Make a Jazz Noise Here

[karlhenning]

Art Tatum
Best of the Pablo Group Masterpieces

[asin]B0000AB133[/asin]

[jowcol]

Oh but I have, I've been listening to it and absorbing it my whole life, everyday .. which is the same.

On this board which is like a microcosm of the legacy itself you see it all .. people discussing and listening to the huge polyphonic beautiful vocal edifices of the earliest music right through to pure electronic music composed in multiple channels to be projected in complete surround sound over booming loudspeakers & beyond, and virtually everything musical in-between from all periods & eras - all parameters exhausted & covered, right down to the atoms themselves. From the most ancient musics to where truly the newest of the new 'in music' is to be found and consolidated. A musical legacy of richness, breadth & depth that is truly extraordinary, unequalled and expanding as I type this ..

Truly, as I read this , it's the music of the spheres.  Yea, long I've wandered in the desert, looking for that still, quiet voice...

[Grazioso]

Truly, as I read this , it's the music of the spheres.  Yea, long I've wandered in the desert, looking for that still, quiet voice...

If the voice says "Pfft!", keep walking 

[jowcol]

01 Jean-Pierre
02 Back Seat Betty
03 Fast Track
04 Jean-Pierre
05 My Man's Gone Now
06 Kix

[asin]B000026KPV[/asin]
Miles Davis - trumpet
Marcus Miller - fender bass
Bill Evans - soprano sax
Mike Stern - guitar
Al Foster - drums
Mino Cinelu - percussion

I'd rank this, along with Aura, as the two best albums Miles released after his retirement in the late seventies.  Very solid album.

[escher]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CGppJGpK1do/TRDH51P4L2I/AAAAAAAAAXM/BZ2kyr3LLhQ/s1600/Frontal.jpg
One of the best jazz guitar album i've ever heard, Ed Bickert here is pure class.

[Grazioso]

Tal Wilkenfeld with Jeff Beck at Ronnie Scott's. This girl can flat-out play:

http://www.youtube.com/v/wf-J_sJB29Q

[jowcol]

My Miles of choice of late has been the Isle of Wight 1970 set-- a 38 minute mix of the styles you'd hear in   Bitches Brew, Live Evil, and Jack Johnson.   


http://www.youtube.com/v/VBTM6blPbUQ
http://www.youtube.com/v/hgnQJhTRx_s
http://www.youtube.com/v/-JlO_xXEBhY
http://www.youtube.com/v/M1QtOxlKU_o

[AllegroVivace]

Thelonious Monk, the most original jazz pianist, in my opinion.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIkmNNmAnAM

[escher]

Thelonious Monk, the most original jazz pianist, in my opinion.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIkmNNmAnAM

one of the greatest musicians in the last century for sure

[AllegroVivace]

one of the greatest musicians in the last century for sure

Yes. I think he was the 'Stravinsky' of jazz. You can learn a lot about theme development from his improvisations.

[jowcol]

Ouch. First off, Jack should never play funk. Chick sounds weak. And the use of percussion sounds unmusical, like they are just picking up their toys and wiggling them around and hollering etc. I have the DVD documentary that that is from .. got it when it was released back in 2004.

[asin]B00069FKN2[/asin]

YMMV

[escher]

Miles, not Monk, is the "Stravinsky of jazz" - at least in my opinion.

Miles Davis, great as he was (and he was for sure one of the greatest and most important jazz musicians), has always beneficiated a lot of the ideas of other musicians. Thornhill  for birth of the cool, George Russell for Kind of blue, Gil Evans for Sketches of spain, Wayne Shorter for the second quintet, Joe Zawinul for the electric period. Without them, it's impossible that those album could exist in the form we know. Miles was the right man in the right place. Monk invented all by himself from nothing a different conception of music. 

[escher]

Monk is song-book and never really changed things up as much as Miles did .. Miles did song-book too, but had a wider conception over the trajectory of his career. Next to Stravinsky tho (or any major composer) they're narrow affairs .. so the comparison-parallel is truly a nonstarter. They were good a their own little things but ..

Miles changed a lot because he used different ideas of other musicians. But anyway, Monk is one of the greats like stravinksy, and he is just as unique, greatness does not depends uniquely on the evolution of style. I don't know any classical composer capable to put irony and the sense of paradox in music (in music, not in other things concerning the music) like him.

[escher]

Miles had a keen ear for assembling the players together .. and from there things would happen.

yes, and he was a great director, but as i have said he used ideas of other great musicians like him.

Monk was unique within his own little song-book, rhythmically static scope,

I can't understand what you mean with rhythmically static scope (rhytmically he was a great musician, and pieces like Evidence are a good demonstration of it), but anyway the rhythm in his music is not the most important part, nobody before him used harmony and chords like him.

but neither really come close to Stravinsky on a musical level. They'd both attest to that, any jazz musician would.

Your idea. I think (like Ligeti for example) that Monk was one of the great musicians of the last century.

[escher]

It's all very narrow (song-book) and homophonic, and he wasn't the greatest player either technically. He spoke with a narrower musical vocabulary and is narrower in all musical parameters next to 'art music'. Monk had his own voice tho, but just because of that I wouldn't stretch that to 'one of the great musicians of the last century'. That's a bit much. I can think of musicians that are much much greater and deeper. Stravinsky being one of course, but also Anton Webern or Bela Bartok ... and Ligeti too etc etc etc

yes, i've understood from a long time what you think about jazz (though it's a bit strange to me that you talk with so much sufficiency of it and then you listen all the time to second rate fusion), i have a very different one, are you trying to dialogue or you want impose your ideas?
My idea is that Monk is much greater than Boulez and stockhausen for example. See? Different ideas.

[escher]

I'm not afraid of electric jazz .. there is a fair share of it that is much more diverse than anything Monk did. I love Monk tho but I wouldn't make grandiose claims about him, he was what he was, and did well in his own little scope. The difference between me and you is probably (tho I could be wrong) is that I have explored Monk, Electric Jazz, Boulez & Stockhausen with a vengeance and quite extensively .. tho i love things from all, and can see them for what they are .. i can say very easily that what the composers have done is musically is on a whole other level in all areas of music, leagues beyond .. anything you will hear in 'jazz', acoustic or electric.

i don't want to ruin your self-esteem, so you can continue to consider yourself a genius (i have my doubt, after the remark on Monk technique, as it was a thing of any importance), but can you make just ONE example of a composer that did what monk did? I quote myself: I don't know any classical composer capable to put irony and the sense of paradox in music like him. And you?

[escher]

well .. his scope was 'narrower' and his lack of technique no doubt hinders musical possibilities.

On the contrary, because Monk's music depend also on his touch and his use of pauses. His conception has nothing to do with ultra fast scales, he is a very different (and greater, for me) musicians than Tatum for example. To say that his alleged lack of technique limited his music is like to say that Van gogh was limited because he hadn't the technique of a painter like Ingres. And Van Gogh is a much greater painter than Ingres.

And I don't hear those things when I listen to Monk; those are feelings, associations and impressions that you are projecting onto the music. He did have his own voice tho, if that's what you're referring to - there are many composers who had that as well.

Those are not just my projections, you can read similar impressions everywhere on his music, anyway "many composers" who?

[escher]

So you read that extra-musical verbage and then listen for it?
.. I never read that stuff, (and if i have, i ignore it) I just listen to the music minus that 'baggage', so I get other things.  And there are SO many composers who have their own voice, come on.

I listen and i read on musicians (and if i'm on this board is precisely because i read of music, because i need suggestions). But those are the things that i and many others ear listening to his music, and it's precisely the reason of why i and many others consider him one of the greatest and most original musicians of the century. We're not talking of jokes like 4'33 or Satie's Vexations, and it's not just a matter of "own voice", he has achieved a thing that you can't find in any other composer (at least for what i know) before him. 

[Mirror Image]

Why won't people learn that arguing with James will get them nowhere? Miles was great. Monk was great. The end.

[jowcol]

Miles was great. Monk was great. The end.

There is room for both on my shelf.  I'll admit that I've got a lot more Miles than Monk, but I figure that anyone who listens to either is not wasting their time.