Miles Davis and Karlheinz Stockhausen Ats 1345

Miles Davis and Karlheinz Stockhausen: A Reciprocal Relationship
Author(s): Barry Bergstein

Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), pp. 502-525
Published by: Oxford University Press
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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 record-
ing 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 trum-
pet, his use of wah-wah pedal, mutes, improvisational elements, and
jazz stylization. Stockhausen's conceptual development of process, in-
tuition, 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 primar-
ily 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 elec-

tric 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 appli-
cations; 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 com-
position 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 signif-
icant 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 impor-
tance 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 addi-
tion 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 inte-
grated 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 pre-
miered 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 per-
formance by the Ballet Africaine during the late 1950s. The rhythm
and acrobatics of the dancers, combined with the continually chang-
ing 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) record-
ing 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 com-
posed 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 incorpora-
tion of West African rhythmic stratification. Telemusik combines elec-
tronic 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 com-
bines the rhythm of one event (such as a priest's song) and the ampli-
tude curve of another. In combining electronic chords with preexis-
tent 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 indi-
vidual 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
ftt 0 ? " _
I) ItI
~pp i
plil ---,...._.
aili
Example 1. Miles Davis--I

(copyright 1969 by Zawin
"Tempo change" transcribe
A linear amplitude m
amplitude or loudness
The most widely used
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 per-
formed 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 tim-
bral blend, which added up to a West African retention of stratifica-
tion, 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 improvisa-
tional 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 ef-
fects 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 com-
position 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 pro-
cess music, which places emphasis on aspects that unfold in perfor-
mance 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 in-
strument/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 incorpo-
rated 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 strik-
ing, 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 intui-
tive 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 musi-

cians 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 exam-
ple, 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 with-
out 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 with-
out 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 instruc-
tions 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 indi-
cations. 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 com-
bination 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 pas-
sages 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 melo-
dies, 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 instru-
mentation 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 con-
tains a host of cross-cultural source materials, including African drum-
ming. 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 rhyth-
mic 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 compo-

sition on preexistent sources. This interest in found sounds is compa-
rable 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 alter-
nating 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 tech-
nique 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 inno-
vations 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 expres-
sive 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, sus-
tained 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 ele-
ments 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 develop-
ment. "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 vibra-
phone, celeste, woodblocks, cowbells, and antique cymbals. The com-
bination 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 instrumenta-
tion 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 com-
posed 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 record-
ing 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 spon-
taneous 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 com-
ments 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
Flzg. F lzg. >
A - - =- _ Hf _ _w I
0--- 3 0---8 >->- > A >

3 3 3 3 3 3
Flzg. schnell chrom
- 3 -
iv Lt01- -
v v> ___- Th>--- .

r-3-- 3
ff f/ ,,l, ~ff
3 3 3 >Flzg.
non Flzg. Flzg.
P It 4 -14
ifF if if?
Example 2. Stockhausen's Trans--Trumpet so
flutter,.
SOE ! . l k
Example 3. Miles Davis-"Sweet Su
repeated in various ways (F,

ation, pitch order, and augm
Stockhausen's repeating figu
ations of pitch and augmen
Davis's technique of bendin
effect to the downward glis
fact the spit-out notes cente
Funny Valentine" achieve th
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 instru-
mentation 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 com-
bined with a free solo section. There are not only repeated note fig-
ures, 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 fur-
ther 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 synthesiz-
ers. 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 concep-
tions 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 ele-
ments, 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 impor-
tance 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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Miles Davis and Karlheinz Stockhausen: A Reciprocal Relationship

Author(s): Barry Bergstein

In June of 1980, Miles Davis was joined by the German composer

during his son's formative trumpet studies. The appropriation of elec-

Early Influences and Contemporaneous

Stockhausen, a leading twentieth-century composer in the European

worked as a jazz pianist in local bars and accompanied a touring magi-

guitars on records such as In a Silent Way (1969), Bitches Brew (1969),

A discussion of recording technique and electronic effects will help to

I acctl. > rit. _._acc-l.

X., v I..7M steady, quick time

Example 1. Miles Davis--I

The splicing and editing of a jazz performance was a new frontier

simultaneously; thus, a note could repeat once or an infinite number

In 1968, Stockhausen composed fifteen text-compositions of intuitive

In addition Stockhausen's process texts and poetic performance

Intuition and Improvisation

There is an important connection between compositions that employ

significant similarities. Early in 1973, Davis began rehearsing his musi-

When I play with my friends or when we do intuitive music together,

The transformation process vital to Stockhausen's intuition is very like

a saxophonist, a pianist and synthesist, and a performer who regulated

ethnic music from many cultures in an electronic composition. Miles

On "Black Satin" and "Mr. Freedom X" (final tracks, respec-

The influences of rock and popular music were widespread during

Telemusik and Hymnen (1967). Kurzwellen (1968) uses the found

What can be more world-wide, more ego-transcending, more all-

By using short-wave radio signals, Stockhausen based his compo-

Stockhausen summarized the use of found elements in Kurz-

From his high school years, jazz had an impact on Stockhausen.

and assistants. Two versions of the piece exist; it may be performed by

Focus on the Trumpet

The trumpet is prominent in much of Stockhausen's work. He scores

Flzg. F lzg. >

0--- 3 0---8 >->- > A >

Flzg. schnell chrom

v v> ___- Th>--- .

Example 2. Stockhausen's Trans--Trumpet so

Example 3. Miles Davis-"Sweet Su

repeated in various ways (F,

Dm Dm maj 7 Dm7 Dm6

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

intends. The ascending scalar passage that moves from D up to B-flat

became his trademark. By removing the adjustable stem of the mute,

6. Mya Tannenbaum, Conversations with Stockhausen (New York: Oxford University

7. Davis and Troupe, 226.

14. Chambers, 260.

15. Chambers, 260.

16. Carr, 176.

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

18. Stockhausen, 36.

19. Carr, 218.

21. Carr, 212.

22. Carr, 213.

23. Carr, 214.

24. Carr, 217-18.

27. Womer, op. cit.

30. Maconie, 326.

35. Maconie (1990), 275.

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