May 18, 2014

Chuck Wayne Playing "Solar" in 1946

I hadn't seen this before  - A blog post from 2012 by Larry Applebaum, on the Library of Congress website, centering on documentation regarding Chuck Wayne's authorship of "Solar." It includes a clip from a recording of Chuck playing the tune (he called it "Sonny," for trumpeter Sonny Berman) at a session in 1946, eight years before Miles recorded "Solar." Chuck uses Cmaj7 for the first 2 bars rather than Cm#7; also note the turnaround and some other melodic details.

There might be some wordplay in the title "Solar" - as the article notes, the tune is (very) loosely based on the chord changes to "How High the Moon." Moon/Sonny/Sunny/Solar.

The LOC post occasioned an article in the Atlantic, which I hadn't seen until now. Ethan Iverson also posted some interesting comments on "Do the Math."

For more on Miles' appropriation of others' work, here's a story, along with a little research I did a few years ago.

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