{"id":3802,"date":"2012-07-05T00:28:37","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T07:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=3802"},"modified":"2012-07-05T23:39:32","modified_gmt":"2012-07-06T06:39:32","slug":"solar-davis-or-sonny-wayne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2012\/07\/solar-davis-or-sonny-wayne\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Solar&#8221; (Davis) Or &#8220;Sonny&#8221; (Wayne)?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A long-running discussion (or argument) about the authorship of a major jazz tune may have been resolved once and for all. The tune is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Solar,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d copyrighted in 1963 with the name of Miles Davis as composer, nearly a decade after he recorded it. It is a 12-bar minor blues based, with certain departures, on aspects of the harmonic structure of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How High The Moon.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d  Here, from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Walkin-Miles-Davis\/dp\/B000F8DTCS\/?_encoding=UTF8&#038;keywords=miles%20davis%20solar&#038;tag=rifftidougram-20&#038;linkCode=ur2&#038;qid=1341467908&#038;camp=1789&#038;sr=8-3&#038;creative=9325\"target=\"_blank\">compilation album <em>Walkin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em><\/a>, is the trumpeter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1954 recording with Davey Schildkraudt, alto saxophone; Horace Silver, piano; Percy Heath, bass; and Kenny Clarke, drums.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"440\" height=\"355\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dx83bH9z2tA?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><p>Keep that melody and its harmonies in mind. Among musicians and jazz insiders it has long been alleged that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Solar\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is in fact a piece <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Chuck-Wayne.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Chuck-Wayne.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Chuck Wayne\" width=\"150\" height=\"144\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3803\" \/><\/a>called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sonny\u00e2\u20ac\u009d written in the mid-1940s by guitarist Chuck Wayne (1923-1997) and later lifted by or credited to Davis. What has been missing until now is aural evidence of Wayne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s claim that he wrote the tune. Larry Appelbaum, the Library of Congress jazz maven, and Wayne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s widow have posted on the Library\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s website a recording of Wayne, trumpeter Sonny Berman and unidentified others playing Sonny. At the time of the recording Wayne (pictured) and Berman were members of Woody Herman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s First Herd. The MP3 is only one chorus of melody and a few bars of Wayne improvising, but it leaves no doubt of a similarity to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Solar\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that it is all but impossible to credit to coincidence. <\/p>\n<p>To see Appelbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story of the discovery, pictures of him, Mrs. Wayne, the acetate recording, the Davis copyright claim and&#151;most important&#151; to hear the 1946 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sonny,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d go to <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.loc.gov\/music\/2012\/07\/chuck-wayne-sonny-solar\/\"target=\"_blank\">this Library of Congress page<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>It will be disappointing if Appelbaum does not release the complete performance of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sonny.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This discovery has stirred up anew claims and counter-claims about other compositions that Davis allegedly appropriated from others, among them \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Four,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d &#8220;Tune Up,&#8221; and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Blue in Green.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>As for Chuck Wayne the guitarist&#8217;s guitarist, here he is with George Shearing in the late 1940s in one of the pianist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most successful quintets. The other players are Don Elliott, vibes; John Levy, bass; and Denzil Best, drums.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"440\" height=\"355\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0KQCtE2t1kM?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A long-running discussion (or argument) about the authorship of a major jazz tune may have been resolved once and for all. The tune is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Solar,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d copyrighted in 1963 with the name of Miles Davis as composer, nearly a decade after he recorded it. It is a 12-bar minor blues based, with certain departures, on aspects [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}