Make a Jazz Noise Here

[Mirror Image]

No .. it's fantastic music making, kid. And you clearly haven't heard any of those albums I mentioned carefully at all. Because if you did, and you're a player like you claim you are - and like harmonically  (improvisation, composition) adventurous music with a real voice .. then you should love most of those albums I mentioned or at least recognize the facts. They have all that and more in spades.

I see that you're still having trouble reading. Go back and re-read my last post, read it 40 times if you have to, the answers are there. To go ahead and save you trouble, here's what I wrote, I'll even bold it for you:


And it's just your opinion that it's "fantastic music-making." I like jazz music that is more harmonically adventurous, but in an artful and creative way, not in a "look what I can do" way. I have grown damn tired of fusion in general. It doesn't do much for me anymore. Big band, on the other hand, I adore and I dig bebop and some farther out avant-garde stuff.

The bottom line is you have your favorites and I have mine. As I said, my opinions were formed years ago. I know what I like, I know what I'm looking for in the music, and none of the players you mentioned (Benson, Krantz, Topping) are that interesting to me, but this shouldn't mean that I don't think they're great players, because that's not what I'm saying at all. I simply don't connect with the music they make.

Let me also say that just because YOU like and think it is great, doesn't mean somebody else shares the same opinion and if they don't, then they're not wrong for disagreeing. Your implications that you somehow think that you're right about the guitarists you're talking about are immature and is, quite frankly, the wrong attitude to have.

[Mirror Image]

Don't care; your opinions have absolutely no weight at all in my books, this assessment was made ages ago btw.

Typical counter argument for you, kid. Tell somebody you don't care and then go spewing more venom all over somebody who disagrees with your high and mighty opinion.

[Mirror Image]

Now listening to:





Simply outstanding. Got to love Brownie.

[jowcol]

And you and they would be very wrong of course; Miles's 70s efforts by & large in no way come close to WR's best efforts of the mid to late 70s - there is a lot going on with WR, lots of layers & very adventurous. Genius compositions, improvisations, playing, diversity, sounds. With Miles & even early WR you have lots rambling and 'searching' and not much happening at all, and virtually no composition or development ... Teo would just cut and paste the stuff into some semblance of an album later, sometimes it would work, but mostly not. In fact, most of it isn't very good, or adventurous at all - just rambling, samey and dull. Listen to WR albums Tail Spinnin' thru to Night Passage very carefully - you'll be surprised at what goes on in comparison in all musical aspects; it's far far more varied, rich, focused and brilliant. Mindblowing stuff.

Just to clarify on the opinion vs fact dept-- I framed my response as on opinion, and welcome your opinion in response.

You've brought out something very interesting, however, in your response, that does illustrate that you are looking for something different than I in this material.  To be honest, I'm much more interested in spontaneity  than composition.  To me, overly composed jazz, while a valid art form, doesn't deliver what I'm looking for.   So yes, I'd agree that in terms of composition, WR was light years ahead of fusion era miles, but, to me, not half as exciting. 

Teo's involvement with the Miles stuff varied, to say the least.  Certainly, I regard him as a full co-creator on In A Silent Way and Jack Johnson-- his contributions on those albums  were well documented.  But he didn't exactly hit the road and tour with them at the Cellar door in 1970, nor the live material reflected in Dark Magus, Agharta and Pangaea.   The strength of that material was certainly not the composition-- but in terms of energy and a spontaneity,  I tend to find it far more mind-blowing than  any of the live stuff I've heard from WR.  But that's the way my circuits (and my mind)  are wired.  YMMV.  There is also some pretty complex poly-rhythmic stuff going on in the 73-75 bands he had.

I'll confess this has been an evolution for me-- in my 20s, I would have gone in the other direction.

[Leon]

jowcol, I think you an I are on the same page, with a few differences in focus and preferences, but, by and large, we're looking for and appreciate the same aspects of jazz. 

A few guitarists that have not been mentioned:

Biréli Lagrène
Baden Powell
Egberti Gismonti
Derek Bailey (pretty out there, but pretty interesting as well)

Terje Rypdal has been mentioned and he is a very interesting guitarist, whose work transcends jazz, goes into rock and avantgarde/classical areas.  Always interesting.

As far as jazz composers/composing goes - it is almost an oxymoron, IMO, since for me, the essence of jazz is the improvisation, and to the extent there is a written aspect, if it is too constraining, it gets in the way, again IMO, of the playing.  But that is not to say that there have not been great jazz composers:

Ellington
Mingus
Andrew Hill
Wayne Shorter
Dave Holland is a guy who I think creates great balance between the written sections and the playing.

There are many others, but these came quickest to my mind.

As far as contrasting Weather Report and Miles, I can say with no hesitation that Miles' music of that period is far and away more important to me, and I suspect to jazz, than anything Weather Report did.  That is not to say that the group WR was not a heavy duty great band, they were; and all the players, especially the main line-up of Zawinul, Shorter and Jaco - were monsters (the rotating drum chair consistently  included some of the era's best players).  But as Zawinul, and then Jaco, began to take the band in a more commercial direction, Shorter receded to the background and the quality of the music suffered - again IMO.  I'm sure others feel just the opposite.

Jaco was a great, a genius, electric bass player, a really good composer and sweet guy who had some personality problems that, unfortunately, finally got the best of him - but for my money WR before Jaco was a more interesting band, more free, more jazz - albeit, less successful.  (A favorite track of mine is from I Sing the Body Electric "Unknown Soldier" and it is a great example of fusion at its best - Favorite moment: when the piccolo trumpet comes in - brilliant.)

Zawinul has said he wanted to make money, and consciously took the band in a more commercial direction - he succeeded, but I would never think the later records are better than the earlier ones, i.e.,  judged from a purely jazz criteria. 

[Leon]

A couple of great series that I have been collecting:

The Mosaic Box Sets
The Chronological Classics

These are really fantastic, but many of the best Mosaic boxes are out of print.  Their license for these recordings were limited to just a few thousand units and when they sold out, they were not to be offered again, so finding them is somewhat of a challenge.  I've got about half of them so far, and am not interested in all of them, so may be at the end of this endeavor.

The Chrono Classics was a obsessive venture by a French jazz fan who took thousands of jazz 78s and made CDs of (just like the title) a chronological series of artists from the 20s-40s.

I've only begun to scratch the surface of this gargantuan body of work, so as the Mosaic boxes fade in the sunset, the star of the CC is rising.



Highly recommended.

[Leon]

the WR  stuff is very spontaneous, but the improvising (solo & collective) is on such a high level that it often sounds through-composed in a lot of cases.

You don't know what you're talking about.  Zawinul would improvise at home, record it and transcribe it for the band.  Some songs were entirely written out.  Very little of improvisation happened after Mysterious Traveler, especially collectively, which is what Zawinul wanted to get away from and made impossible by his control of the music.

[Leon]

No you're totally off on that, and I know it's hard to believe but it's true - a lot of that stuff was just dashed off and totally improvised. It was operating on a much higher level on all fronts. The earlier stuff (& Miles 70s) sounds so disorganized in comparison.

You are 100% wrong about how that band operated.  Not that it matters.  Believe what you want.

[jowcol]

Teo's involvement was paramount in the success of some of the better tracks/albums ... Dark Magus, Agharta and Pangaea were released and assembled against Miles's wishes I think,

Suggest you read his autobiography some time, if you don't mind the intrusion of some research.

1.  The most dramatic case of an album going out against Miles's  wishes was the Evans/Davis Quiet Nights, where both artists were very upset about the quality of the music, particularly about the interference by one Teo Macero.   Miles ranted about this at great length, although he did, a few years later,  let Teo basically fabricate In a Silent Way from material half as long, and throw together Jack Johnson without much supervision.   

2.  Miles  also commented on his goals for the 73-5 band, which was a collective ensemble improvisation with a minimum of structure and individual solos.  Although I believe he achieved in what he set out to do, I can see how this music can seem less appealing to a listener who is looking for something else.  Also he made it clear that what he was doing could not be adequately captured in the studio.  I'm curious about any documentation you can find about him not wanting those albums released, considering on the written record he was much more disparaging of the vault-emptying releases of his studio material such as Circle in the Round.

[jowcol]

jowcol, I think you an I are on the same page, with a few differences in focus and preferences, but, by and large, we're looking for and appreciate the same aspects of jazz. 

My personal belief is that it's very healthy for people to discuss how their preferences differ in forums such as this, particularly when it leads people to articulate more precisely what it is they are looking for.

As far as jazz composers/composing goes - it is almost an oxymoron, IMO, since for me, the essence of jazz is the improvisation, and to the extent there is a written aspect, if it is too constraining, it gets in the way, again IMO, of the playing.  But that is not to say that there have not been great jazz composers:

Ellington
Mingus
Andrew Hill
Wayne Shorter
Dave Holland is a guy who I think creates great balance between the written sections and the playing.

There are many others, but these came quickest to my mind.

I'd be tempted to add Pharaoh Sanders-- Karma and Tauhid are definitely novel mixes, and far from a typical blowing session.

I also don't mean to imply that pure improve and less structure is always good, and composition and more formal arrangement is always bad-- the tension between the two extremes is an important element.

[jowcol]

I've read it ... must have been all the drugs or something ... because  the results were a lot of long super indulgent meandering with not much happening at all musically. There is more going on in a compact WR track, and a lot more focus & spontaniety.

Focus-- I could see, spontaneity I don't hear-- but the  good news is, if both of us are exiled to different desert islands, we won't be fighting over the same albums, at least in this case.

It is interesting that for spontaneity you cited a series of studio albums-- I would find it hard to judge the spontaneity of a band without comparing multiple live versions to the studio ones the determine how much they varied by performance, or if all the performances stay within the same general envelope of the studio version. 

Another point to consider--  according to Miles, his direction for 73-5 that resulted in: " a lot of long super indulgent meandering with not much happening at all musically" was also pretty heavily influenced by his exposure to Stockhausen.   Of course, some people refer to Stockhausen the same way.

[jowcol]

I've read it ... must have been all the drugs or something ...

Maybe next time you should read it without taking the drugs first.... 

[jowcol]

Apologize for beating a dead horse here, but the following interview snippets from the percussionist Mtume (taken from the book Miles Beyond), which address the divergent goals of different fusion bands far better than I've said it myself.

As these are quotes from Miles and co-- expect a bit of earthy language-- although this is mild by his standards.

Percussionist James Mtume about the direction of Miles's mid-1970s music:

"Miles and I constantly talked about music and the direction it was going," Mtume recalled, "and one of the things we talked about was fusion. My view was that the fusion movement was the emphasis of form over feeling. It became about how complex you can write things. This is not writing from the heart, but writing from the head. Playing bars of 11/8 for complexity's sake is great for school, but not for music. Miles went way past that. We went straight for the feeling. We were exploring how long we could keep one chord interesting. That was infuriating to the critics, who were glorifying fusion. But we said, 'Fuck fusion.' We were into emotion."

"The other thing that we talked about," Mtume continued, "was that Miles felt that his music had moved away from the pulse of African-American music. He felt his shit had become too esoteric and that he had contributed to that. Miles wanted to find a way back into connecting with the black community. But the aesthetic question was, 'How do we do that?' We discussed this more than anything else. At the time Miles was listening to a lot of James Brown, Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, and George Clinton, and that's what he wanted to put together. Miles's idea was to get back to the root of the music, to the funk, but to funk with a high degree of experimental edge. He wanted to take it much further."

[Leon]

Another guitarist I meant to mention but didn't is Joe Pass.

His small group stuff for Pacific Jazz is great.  A down-to-Earth but extremely swinging hard bop guitarist who consistently had great bands and made great jazz.  The Pablo stuff is good too, but not as intense as the earlier recordings.

Pat Martino (Live at Yoshi's) is kind of like "Joe Pass the Younger".  Both great jazz guitarists.

And if you like small group standards (as I do), Johnny Smith is another guitarist that recorded nothing but standards for Roost Records, in a really cool style.

[bwv 1080]

speaking of late 60s / 70s Miles, I am quite fond of these Bill Laswell remixes



and the DJ Cam remix of In a Silent Way on this CD (the rest of the album is mixed)



here is Bill Laswell

http://www.youtube.com/v/LBCf_htc9M4

and DJ Cam

http://www.youtube.com/v/Owx_f2NKgvo

[jowcol]

I mean this in the most sincere way man ...just  listen to those albums* more or re-visit them with open ears,you will be so surprised...

Actually, I plan on a revisit-- this conversation has already gotten me to dig up a some of my Miles.(and Panthelassa)    ALthough you have to remember that no other person on the planet will react to music exactly like you will-- it took me about 35 years to learn that lesson.

Improvising compositions,

Definition of OXYMORON
: a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly : something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements

See this goes to show that you're not that familiar with the albums & music I'm talking about - 2 of which are live documents

The irony is, as a collector of live music, I have more live WR than you do, if you only have the two commercial live releases.   If you compare multiple live shows, as opposed to a carefully cherry picked set of releases, you can get a better idea of how much improvisation the band really does.   Compare live recordings of the Mahavishnu Orchestra between 72-73, and there was a lot more variety in each vesion that I've found in WR.


As an aside, despite the fact that Mr. Gone was savaged by the critics and had a lot of crossover efforts, I actually liked parts of that album a lot.

and loaded with spontaneous creativity, richness and invention - in all aspects

Sometimes it easier to seek out different artists for different strengths, rather than strain oneself that one of them offers all things to all people...   Some of my favorite improvisers were limited composers, or the other way around.   I don't think Coltrane was  a great composer-- but I love his classic quartet more then anything in jazz.

.

Teo was really the true genius behind some of the better tracks and moments on Miles's stuff during that time.

Some I would agree on-- and I've already offered concrete examples.   Teo's contributions to In A Silent Way and Jack Johnson were massive (and in the former, probably more important than what Miles did).  Quiet Nights was a disaster.   But if you compare the live tracks from Live Evil with the Cellar Door tapes, you can't really make a case the Teo made them what they were.  (Or, if you don't like that material either, you can use that to make the case the other way.)

It's not long drug-addled simplistic meandering 'jams' of the 70s Miles variety with nothing going on ... it's A LOT more musical. Miles lost the plot by the mid-70s & beyond .. the music isn't that great at all and lacks any kind of focus or thought, just long pointless jams.

If the music doesn't speak to you, don't waste time on it.  You are more than welcome to your opinion and to cultivate what moves you.  I only say that you will save yourself a lot of frustration to assume that others will automatically feel the same way.  I'm not sure if I've ever seen an opinion stated before placing WR over fusion-era Miles before , but as this thread has shown, there are many differences in the goals and approaches taken between both groups, and no two people share the same ears.  Frankly, if it were all cut and dried one way or the other, music really wouldn't be a very interesting thing to talk about.

[jowcol]

See this proves to me that you don't really know a lot

I'm talking about great music here.

Wow!  That's never happened on this forum before.  Maybe we should create a site where people can discuss great music instead of "good music".

Miles is THE most overrated jazz musician of all time as a player. And I always found his tone 'grating' and he lacked technique & range. Many mediocre & long solos. I'd take Zawinul or Shorter over him anyday ..

Actually, I'll agree to a lot of this in principle, although for long solos I'm not sure -- many times he received criticism for not playing  long enough.  He usually gave a lot more room to his sidemen. IMO, his skills were mostly about bringing together disparate elements and , as you said earlier, "wait and see".  After the 2nd quintet, I saw him more as a bandleader and producer than anything else.  I don't think Shorter and Zawinul have ever gotten as many credits for launching new genres as Miles (Cool, Modal, and certainly  had a hand in fusion, given that he was the one who pulled in Shorter and Zawinul.)   

I don't really take much stock in your view jowol ... i'm sorry bro.

Believe it or not, I'll get over it.   

Believe it or not, I already am! 

[Mirror Image]

Pat Metheny is one of the best of his generation .. in the trio format he is best ...

http://www.youtube.com/v/s1g_FqUOWjQ

I actually prefer Pat in a larger group preferably with a pianist. He did a recording with Gary Burton called Like Minds (w/ Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Roy Haynes) that remains one of my favorite recordings Metheny's played on. I also dig his Pat Metheny Group recordings with Lyle Mays. Offramp is still the one PMG recording I come back to on a regular basis.

[jowcol]

In Miles' biography, it's stated that Bird let him into his band because he felt sorry for him. Miles' was a nice guy, but he couldn't play along with them. So he let him sit in, and Miles learnt stuff by heart and didn't improvise.

Which biography was that?  I'd like to check that out.  (Although, if it is attributed to Bird, he may be as maddeningly inconsistent a source as Miles was...)

Miles never created, named or declared any of these supposed new 'genres', and never forget - the players in his various bands were just as responsible for the success he had, Miles often got 'all' the credit and this wrong ... he just merely did his thing essentially and the media/press ran with it and compartmentalized and categorized and stuck labels on it...

There is definitely some truth in terms of "naming" the trends is arbitrary, and also the importance of collaboration with others, including Evans, Shorter, Zawinul, et al, for "starting" new styles.  But saying he "merely did his thing" doesn't really address how "his thing" kept evolving.  Otherwise, he would have spent his career playing bop.

Miles was a good director and assembler of talent, often 'cherry picking' top players from various bands on the scene, because of his enormous reputation and popularity he could do that ... but his own simplistic musicianship as a player often paled amoungst  many players he recruited & played with ... and many of the players after leaving Miles's band would normally go on to greater musical heights.

The same could be said for the likes of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, (or, in the British Blues scene, John Mayall). I think the last sentence may go a bit far, but in essence, I agree with this very strongly, as I think you have identified his key strength.  I'd agree that his greatest role was a as a bandleader and a catalyst.  I would say, though, that in addition to just assembling talent, he based his selections on anticipating future trends.  He spent a lot of real estate in the autobiography detailing why he chose each person, and when.

One thing I would also add is that he would push artists out of their comfort zone, or into new situations.  (With, I'd agree, was a "wait and see approach, which didn't always gel).  He was responsible for pushing several artists into use of electric, who then used it for their own careers.. Yes, Shorter wrote In A Silent Way, but Miles had him pare back the chords to open the tune up. His interactions with McLaughlin during that session also got a new sound out of him.  An example (from Miles Beyond)

John McLaughlin himself does not appear to have recognized the brilliance of his own playing, or that of the other musicians, on the In A Silent Way session. His bewilderment was illustrated by an anecdote told by Herbie Hancock. "After we finished we walked out of the studio," Hancock remembered, "and while we were standing in the hallway John came over and whispered to me, 'Can I ask you a question? I answered, 'Sure'. He then said, 'Herbie, I can't tell... was that any good what we did? I mean, what did we do? I can't tell what's going on!' So I told him, 'John, welcome to a Miles Davis session. Your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea, but somehow when the records come out, they end up sounding good.' Miles had a way of seeing straight through what happened and knowing that over time people would figure out what was really happening."

Does this make Miles a great soloist or composer?  Not in a traditional sense. Did he help advance music?  I believe tremendously.  Your mileage may vary.


By the way-- kudos on one of the best posts I've ever seen you provide on this forum.  You've taken the time to offer examples, and also have tempered general assertions with  a more balanced and nuanced take  on an artist's strengths and weaknesses than I've ever seen from you before.  It's also pretty interested to notice, that over the course of this thread, our take on Davis's core strengths was pretty similar-- it was the subjective value we applied to them that differered.

[karlhenning]

[asin]B0012GMXME[/asin]

30 Dec 1963

Disc one
1. Bye-Ya 11:23 - previously unreleased
2. I Mean You 12:51
3. Evidence 13:55
4. Epistrophy 2:06
5. (When It's) Darkness on the Delta 5:16
6. Played Twice 7:48

Disc Two
1. Misterioso 9:43 - previously unreleased
2. Epistrophy 1:17
3. Light Blue 12:54 - previously unreleased
4. Oska T. 13:19
5. Four in One 14:43
6. Epistrophy 2:23