Midnight Miles

An Eb major ballad at 82 BPM — the key Miles Davis returned to throughout his career. Eb major has a particular quality on trumpet and piano: slightly darker than F, warmer than D. The I-vi-ii-V progression (Ebmaj7–Cm7–Fm7–Bb7) moves through every chord in the key in sequence, making it one of the most harmonically complete single-phrase progressions in jazz. The piano melody is sparse — long held tones, space between phrases, a peak on G5 in bar 5 before a gradual descent to the tonic Eb4 at bar 8. The Bb7 shell voicing (D3+Ab3) is a tritone that creates the characteristic jazz dominant tension.