7 G7 Cm7 F7 l maj7

Example 4. Miles Davis-"My Funny Valentine."

intends. The ascending scalar passage that moves from D up to B-flat in "My Funny Valentine" is a climactic moment and is also similar in effect to Stockhausen's longer ascent up to B-flat, the climax four measures before the end of the solo from Trans. The high, extended sustained B-flat in both works heightens the tension at this climactic moment. Common techniques employed by both composers are solo trumpet passages with sputtering notes, flutter-tonguing, notes that are spit out of the horn, glissandi, fall-offs, scoops, and even purposefully missed notes. The prominence of these devices in jazz was noticed by Stockhausen; his description of the solo trumpet from Trans captures the improvisatory nature of a jazz solo.

Unlike the European concert tradition, a personal and individual sound is demanded by the jazz aesthetic. The Miles Davis trumpet sound is one of the most important innovations to appear during this century: "Miles' tone has been described as 'walking on eggshells.'.. Part of his famous tone results from the fact that he uses no vibrato. . . . At times his sound is dark, brooding, or threatening. Then, he'll switch to a light, sweet tone . . . similarly, clear, bell-like notes may alternate with jagged runs which sweep by in a bellicose shout or flurry of imprecise pitches."34 There have been only two trumpet sound innovators: Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. Gil Evans reports (on the video documentary of Davis, "Miles Ahead") that all the great sounding trumpet players like Armstrong, Eldridge, Gillespie, and Brown were put through a funnel, out of which Davis derived a new trumpet sound and color. Though Stockhausen does not require that the trumpet soloists of his ensembles attain a Davis- like sound, he does incorporate many of Davis's playing techniques and devices.

Mutes appear in Stockhausen's opera Light (1977-present) and throughout all of Miles Davis's work. Davis's use of the Harmon mute


became his trademark. By removing the adjustable stem of the mute, he altered its effect and created a new timbre. Similarly, in Light, Stockhausen continually changes instructions for the trumpet player to use a variety of mutes and brass effects. Stockhausen made a special duet arrangement for trumpet and bass taken from "Michael's Journey around the Earth" (act 2 of Donnerstag aus Licht): "a strikingly visual- ized instrumental movement for trumpet, additional soloists, and orchestra. "35

The publication of this work includes photos of Markus Stock- hausen wearing a belt that was specially designed for the six different mutes and close-ups of the mutes and trumpet. The symbols used to notate these mutes, a seven-line dynamic staff, tongue clicks, and kissing noises are detailed in the list of explanations. The jazz instrumentation of the duet calls attention not only to the trumpet and jazz inspired mutes, but also to the contrabass. The continual pizzicato indications for the bass have the effect of a jazz walking bass line combined with a free solo section. There are not only repeated note figures, wide skips, and chromatic passing tones common to jazz, but also a rhythmic conception that is both free and varied. The range of the bass used by Stockhausen is characteristic of the range used by Jimmy Garrison on Coltrane's Love Supreme. More important is the timbral combination of bass and brass that has, for the last sixty years, been so characteristic of jazz.

The connection between Stockhausen and Miles Davis is further reinforced by the photo of the cableless transmitter that is fixed to the trumpet of Markus Stockhausen, along with a built-in micro- phone. This electronic amplification system is used in another solo trumpet excerpt from Light, published as Entry, premiered in 1978. Davis's use of this same equipment eight years earlier is documented in numerous photos. Stockhausen's score specifies Harmon mute both with and without a central tube. These specifications parallel Davis's Harmon mute, which was also marked by the absence of a central tube.

Davis continued to use his distinctive sound in combination with Harmon mute, but added synthesizers and computers. An example of his muted sound with computer can be found on the album Aura (1989) in the composition "White." In the 1980s and 1990s, Stock- hausen and Davis were both interested in the use of modern synthesizers. The explosion of new tone colors by way of modern synthesizers is expressed in Stockhausen's recent comment: "What happens there can't be put into words. At present I am like a student again, learning how to program the various synthesizers."36 In the October 1987 issue


of Keyboard, Davis states, "How can I get a brass sound I like if I'm playing with five pieces? . . . Well the Oberheim synthesizer is good."

The recent improvisational recordings on ECM Records by Markus Stockhausen show the affinity of the two composers. And Markus Stockhausen's choice of bassist, Gary Peacock, is interesting. Peacock substituted for Ron Carter in Davis's classic quintet of the 1960s and was a band member of the Bill Evans group and with Keith Jarrett's ensemble (two former Davis sidemen). He appears in this collaboration with Markus Stockhausen on the 1989 recording Cosi Lontano . .. Quasi Dentro (ECM 837 111-2 Y).

To sum up, Stockhausen and Davis inspired each other. Stock- hausen's use of electric trumpet and wah-wah pedal stems from Miles Davis; Davis's incorporation of process and intuition resulted from his knowing Stockhausen's work. They developed similar group conceptions which included new conducting techniques, were affected by cross-cultural and exotic influences, and used improvisation as an integral compositional device. Electro-acoustic principles, found elements, and concern for a new vocabulary for the trumpet are also central to their music. The reciprocal relationship between the Euro- pean concert tradition and American jazz stretches as far back as Debussy. This late twentieth-century example demonstrates the importance of a continuing exchange of ideas and concepts in two art forms, concert and jazz music. It has resulted in an extension of the boundaries that formerly served to define each discipline.

Notes 1. Jack Chambers, Milestones 2: The Music and Times of Miles Davis Since 1960 (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1985), 301.

2. Ian Carr, Miles Davis: A Biography (New York: William Morrow, 1982), 212.

3. Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 61.

4. Gunther Schuller, Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 25. 5. Leroi Jones [Amiri Baraka], Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America and the Music that Developed from It (New York: Morrow Quill PB, 1963), 194. 6. Mya Tannenbaum, Conversations with Stockhausen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 78. 7. Davis and Troupe, 226. 8. Davis and Troupe, 234. 9. Antoni Roszczuk, "Teo Macero," Jazz Forum 50 (1977): 39.


10. Jerome J. Kohl, "Serial and Non-Serial Techniques in the Music of Karlheinz Stockhausen" (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1981), 174.

11. Thomas Owens, "Form," New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, vol. 1 ed. Barry Kern- field (London, 1988), 400. 12. Kohl, 233.

13. Roger W. H. Savage, Structure and Sorcery: The Aesthetics of Post-War Serial Composition and Indeterminacy (New York: Garland, 1989), 76.

14. Chambers, 260.

15. Chambers, 260.

16. Carr, 176.

17. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Towards a Cosmic Music (Shaftesbury: Element, 1989), 36.

18. Stockhausen, 36.

19. Carr, 218.

20. Jonathan Cott, Stockhausen: Conversations with the Composer (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), 33.

21. Carr, 212. 22. Carr, 213.

23. Carr, 214. 24. Carr, 217-18. 25. Paul Griffiths, Modern Music: The Avant-Garde Since 1945 (London: J. M. Dent, 1981), 241. 26. Karl H. Womer, Stockhausen: Life and Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 68.

27. Womer, op. cit.

28. Robin Maconie, The Works of Stockhausen (London: Boyars, 1976), 8.

29. Maconie, 131.

30. Maconie, 326.

31. Maconie, The Works of Stockhausen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 265.

32. Maconie (1990), 266.

33. Cott, 64.

34. Stuart Isacoff, All That Jazz: Solos for Jazz Trumpet (New York: Carl Fischer, 1985), 8.

35. Maconie (1990), 275. 36. Stockhausen, 117.

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