Dig (composition)

"Dig" is a bebop jazz standard attributed to Miles Davis by Prestige Records without Davis' knowledge.^{[citation needed]} It was recorded on October 5, 1951 and first released on his album The New Sounds.

Its chord sequence is almost identical to that of "Sweet Georgia Brown" by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard, making it a contrafact. Davis' second recording of the tune on May 9 the following year, this time for Blue Note, was called "Donna" and credited to Jackie McLean, the original composer, who played alto saxophone on both sessions (Young Man with a Horn and Miles Davis Volume 1).^[1]

"Dig" has also been played by numerous other artists such as Sonny Rollins, Woody Herman, Donald Byrd, Archie Shepp, Joey DeFrancesco, and Fred Firth.

Notes

^ cf. Jack Chambers, Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis, Da Capo Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1998 (unabr. paperback ed.), pt. 1, p.158: "Dig, credited to Davis, was recorded seven month later as Donna and credited to McLean; by either title and author, it is a bebop line superimposed on the chord sequence of Sweet Georgia Brown."; Chambers (1998), p.164f: "Donna is a peculiarly methodical reading of the bouncy tune recorded under the title Dig for Prestige..."

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