modal jazz
genresMOH-dul jaz
A style of jazz that bases improvisation on scales (modes) rather than rapidly changing chord progressions.
Modal jazz reduces harmonic movement to a minimum, allowing improvisers to explore the melodic possibilities of a single scale or mode over many bars. Miles Davis's Kind of Blue (1959) is the definitive modal jazz album. Instead of navigating complex bebop changes, soloists float over static harmonies, creating a more spacious, meditative sound. Modal jazz freed improvisers from the tyranny of chord changes and opened vast new melodic territory.
Kind of Blue was largely improvised in a single day; Miles Davis gave the musicians sketches of scales and modes rather than written arrangements, and recorded mostly first takes.