The term “
modal jazz
” was coined by the jazz theoretician and composer
George Russell
, who used it to describe the scale-based jazz of the early 1960s. Pioneered by
Miles Davis
and John Coltrane
, modal jazz also paved the way for the development of
free jazz
and jazz rock.
Modal jazz was largely a reaction to the bebop jazz style, which demanded rapid, complex chord changes that felt constricting to many players. Dispensing with these constantly...