Comparison Of Miles Davis And Charlie Parker's A Night In Tunisia
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Miles Davis and Charlie Parker's rendition of "A Night in Tunisia" begins with a piano and guitar duo playing the familiar, repeating bass line of the song as originally written by Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Paparelli. Five seconds later, the percussion joins in, forming the backbone of the work. At thirteen seconds into the song, the saxophone of Charlie Parker joins the trio, performing a slightly off-beat rhythm that assists in creating syncopation, one of the earmarks of many jazz songs. Seventeen seconds into the piece, a muted trumpet joins in the group, played by the renowned Miles Davis. The group plays along with very little change until at twenty five seconds, when Davis performs a short aside, before resuming the main theme. The…show more content… At this point, the group once more performs the aside, before launching into an upbeat salvo in which the whole group performs variations of a short, upbeat rhythm continuously. Unlike the rest of the song, this particular section sees the whole group playing in unison, whereas there are obvious rhythm and solo sections throughout the rest of the piece. At 1 minute, 18 seconds, the whole group stops playing, save for Charlie Parker, who launches into a fast-paced improvised saxophone solo. He is rejoined at 1 minute, 23 seconds by the remainder of the group, who play a simple rhythm to accompony his solo. This group does not consist of Miles Davis, as clearly he and Parker are going to engage in a call-and-response sort of solo. At 1 minute, 46 seconds, Miles Davis takes over where Parker leaves off, launching into an equally upbeat, improvised trumpet solo. While nowhere near as fast-paced as Parker's solo, Davis's part is more lively, with much more definite intonation. Parker takes back the piece at 2 minutes, 7 seconds, seemingly mimicking Davis's slower, more defined play