48 – This Too
on May 5, 2014
Like I said, Miles Davis wrote a LOT of tunes.
The list of commonly misattributed (maybe) tunes is as follows:
Donna Lee
Nardis
Blue In Green
Tune Up
Four
Solar
Dig
Walkin’
Seven Steps to Heaven
Footprints
Thanks to Eric, Gary, and Josh for their contributions last time.
Know of any more?
I think Miles actually wrote Donna Lee; apparently one of the first times he met Gil Evans, Gil asked for a lead sheet and for permission to arrange it.
Love your comics though, man.
I think Bird actually wrote Donna Lee?
Footprints is not misattributed. It’s a Wayne Shorter composition attributed to Wayne Shorter. Walkin’ is probably misattributed, but not to Miles Davis.
Is Josh still around? He had seen “Footprints”, as well as some other Wayne Shorter tunes, attributed to Miles.
I can’t say that I have though.
I’ve always heard that Donna Lee was misattributed to Parker. Makes sense to me – it does not sound like a Parker tune, and it does sound like Miles.
I’ve seen Footprints lead sheets on a few occasions that had Miles’ name on them. May have just been an individual’s mistake, but I’ve known several folks (mostly young students) that think a lot of tunes Shorter wrote that were performed by the Miles quintet were actually written by Miles.
As for Donna Lee, the only evidence there is that Donna Lee was written by Miles are comments that Miles made himself. As for the the idea that Donna Lee “sounds” like Miles but not Parker: I just don’t hear it…
Donna Lee WAS actually written by Miles but Bird took credit for it. Where do you think he learned the practice of taking credit for other peoples tunes?