Miles Davis
Trumpet Solo on
So What

About

Opening the solo section, this trumpet improvisation spans two choruses of the 32-bar AABA form at a medium swing tempo of 136 BPM. "So What" is the iconic opening track of Miles Davis's 1959 album Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz album of all time and a watershed moment in the history of improvised music. The 32-bar AABA form, a staple of the Great American Songbook, offers both structural clarity and ample harmonic terrain for improvisation. Following this solo, John Coltrane takes over on tenor sax.

Miles Davis was 32 to 33 years old at the time.