Who wrote Solar? (not Miles Davis)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.ย. 2024
- Did Miles Davis write Solar, one of his most enduring songs? The short answer is - well - no. Did Miles Davis steal Solar? Now that's a more interesting question!
I'm Tim Beau Bennett, and I'm making videos about jazz history. Sometimes I talk about jazz musicians, sometimes the songs, and sometimes about genres. I play jazz guitar, though I would call myself a keen amateur, rather than a professional. These videos are a work in progress, but there are many more to come - so please subscribe and let me know what you'd like to see in the comments!
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This composition, Chuck Wayne's tune, was named after a trumpet player named Sonny Berman. Chuck Wayne told me personally that Miles came up to him at a gig interested in the tune Chuck was playing. Chuck showed him and sometime later he heard his tune being played by Miles who had taken credit. For years Chuck had no way to prove this until the recording he made out west surfaced.
Wow! This is not an isolated incident about Miles! Jimmy Heath told me himself that that tune, "Serpent's Tooth", is his tune. Heath was originally supposed to be on that session. It was going to be a "two tenor session with Heath and Sonny Rollins and of course, Miles on trumpet. They had been rehearsing the music and everything. But at the last minute, Bob Weinstock, of Prestige Records, told Miles that "They needed someone with a bigger name than Heath", who was still an aspiring, young, however, highly respected musician at that time. So, Miles told Heath about it. So, they'd decided to get Bird instead. And of course, Heath was honored to bow out and was even more honored that they were going to play some of Heath's originals, not even named yet. So, the next thing Heath knew was, the record came out. And Miles not only took the credit, but named Jimmy Heath's original, "Serpent's Tooth." I think "Compulsion". the other tune on that session, was Heath's original too. I'm not 100% sure about that. But I am 1000% sure about "Serpent's Tooth." This was also the session where Bird had to use the pseudonym, "Charlie Chan", in lieu of "Charlie Parker", just to avoid any contract infringements.
No! It matters! Performing well and being famous is not the same thing as composing a song. It's hard enough being a composer without other people stealing your songs and getting away with it.
Facts.
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@@euclidesjohnsons2411 It needn't have been forgotten in a drawer. Miles could and should have performed it while crediting the original composer.
Typical Miles, appropriating tunes and then taking the credit lol
@Soltron yes, he did it many times.
Never knew this and it’s been one of my favorite miles tunes for years 😭😂
Love your videos, such a high production quality! Didn’t know about Sunny, but I’m not surprised either. 😊
Yeah it's an interesting story - hard to ever be 100% on what actually happened of course! Glad you dig the videos.
It does make a big financial difference (not to mention contributing to their artistic legacy). One person makes money and the other doesn't. Also, along with Miles, you can also include Duke Ellington, Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy, Chuck Berry etc.
That's very true. Helped pay for the man's Ferrarris, etc.
Played Solar in a band 45+ years ago and still play it every once in a while by memory. Now I know Chuck Wayne composed it and titled it "Sunny". Thanks Tim.
Chuck Wayne wrote Solar. It is about Sunny Berman.
I’m shocked! Great video! Thanks a lot
it is horrible to steal a song blatantly. I dont understand why you are glad he did.
You should write a song and lose out on royalties and credit.
Amen! What a bizarre sentiment for him to end the video on.
What he's saying is he's glad he stole it because we wouldn't have heard or known about it otherwise. Who's heard of Chuck Wayne? But Miles still could have recorded it and still given Chuck and the others he's stolen from their due
@@michaelhauser6440 You're right that he's not as well remembered by the public at large as Davis is, but Chuck Wayne was a household name in his lifetime. His discography reads like a Who's Who of jazz legends and he was also the guitarist for the CBS house band for a decade or so, then had a successful career on Broadway.
@@afonsosousa2684gosh, how much it does seem worth remembering how many players & composers once we're famous & valued & now, with the music presented often as 'a march or progression of history', are little known, treated footnotes at best
Interesting video thanks. Are they songs? Or tunes? I think calling them "songs" is quite a recent thing. It irritates me, but I am not such a recent thing myself. I play in a band called "Four" and I always give Eddie Cleanhead Vinson credit for our theme tune. We've just started playing Tune Up, and I'll have to remember to credit Eddie with that one as well, so thanks for that info.
Interesting point - I use the terms 'song' and 'tune' interchangeably, but I've spoken to people who swear blind that a 'song' needs to have lyrics. That said, Solar has the same short, melodic form of most lyrical standards, so it feels okay to me. Don't know if I'd call something like Birdland or So What a 'song' though.
So glad I found your channel man
Thanks Hakeem! Glad you're here
He did this often, it's surprising that musicians didn't lean on him about it.
One person he gave credit to was Wayne Shorter. Perhaps Wayne gave Miles a good talking to. Other members of the 2nd Great Quintet were also given composer credit occasionally.
I think there's an interview with Charlie Parker, where he talks about Dizzy Gillespie erroneously being credited as the writer of Donna Lee. Bird claims that he was the absolute composer of that tune. However, somewhere along the line, Miles Davis claimed he wrote it.
Listen to some of Conti Candoli's work and playing. Candoli played four before Miles. Miles Davis's style is similar.
There are a lot of strong opinions here (e.g. "He changed a chord! Have some respect!" to "He's a thief! How can anyone defend this?") As Mr. Beau says, there can be a tension that doesn't need to be resolved here. No, it's not okay to blatantly take someone's song, and the evidence is ample in this case (the title is virtually an admission of guilt). If I change the opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night," but keep the melody and structure of the rest of the song, I haven't written anything new. On the other hand, I think the point of the statement "I'm kind of glad he stole it" is that it's a great tune, and it might not have been recorded other than in the circumstances it was (and if it hadn't been recorded by Davis, the other wonderful versions done by others wouldn't have been either). And if it hadn't been recorded then, would any of us know it in any version? It also gets murky when talking about instrumental jazz, so much of which is at least semi-improvisational. Is "Solar/Sunny" a great tune because of what's captured on a lead sheet, or is it the Davis recording of it that is great? I think the discussion can be fruitful, but I don't think there can be objective, definitive answers to such queries.
I've known this for years. The first notes are on Miles gravestone. This really angers me. He even takes credit for Nardis and Blue in Green, written by Bill Evans and Four and Tune Up, written by Eddie Cleanhead Vindon.
Nardis was written by Miles--Bill Evans said as much himself.
The clip of Miles Davis at the beginning is "So What", not "Solar"
solar was the first transcription i ever did its an awesome song
Immortal tune. Amazing your channel. Could you ever consider talking about Jim Pepper's Witchi-Tai-To?
1:42: "eerily similar"? It's note for note and bar for bar identical.
Lee Konitz New Quartet (Florian Weber, p; Jeff Denson, b; Ziv Ravitz, d), Jazzwoche, Burghausen, 2012. Definitive version. Imho.
The footage of Miles is of course not of him playing Solar. The saxophonist was the relatively obscure alto player Dave Schildkraut.
Donna Lee is typically attributed to Bird though there’s a case for crediting Miles!
Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh collaborated to produce some sensational Bach-like lines. They grew from solos played at Lennie’s apartment studio. Different scores credit different players. Like you say, it’s not the most important aspect of this remarkable cultural legacy.
The other thing here is that, as a ii-V-i, Solar isn’t a major harmonic development. But imagine discovering Chuck Wayne playing So What several years earlier! That tune was an innovation and should be recognised as such.
Ahmad Jamal might have become huge anyway, but Poinciana made him extremely wealthy for his time and hardly anyone cares that he didn't write it. Yet it became a jazz standard and whenever we hear any instrumental version of Poinciana, we think of Jamal. That song would barely exist on the planet today if not for Jamal's transposition. It'd be a rare big band piece that few would ever hear.
I love Miles musically but I hate him when he changes the bridge of Monk's Well, You Needn't, or Benny Carter's When Lights Are Low
Adding the more unusual Cmin/maj7th makes it more unusual, but I'm not sure if that really improves it.
It's not a blues either even though it is 12 bars long
GOD BLESS CHUCK WAYNE !
Question is, did Miles ever claim to have written Solar? Many artists secure rights to record other artists and composer's tracks in their own versions.
Chuck Wayne recorded with Miles and many others.
One rumor I’ve heard is that Miles bought many songs from other musicians who were not as well known and did not have the necessary connections that Davis did but needed the money, maybe sad to say for a fix. So Miles paid the composer a few dollars for the song, put his name on it, copyrighted it and collected future royalties.
That makes sense; I wouldn't be surprised
I think the first bar of this song is on Miles tombstone. I love the tune by Miles but there’s no doubt he took it from sunny.
After Charlie Parker's dead . Miles tried to stole Charlie Parker`s Donna Lee ... each time that he listened new chord changes and/or ways of playing 'jazz' ... he wanted to be credited by that ...
Everybody here is discussin' around the fact of having the credit of a tune, but from an artistic point of view. It's allright, but to me the economical point of view is more important : the copyright generate money, and the money doesn't go to the real author. That is unfair and bad, expecially in the jazz world where the great majority of musicians are not rich, and have to struggle to survive as an artist. The majority of them can't simply afford to pay expensive layers to defend there rights. So, OK , thanks for the posterity given to "Solar", but Mr. Miles was paying his apartment on Central Park or his Lamborghini also with money that he shouldn't have earned, and, on top, he didn't need that to be rich as he was, anyway
"Four" . I still love Miles.
The melody fits the major chord progression better than the minor version.
Interesting video!
Yes, Miles was guilty of this more than once in his career...and he also was the victim of same more than once in his career as well (usually by none other by Charlie Parker, who tended to have "head arrangements" of his compositions and his producers/record label owners would, as Parker himself said, "...name those things after I leave the studio.")😊
This is an old, old, OLD problem -- Louis Armstrong famously stated that he actually wrote Muskrat Ramble, and Kid Ory named it...but Ory received the sole writing credit. The year this occurred: 1926. So...
Tune Up another dispute?
I have another question about this tune. When people say the word"solar" in the context of something related to the sun,it is pronounced a certain way, but when jazz musicians refer to the song "solar" they pronounce it a different way. Why is that?
Who wrote Tune Up?
Walkin’ -Richard Carpenter, Gene Ammons!
well given that in jazz the tune is less relevant than the actual execution still it's not nice to learn that Miles credited himself for many beautiful standards that he didn't write. This actually sucks.
Great video, except for the part where you invoke racism. That argument is totally incoherent and stupid. Beatles never appropriated someone elses tunes without crediting them, they've done covers of the tunes they liked. How you can compare this with stealing other people's songs and calling them your own? I'm pretty sure no white artist is or ever was being celebrated for not crediting black composers. That's messed up, dude.
You don't have to include incoherent nonsense for the sake of being woke, just stay on topic.
There's also a huge difference between cultural appropriation (which I feel in a lot of cases is a nonsense accusation anyway, because different cultures melting together is a valuable motor for musical innovation, and often times goes both ways anyway) and blatant plagiarizing.
Right, let's start up the legal proceedings to go after The Rolling Stones, Elvis, and an onslaught of other artists. God forbid a black man steal the white man's song. Knowing Miles, if he did steal it, I imagine he felt rather vindicated and quite frankly, "So What", pun intended!!!!!!!! All I know is EVERYONE KNOWS who Miles is, most people have no idea who Chuck Wayne is and that sure isn't due to Miles' succes of "Solar". After the fact, who wouldn't be elated Miles stole their song?
@@Flowering_Glume No, not everyone would be "elated" that Miles stole their song, as not everyone is apparently as spineless as you seem to be. Could you make it any clearer that you're completely clueless about the reality of being a musician and composer? And Miles' extensive "borrowing" was by no means limited to white men: he also stole Four and Tune Up from black saxophonist Eddie Vinson. Do you suppose he was glad to be ripped off for liberal clout or does he not count because it stretches the limits of your buzzwords? Stop the self-flagellation shit, it's absolutely pathetic and just another way to morally masturbate as a self-appointed white saviour when the whole trope is completely misplaced to begin with. Miles Davis was a millionaire who stole from less prominent working musicians. Coming along and implying these people ought to be glad they were ripped off because you'd gladly offer yourself up for the same treatment out of a need to LARP "social justice" (i.e. jerk yourself off) is just embarrassing and offensive to anyone with a brain and a hint of a backbone.
@@Flowering_Glume how many chromosomes do you have?
Why do songwriting credits matter? Because of the money. So Davis got paid when Metheny or Jarrett recorded "Solar" and Chuck Wayne got nothing. Chuck Wayne also got nothing when Davis recorded "Solar" himself, and that is the point of stealing, isn't it. You say you are happy that he did it. You compare him to Elvis and Led Zeppelin, but the Black people who wrote their songs *were* paid, a lot, maybe not at first, and they also got huge boosts to their careers (e.g., Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters). It is true that "Sonny" was forgotten and it is only known to us because Davis played it, so Wayne didn't get money from Davis, but he wouldn't have gotten it without Davis, either. At least Wayne is now known for having written a Miles Davis song. So maybe you are right about that.
Great way to end it: “If Miles DID steal the tune Solar, I’m glad he did.”
What do you mean, “It doesn’t matter…”. This statement is just as jive as Miles stealing Chuck’s tune. What you’re saying is that you endorse the theft of someone’s intellectual property and hence their money. Publishing matters. In fact that’s where most musicians make their money in terms of their careers. Miles got all the royalties on the tune that a player like Chuck rightfully was entitled to. That’s called theft!
Ok let's start stealing things from others. After all life is dynamic innit?
Miles the freeloader.
I only have my toes dipped in the jazz scene, but does Miles really get more shit than Led Zeppelin or Bob Dylan for song theft? Because they get a lot.
If you take away all the songs he stole, there isn't much left to his legacy as a composer of songs (in contradistinction to his history as a trumpeter and band leader). The apologetics toward the end are rather ridiculous, including the strained attempt to inject some politically correct bullshit about racism.There is no "if" about "if he stole it"; rather, he stole it. And there is no reason in the world to be "glad he did". He could have recorded it, given credit to Wayne, and it would be just as famous.
What's with the intentional mispronunciation of the word solar? SOUL ARE is NOT how the word (or the song title) is pronounced. Why all the blatant pretension? This is not directed at you specifically -- I've heard the same pompous mispronunciation from others through the years. Where does it come from?
Good question!
Do you personally dislike Miles Davis ? This awful photo you posted here you are really it seems you are trying to propagandize this claim. The fact that Miles changed the opening, major chord to a minor, makes it unique enough to get a copyright by Prestige Music. We can ask Dave Schildkraut, Wayne Shorter, and Ron Carter who are still alive, and see if they felt they were playihg some stolen song, since this involves them too. Miles is not here to defend so have some respect.
It doesn't matter whether Shorter, Carter etc etc. felt they were playing a stolen tune. Phonographic evidence is about who recorded what and when, not "feelings". And what made Solar unique enough to get copyright was that it hadn't been copyrighted earlier as Sonny by Wayne, not the change in the opening chord. You can't copyright a chord progression, you dingus; that's why jazz musicians wrote all these tunes on the chords of I Got Rhythm, Indiana, How High the Moon (of which Sonny/Solar is a contrafact) to begin with.
@@afonsosousa2684 Obviously, I do not like being called a dingus. Since you put it the way you did, enlighten me more, still. I want to be educated. Not being a smart ass, I mean it.
@@Flowering_Glume Changing a chord isn't even remotely enough to make it "unique enough to get copyright," as you claimed. Since you don't know what you're talking about, why even make such a bizarre claim? Miles Davis was notorious for stealing songs from other musicians, and regardless of what this video claims, it is indefensible.