Stanley Crouch on Miles Davis (was Tony Williams Interview)
Roger Stump
in Stanley Crouch's article on Miles in the New Republic based on my memory
of having read it two years ago, so I decided to get a copy of the article
and make sure that the views I was attributing to him were actually presented
in the article. In general, the article was even worse than I remembered.
The article is in the Feb 12, 1990 issue of the New Republic, pp. 30-37.
It's the cover story, on the cover entitled "Sketches of Pain: The Rise
and Fall of Miles Davis." Inside the magazine it is titled "Play the Right
Thing," and has the subtitle "Miles Davis, the most brilliant sellout in
the history of jazz." Here are some quotes:
"The contemporary Miles Davis, when one hears his music or watches him
perform, deserves the description that Nietzsche gave of Wagner: 'the
greatest example of self-violation in the history of art.'"
"Desperate to maintain his position at the forefront of modern music, to
sustain his financial position, to be admired for the hipness of his
purported innovations, Davis turned butt to the beautiful in order to
genuflect before the commercial."
"Once given to exquisite dress, Davis now comes on the bandstand draped
in the expensive bad taste of rock 'n' roll." [There is a lot about
Miles' changing sartorial tastes in the article. Relevance?]
"He walks about the stage..., leads the din of electronic cliches with
arm signals, and trumpets the many fades of his own force with ampli-
fication that blurts forth a sound so decadent that it can no longer
disguise the shriveling of its maker's soul." [This is pretty laughable
even from someone of Crouch's legendary pretentiousness.]
"Beyond the terrible performances and the terrible recordings, Davis
has also become the most remarkable licker of moneyed boots in the music
business, willing now to pimp himself as he once pimped women when he
was a drug addict." [Crouch is striving to become a legendary cheap-
shot artist as well.]
"Once nicknamed Inky for his dark complexion [a nickname Crouch uses
several times in the article -- could a white critic get away with this?],
Davis now hides behind the murky fluid of his octopus fear of being
old hat, and claims that he is now only doing what he has always done --
move ahead, take the music forward, submit to the personal curse that
is his need for change...." [A claim that Crouch does not directly
refute anywhere in the article, except through rather florid assertions
that appear to reflect mainly his own traditional tastes.]
Note that the above quotes came from just the first page of the article!
The rest of the article contains many similarly disparaging statements, often
directed at Miles' clothes or his personal life. There are also many
assertions minimizing Miles' influence or significance in jazz history. The
article is not wholly negative, though. After the first page of back-to-back
insults, Crouch presents a five-page review of Miles' career through Filles
de Kilimanjaro which is generally favorable, although he always seems to shy
away from unqualified approval. He also expresses some rather odd opinions;
he believes, for example, that the Birth of the Cool sessions are of little
significance, apparently because they are too "European" (shades of PC!).
After spending 5 pages on the period from the 1940s to the late 1960s, though,
Crouch then summarizes the period from the late 1960s to 1990 in a single,
short paragraph. Again, the insults (and wildly erroneous opinions) begin:
"In A Silent Way, in 1969, long, maudlin, boasting, Davis's sound mostly
lost among electronic instruments, was no more than droning wallpaper
music." [When was the last time he listened to this? Side Two
of the album (In a Silent Way/It's About That Time) is definitely NOT
droning wallpaper music. I can see how someone of Crouch's traditional
tastes could say that about parts of side one of the album, but side two?]
"A year later, with Bitches Brew, Davis was firmly on the path of the
sellout. It sold more than any other Davis album...." [So you're a
sellout just because you sell more albums. Does this make sense?]
"Davis's music became progressively trendy and dismal, as did his attire;
at one point in the early 1970s, with his wraparound dark glasses and his
puffed shoulders, the erstwhile master of cool looked like an extra
from a science fiction B-movie." [Again with the clothes! And what is
trendy about Miles' music from the early and mid 1970s? Simply the
fact that it used electronic instruments? Is that relevant? And what
was dismal about it? I find much of it exhilarating and beautiful.]
"His albums of recent years--Tutu, Siesta, Amandla, and the overblown
fusion piece that fills two records on Aura--prove beyond any doubt
that he has lost all interest in music of quality." [Has he really
listened to these records -- to Mr. Pastorius on Amandla for example?
And repeating a point from an earlier post, these records don't represent
the last word on Miles' music during this period (although Crouch
established early in the article that he didn't like the live music
either -- his loss, I guess).]
Most of the rest of the article outlines Miles' various personal failings,
based on statements made in his autobiography. Crouch does not make it
clear how these failings affected Miles' music, though, and so does not
clarify why they are important in understanding Miles as a musical figure.
As a result they come across mainly as cheap shots.
Crouch's main conclusion, at the end of the article:
The fall of Davis reflects perhaps the essential failure of contemporary
Negro culture: its mock-democratic idea that the elites, too, should lie
down in the gutter. Aristocracies of culture, however, come not from
the acceptance of limitations, but from the struggle with them, as a
group or an individual, from within or without.
Now it seems to me that a good example of "the acceptance of limitations"
would be to learn how to play one style of music in your teens and early
20s and then play that same music for the rest of your life. Another
example: to idolize the accomplishments of a previous generation, and
spend your career trying to imitate and perfect those accomplishments. Miles
spent his entire career struggling to move his music forward. So what the
hell is Crouch talking about here? I sure can't figure it out, except to
say that Crouch's judgment is apparently a victim of his prejudices.
--
Roger Stump | "I'm going to call myself on the phone
University at Albany | one day and tell myself to shut up."
rst...@itchy.geog.albany.edu | --Miles Davis
Jeff Beer
(see the liner notes of Chick Corea's Circling In) but now he has been
content to become the lap dog of Wynton. Crouch talks about selling
out. He used to hang out with the New Music artists in the 70s, he even
played with them. Then he switched and became aligned with the media darlings.
Is that a sell out? You make the call.
As for Miles, in Miles' changing, he remained the same.
Instead of working with people his age, he would find the best young
musicians that he could work with. He basically would work with them in
_their_ tradition, but with his genius and leadership, would shape the
music into something his sidemen would never dream of. It isn't what
you play, it is how you play it.
Miles main contribution is less as a trumpet player, but more as a
leader. He is like the Magic Johnson, he always knew what the right
play was to get the most out of his cast. He worked with what he
had, instead of imposing his own tradition and style on them, he would
work with his sidemen's natural abilities. He also wasn't an egomaniac
soloist. He was willing to play the same role as his sidemen if it made
the music happen. This is not to say Miles was a slouch on the horn.
It really always was like that. In my opinion, I don't think the
calibre of his sidemen were the best in the 80s as they were earlier.
But the moment you write them off as a cheesy pop band, they would come
up with something to surprise you. Sure, Time After Time might be a
dopey pop tune to some, but so is My Funny Valentine. Miles really did
the same thing to Time After Time that he did to MFV: take the tune to
its minimum phrasing and play a ballad on it. I heard Miles play that
live once, and it was just as beautiful and unique as MFV on the album MFV.
If anyone thinks Miles was complacent about his last band, listen to
Behind The Scenes With Miles from the NPR Miles Davis Radio Project.
There is a segment of about 10 minutes of him rehearsing his band.
He has an extremely in-your-face attitude about reheasing, extremely
sensitive to the finest detail, working hard until they got it just right.
Jeff
william.j.hery
>Crouch is an idiot.
Some quotes from Crouch's liner notes from Wynton's latest (BLUE INTERLUDE):
"Music exists for the purpose of giving our humanity audible charisma."
[How do you spell pretentious?]
[talking about Marsalis' performance:] "And as we repeatedly listen to the
title track, we realize that no one has ever achieved the sustained development
of long composition for small band that Marsalis does in this performance of
nearly 40 minutes." [unfortunately, it seems that Mr. Crouch has never had
the pleasure of listening to Coltrane, Mingus, John Carter...]
"...Marsalis has had to grow into perhaps the most impressive jazz composer
of the last 25 years."
There are probably more worth adding to the list, but, frankly, I couldn't
read the rest of the liner notes.
Is Crouch and idiot? You decide.
Bill Hery
AT&T Bell Labs
201-386-2362
he...@att.COM
Adrian C Penisson
ing it a real listen. If Wynton's early work hadn't been so overly praised and hyped, I think that there would be a lot more Wynton Marsalis fans out there. Give "Blue Interlude" an open-minded listen and don't read the liner notes. You may be pleasantly surprised.
In regards to Crouch's comments on Miles, I have not listened to enough of his fusion stuff to agree or disagree (I hated Amandla). I do know, however, Miles Davis was a great musician and contributed some great music (if only one album from the 20th century is remembered 1000 yrs from now, I'd hope it be "Sketches of Spain"). I do not think, however, that Miles is a better musician than Wynton (nor do I think the reverse). Each has his own special qualities. Miles has that eerie tone which can send sh
ivers down your spine. Wynton on the other hand has the most wonderfully "vocal" style of any trumpet player I've ever heard. It's a shame that people must always argue about whose better rather than simply enjoying what each has contributed, because they've each contributed so much.
Let the flames rip,
Adrian Penisson
William Tsun-Yuk Hsu
>[talking about Marsalis' performance:] "And as we repeatedly listen to the
>title track, we realize that no one has ever achieved the sustained development
>of long composition for small band that Marsalis does in this performance of
>nearly 40 minutes." [unfortunately, it seems that Mr. Crouch has never had
>the pleasure of listening to Coltrane, Mingus, John Carter...]
>Is Crouch and idiot?
Or a victim of selective mindrot.
Or a dishonest writer/journalist.
Bill, who stays away from Crouch's articles these days, because he's
had a tendency to throw the paper across the room in the past, and
may hurt an innocent bystander
William Tsun-Yuk Hsu
a...@blackfin.owlnet.rice.edu (Adrian C Penisson) writes:
>I greatly enjoy Wynton's work and "Blue Interlude" ... The major problem
>with "Blue Interlude" is Crouch's liner notes. As expected, Crouch tries
>and make this out to be the greatest album ever made. It is Crouch's
>ridiculous overpraising of Wynton's work which has been one of the major
>causes of people dismissing Wynton's music witho...
[I think the line buffer overflowed here]
>ing it a real listen.
I've stayed out of the Wynton wars for the most part (Wynton wars != Crouch
wars), but in this newsgroup at least, I don't think anyone has denied
that Wynton is a good musician. Most of the comments I've read indicated
that his detractors *have* listened to him carefully, over several albums.
Most of the complaints were along the lines of "he's good, but he's not
that big of a deal, and there are other people who are just as interesting."
>Wynton on the other hand has the most wonderfully "vocal" style of any
>trumpet player I've ever heard.
I'd say Lester Bowie has the most wonderfully "vocal" style of any trumpet
player I've heard. But you probably mean something different by "vocal" :-)
Bill
Benjamin Weiner
> ... He [Crouch] also expresses some rather odd opinions;
>he believes, for example, that the Birth of the Cool sessions are of little
>significance, apparently because they are too "European" (shades of PC!).
I think this is not an aberration on Crouch's part, but rather an
integral element of his critical stance. That is, his support of the
neo-trads comes from a belief that jazz musicians started to be
influenced by impure elements - jazz avant-gardism, European non-diatonic
music, whatever. His opinion is that jazz was corrupted by moving
away from its traditional roots (in the African-American experience,
he means). And that the avant-garde musicians have no audience
because they've cut themselves off from their culture (and that's why
only whitey comes to their concerts, et cetera).
I have no argument with the neo-trad musicians themselves, but it is
very hard to stomach Crouch, who exalts neo-traditionalism by putting
everything else down - especially since Crouch was buddies with the
avant-garde musicians up until the early 80s. (See his liner notes
on, for example, David Murray albums. More recently, he even wrote
the notes for the Carter/Tapscott "West Coast Hot" reissue - but he
had to get in some digs at today's musicians who he thinks are
traipsing down the wrong path.) I gotta agree with Jeff Beer - I
think Crouch saw a new rising star in the early 80s, and decided to
hitch his wagon to it; writing for the Voice and Black Saint liner
notes was too marginal. Frankly that's a lot like what the New
Republic did, with the neo-conservative intellectuals, around the
same time.
More worrisomely, Crouch's argument about diluting the roots of jazz
comes too close to calling the avant-garde "degenerate." Shades of
"Chaos instead of Music" [the famous article that savaged Shostakovich
in the USSR]. This is a bad move for jazz which has always been
rascistly attacked as degenerate music. Another problem is that
Crouch seems to demand more purity from black musicians, whereas white
musicians are freer to rip off whatever influences they like. In a
way this is just a rehash of the old criticisms of Braxton for being
"too white."
Finally, anyone who thinks that the avant-garde is inaccessible should
have seen the high-school kids (black and white) getting into
David Murray's 10-minute feature on bass clarinet, of all
"inaccessible" instruments, last summer at Damrosch Park (JVC's one
decent concert). The inaccessibility comes in when you figure that
none of those kids (nor me for that matter) can _afford_ most jazz
shows. (And the lineup at Damrosch is lamer this year.)
Sorry to ramble on, but Crouch's oh-so-moral stance really
pisses me off,
Ben Weiner
Alan McKay
>Roger Stump writes:
>> ... He [Crouch] also expresses some rather odd opinions;
>>he believes, for example, that the Birth of the Cool sessions are of little
>>significance, apparently because they are too "European" (shades of PC!).
>
>I think this is not an aberration on Crouch's part, but rather an
>integral element of his critical stance. That is, his support of the
>neo-trads comes from a belief that jazz musicians started to be
>influenced by impure elements - jazz avant-gardism, European non-diatonic
>music, whatever. His opinion is that jazz was corrupted by moving
>away from its traditional roots (in the African-American experience,
>he means). And that the avant-garde musicians have no audience
>because they've cut themselves off from their culture (and that's why
>only whitey comes to their concerts, et cetera).
Don't know if this particular Crouch sentiment has shown up in print
(have only read his stuff in liner notes), but in a post-mortem Miles'
radio show last fall, ~lots~ of folks were interviewed, including Stanley.
The one thing that stands out in my memory is how he thoroughly trashed
Gil Evans and the projects Miles did with Gil. I think Gil was somewhat
responsible (could be wrong on this) for Miles getting into some of the
European Classical stuff, so, to paraphrase Benjamin, this too would be
compatible with Crouch's critical stance.
...al
w.a. mckay
desert research institute
reno, nevada
Jeff Beer
>Gil Evans and the projects Miles did with Gil. I think Gil was somewhat
>responsible (could be wrong on this) for Miles getting into some of the
>European Classical stuff, so, to paraphrase Benjamin, this too would be
>compatible with Crouch's critical stance.
Not only Gil, but Bill too. Bill would turn Miles on to Ravel and
Scriabin, then Miles would go to the library and study scores.
One of Miles favorites was Concerto pour la main guache.
Jeff
Joe Hellerstein
cathartic (talk about an easy target!), but it brought up some mixed
reactions for me. At base is the fact that I don't really like
anything Miles has done since the early 70's, and I haven't found
anything from IN A SILENT WAY on to be particularly inspiring. I know
I'm not alone in this, and I think it's an interesting exercise to try
to figure out why that should be. Crouch goes about this in his usual
high-art heavy-handed way. Let me go for the usual mealy-mouthed
flame-retardant rambling, and see if I provoke anything.
First and foremost, a lot of people's distate with Miles coincides
with his first uses of electronic instruments and treatments. There's
been a lot of back and forth on who influenced whom, but in my view
it's pretty straightforward. The earliest electronic music came out
of the European camp (Stockhausen, et al.), so the fact that Miles
"went electric" in the late 60's has a lot more to do with the sound
of rock music than with the state of the art in technological/textural
experimentation. For the large part, the electronic effects on Miles'
albums have been pretty pedestrian; the electric keyboards and guitars
on IN A SILENT WAY, the echo box on BITCHES BREW -- these were not
novel textures at the time. Miles was moving towards the sound of the
popular music of the day, rock and roll. To me that's plain and
simple, and goes a long way toward explaining why a lot of people
think the music doesn't work.
While the texture of the music was related to a lot of the rock music
of its time, the structures of the pieces weren't particularly novel
either. While Miles' sound was individual and still expressive, the
improvisation (to my ears, anyway) rarely jumped out of the texture of
the music and called attention to itself. I know people will have
examples to the contrary ("Man, you must never have listened to...");
this is just one person's opinion. I think that most of this music is
about texture, and therefore Miles' genius for improvisation,
melody-making, and phrasing gets lost in the hum.
One argument in Miles' favor has always been that he found the best
young sidemen around, and built his sound around them. In the late
60's, this might explain why his music went the way it did. The
significant popular music base at the time was rock and roll, and the
young players (and the next older generation, eg Herbie and Wayne),
wanted to experiment with the apparent power of the medium. Not too
fruitful, in my opinion. So I can blame not liking Miles' late 60's
records on the same factors that produced a lot of other music of the
time that I didn't like. But this argument does not explain Miles in
the 80's. Miles' sidemen were *not* the best players around, or
certainly not the most visionary players around. Marcus Miller is a
long long way from David Murray, for example. The exciting young
players were no longer experimenting with rock and roll in the early
80s, and certainly not in the late 80's.
My feeling is that there is a grain of truth in Crouch's bombast,
namely that Miles' music of the late 60's and onward is not as
exciting as his earlier stuff, whether or not you consciously approach
it in its historical context. On the 70's and 80's albums there's
often a killer groove, or an occasional nice turn of phrase. The
bands were usually very good, although I think the later bands were
more workmanlike than innovative. But this music doesn't reach me
emotionally at all, and when I make myself listen I don't hear any
aspects of the music that my mind should recognize as especially
interesting.
I don't think I'm being close-minded (close-eared?). I'm just trying
to get at the bottom of why Miles' later stuff doesn't work for me.
Disagreements or alternative explanations are encouraged.
Joe Hellerstein
-----
Two related things:
1) I'm not at all qualified to comment on the influences on hip-hop, but
shouldn't Herbie be getting more credit there than Miles?
2) Has anybody ever done a comprehensive study on Miles' liner notes?
They seem to have a definite progression, getting more pompous and
silly as the years go by, until they disappear altogether. Check out
the liner notes on IN A SILENT WAY, for example. ("Miles the boxer,
Miles the dresser, Miles the bon-vivant.") Or the LP compilation
GREATEST HITS (which reminds me a lot of the liner notes to Sly and
the Family Stone's GREATEST HITS album.) Goofy shit!
Jeff Beer
First and foremost, regarding the big sales of Miles' rock music, the
fact is simple arithmetic. The baby boom generation has the numbers. They
listened to rock music. To the extent Miles tapped into the rock music
audience (for whatever reason ) was the same extent he got huge audiences. It
is absolutely no measure of how much he sold out.
In article <JOEY.92Ju...@elysium.berkeley.edu> jo...@berkeley.edu (Joe Hellerstein) writes:
>reactions for me. At base is the fact that I don't really like
>anything Miles has done since the early 70's, and I haven't found
>anything from IN A SILENT WAY on to be particularly inspiring. I know
Speak for yourself. For me, the 70s Miles has some of the most potent
concepts of the composition of improvistation.
>First and foremost, a lot of people's distate with Miles coincides
>with his first uses of electronic instruments and treatments. There's
>been a lot of back and forth on who influenced whom, but in my view
>it's pretty straightforward. The earliest electronic music came out
>of the European camp (Stockhausen, et al.), so the fact that Miles
>"went electric" in the late 60's has a lot more to do with the sound
>of rock music than with the state of the art in technological/textural
>experimentation. For the large part, the electronic effects on Miles'
>albums have been pretty pedestrian; the electric keyboards and guitars
>on IN A SILENT WAY, the echo box on BITCHES BREW -- these were not
>novel textures at the time. Miles was moving towards the sound of the
>popular music of the day, rock and roll. To me that's plain and
>simple, and goes a long way toward explaining why a lot of people
>think the music doesn't work.
The way the Europeans made electronic music was not conducive to
improvisation performance. For instance, the first synthesizers did not have
keyboards. They invariably took up rooms at academic and scientific
research institutions. Many sounds were crafted with razor blades and magnetic
tape. Sun Ra says he had the first virtual mini-moog.
The first synthesizers with keyboards could only play one note at a
time. I am not sure what you mean by electronic effects. Yes, they
were using the same "gadgets" as the rock musicians. No, they were not
getting the same textures, nor using the same chords.
>While the texture of the music was related to a lot of the rock music
>of its time, the structures of the pieces weren't particularly novel
>either. While Miles' sound was individual and still expressive, the
>improvisation (to my ears, anyway) rarely jumped out of the texture of
>the music and called attention to itself. ..............
>about texture, and therefore Miles' genius for improvisation,
>melody-making, and phrasing gets lost in the hum.
The structure of the pieces _were_ innovative. If you want to know
where the chords are, you could really summarize them on Filles de
Kilimanjaro, such on Miss Mabry, which has the long form in which they
of through a variety of textural and rhythmic changes. They had a way
of moving those polychords in a way that functioned modally. But Miss Mabry
is all mapped out, much as are the 32-bar I Got Rhythm changes. The innovation
of the Bitches Brew era was to free that complexity into some of the non-linear
areas that Ornette and Coltrane used. Coltrane and Ornette used multiple
horns and multiple percussion. Miles did that with multiple
keyboards and guitars. That is quite a bit different, because you have
deal with harmonic textures, again they were using polychords, but
not tied down to fixed progressions, nor fixed metrical structures,
that is to say, _for everyone at the same time_.
The Bitches Brew phase is one of the few times Miles actually talked
about how the music is structured, in his autobio. One of the things he
mentions is with the small unit of a vamp, which is perhaps one or two
bars longs, he keeps each keyboard on a chord at certain parts of the
time, but then lets them do what they want at other times. With three
keyboards and a guitar, you can have 3 or 4 chords in one measure, but
layered differently. This creates a process of improvisation, and a
structure of music that was unprecedented. There were other
stylistically things included, the rock music, but at its core of
creation, it was a new thing.
"I had begun to realize that some of the things Ornette Coleman had said
about things being played three or four ways, independently
of each other, were true, because Bach had also composed that way. And
it could be funky and down. What I was playing on On the Corner had no
label, although people thought it was funk because they didn't know what
else to call it. It actually was a combination of some of the concpets
of Paul Buckmaster, Sly Stone, James Brown, and Stockhausen, and some of
the concepts I had absorbed from Ornette's music, as well as my own."
"The music was about spacing, about free association of musical ideas to
a core kind of rhythm and vamps of the bass line."
As for the 80s, I have commented about that earlier.
Jeff
Seth Katz
writes:
This won't be a response, just a few retorts...
jo...@berkeley.edu (Joe Hellerstein) writes:
>Marcus Miller is a long long way from David Murray, for example.
No argument from me here... I think the only Miles sideman from the
80's to have a real career (and personality) on his own is John Scofield.
To my ear, Scofield breaks another rule, too- I think he's the
only Miles sideman who left Miles a less interesting musician
than when he joined the band.
I think one thing that makes Miles sidemen of the 80s seem
second rate is the idea that Miles ever picked the best. The "classic"
group of the 60's is one of the most overrated bunch of young jazz players
Miles ever ruled. Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and some of the others (gotta leave
Tony Williams out of this one) were solid players, but didn't break
any new ground. Personally, I find them painfully boring.
Miles never added guys like Mal Waldron, Steve Lacy, or Ed Blackwell.
He gave Sam Rivers the boot real quick.
I don't see 80s sidemen like Marcus Miller, Mike Stern and others as any
different. Let's face it, if you aren't old enough to have seen Miles
in the 60s, the work of a lot of those guys sounds painfully dated or
insignificant. Meanwhile, Coltrane (after he left Miles), Ayler, the AEC,
Taylor, and other truly top knotch players of the period sound like they
could have been recorded yesterday. ...as long as we're expressing personal taste...
>The exciting young
>players were no longer experimenting with rock and roll in the early
>80s, and certainly not in the late 80's.
sounds that Marcus Miller brought in to TUTU and AMANDLA were more
from the electro-funk or whatever it was called. They are not all
BTW, Joe- I doubt Herbie deserves much credit for hip hop.
He jumped on the craze with "Rockit" by hiring Bill Laswell
to make a hit album for him. Ho hum.
=-Seth
who listens to Agharta, Pangea, Kind of Blue, Sketches, Star People,
We Want Miles, Jack Johnson... mostly. No fisticuffs, please ericl.
Roger Stump
>namely that Miles' music of the late 60's and onward is not as
>exciting as his earlier stuff, whether or not you consciously approach
>it in its historical context. On the 70's and 80's albums there's
>often a killer groove, or an occasional nice turn of phrase. The
>bands were usually very good, although I think the later bands were
>more workmanlike than innovative. But this music doesn't reach me
>emotionally at all, and when I make myself listen I don't hear any
>aspects of the music that my mind should recognize as especially
>interesting.
>
>I don't think I'm being close-minded (close-eared?). I'm just trying
>to get at the bottom of why Miles' later stuff doesn't work for me.
>Disagreements or alternative explanations are encouraged.
>
best stuff from the 1970s) appeals to me quite a bit, but to few other
people I know -- despite my efforts to persuade them of its value :-).
I think that the best I can do is explain why i DO like it -- not in
musical terms (Jeff Beer in another post has done a very good job of that),
but in terms of the particular context within which I first became
familiar with this music. Back in my youth (the late 60s - yipes!),
I was a big fan of instrumental, improvizational rock/blues music: Hendrix,
Eric Clapton, the Grateful Dead, Mike Bloomfield, etc. That was mostly
what I listened to. At the time, FM rock stations (underground stations,
we called them) were much less "programmed" than they are now, and one day
the local underground station played JACK JOHNSON. I thought that it was
the greatest thing I'd ever heard. It made most of the other things I listened
to sound pathetic. Ditto for the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Weather Report.
I liked these things so much because I already had an ear for this kind
of music; it was similar to what I was used to, only much better -- that is,
more interesting, more challenging, more provocative, more compelling.
Exposure to this music quickly brought me to jazz generally, and eventually I
lost my taste for most fusion music (except Miles, the others listed above,
and a few others). I found a good deal of the rest of jazz to be even more
interesting, more provocative, and more compelling (and I also got older,
and am not as interested in the same things, musically, now at age 40 that
I was at age 20). Miles' 60s quintet is the pinnacle for me now, I suppose.
But I still like much of the fusion stuff, in part because I've been listening
to it for 20 years, but also because I can hear in it so much of what I like
about Miles' music -- his tone, his expressiveness and so on. That's only
natural, since this was the starting point for me in my exploration of his
music. And I still find the music interesting, in part because it's so
different; Pangaea, Jack Johnson, Live-Evil -- there really aren't many
other records like these, by anybody. A good thing, some might say :-), but
I wouldn't be one of them.
Eric Linstadt
s...@grosz.esd.sgi.com (Seth Katz) writes:
> To my ear, Scofield breaks another rule, too- I think he's the
> only Miles sideman who left Miles a less interesting musician
> than when he joined the band.
>
Robben Ford?
> I think one thing that makes Miles sidemen of the 80s seem
> second rate is the idea that Miles ever picked the best. The "classic"
> group of the 60's is one of the most overrated bunch of young jazz players
> Miles ever ruled. Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and some of the others
(gotta leave
> Tony Williams out of this one) were solid players, but didn't break
> any new ground. Personally, I find them painfully boring.
Even Herbie's two-chord telegraph thrash intro to his solo on Jack Johnson?
> Miles never added guys like Mal Waldron, Steve Lacy, or Ed Blackwell.
He probably wasn't the easiest guy to work for :-)
> He gave Sam Rivers the boot real quick.
Wasn't that because he'd finally convinced Wayne Shorter to join the band?
And bring his incredible writing talents with him?
Miles always played what he wanted to, and listened to what he wanted to.
Who else would tell Coltrane to take the saxophone out of his mouth? Tell
Monk what/when to play? I've seen him wave off plenty of soloists, or shout
at a keyboard player ("I thought we were playing Jo-Jo", to Kei Akagi), tell
the audience to "Shut Up". He didn't give a f**k if somebody thought he was
"selling out".
He had big ears, but maybe not the fastest ones. James Brown had been
working hard for at least ten years, and Ornette for twenty, before Miles
caught on. But, oh, he did catch on.
> No fisticuffs, please ericl.
See if I give you back your copy of Havergal Brian's Symphony #3...
-Eric (often too uncritically accepting of lots of artists' work, like Miles,
Monk, Coltrane, Murray, Lacy, and Garcia, and Pynchon, Burroughs, and Dick...)
steven bulmer
>second rate is the idea that Miles ever picked the best. The "classic"
>group of the 60's is one of the most overrated bunch of young jazz players
>Miles ever ruled. Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and some of the others (gotta leave
>Tony Williams out of this one) were solid players, but didn't break
>any new ground.
Got to agreee here...this was made painfully obvious upon obtaining
the newly re-released "Complete 1964 Concert". Ron Carter on "So What"
and "walkin'" is quite the disappointment over my other recordings
with Chambers.
-Steve B
Roger Stump
>I think one thing that makes Miles sidemen of the 80s seem
>second rate is the idea that Miles ever picked the best. The "classic"
>group of the 60's is one of the most overrated bunch of young jazz players
>Miles ever ruled. Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and some of the others (gotta leave
>Tony Williams out of this one) were solid players, but didn't break
>any new ground. Personally, I find them painfully boring.
The classic 60s quintet overrated? Tony Williams is one of the most innova-
tive sidemen Miles ever had; apparently you agree, at least to some extent,
since you explicitly left him out. He revolutionized the role of the drummer
in small group jazz. Out of all of Miles' sidemen, throughout his career,
Wayne Shorter was (IMHO) the best composer (please note I am not including
everyone with whom Miles recorded -- e.g., Monk and Mingus -- but only members
of his working bands). Wayne Shorter boring, as composer or soloist? A
difference of opinion here. Herbie and Ron may not be of quite the same
stature as Tony and Wayne, in terms of their enduring impact on the music,
but I wouldn't call them boring or overrated.
Jeff Beer
>>group of the 60's is one of the most overrated bunch of young jazz players
>>Miles ever ruled. Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and some of the others (gotta leave
>>Tony Williams out of this one) were solid players, but didn't break
>
>the newly re-released "Complete 1964 Concert". Ron Carter on "So What"
>and "walkin'" is quite the disappointment over my other recordings
>with Chambers.
You want Ron? check out the Complete Plugged Nickel. all 7 CDs ;)
I'll bet Ron was messing with Tony's head on that one, because he was
doing a lot of the things that Tony usually did.
Herbie left more spaces than usual, though he had some _out_ chords, and
Ron filled in that space.
That _Four and More_, we always fantasied that Miles was backstage with
walkie-talkies telling Herbie and Tony what to do. ;)
Jeff
Marc Sabatella
> jo...@berkeley.edu (Joe Hellerstein) writes:
> >I think that most of this music is
> >about texture, and therefore Miles' genius for improvisation,
> >melody-making, and phrasing gets lost in the hum.
>
> At its worst, definitely. (To me the worst is Mtume, on GET UP WITH IT).
> But there are places on LIVE-EVIL and JACK JOHNSON that are very personal
> and (as far as I know) unprecedented and never repeated. One man's opinion...
And in any case, why not now discuss Miles' genius for texture? While most of
what I've heard of electric Miles (and I confess I haven't really heard as much
as I should) doesn't do a lot for me, I can still recognize a certain genius
in those textures, at least before the Marcus Miller era.
> >Marcus Miller is a long long way from David Murray, for example.
>
> No argument from me here... I think the only Miles sideman from the
> 80's to have a real career (and personality) on his own is John Scofield.
>
> >The exciting young
> >players were no longer experimenting with rock and roll in the early
> >80s, and certainly not in the late 80's.
>
> Talking about "Rock and roll" in the 80's is kinda out dated... The
> sounds that Marcus Miller brought in to TUTU and AMANDLA were more
> from the electro-funk or whatever it was called. They are not all
> that far from what M-BASE was doing, I would say -- though on a
> different direction altogether. It's true that Miles did not interact
> with the M-BASE/JMT crowd, but I don't really see them at cross
> purposes.
Gary Thomas used to play with Miles. He is a counterexample to almost every
statement here: Miles sidemen not among the most exciting, not having careers
and personalities on their own, exciting young players not experimenting with
"rock and roll", Miles not interacting with the M-BASE/JMT crowd. He basically
did not enjoy the experience all that much, as Miles was not very interested in
letting Gary be creative, instead instructing Gary on funk licks to play.
Kenny Garrett also played with Miles in the 80's, as did Branford (possibly
only for "Decoy"?). But the point is taken - for the most part, Miles sidemen
for the last 10 years haven't been up to his previously established standards.
I agree that Miles became more "texture" oriented, but I wouldn't necessarily
hold that against him. However, by the late 80's, even the textures were not
particularly state-of-the-art.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Sabatella Winner, 1992 First Annual Bill Evans Lookalike Contest
ma...@hpmonk.fc.hp.com
Marc Sabatella
> I think one thing that makes Miles sidemen of the 80s seem
> second rate is the idea that Miles ever picked the best. The "classic"
> group of the 60's is one of the most overrated bunch of young jazz players
> Miles ever ruled. Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and some of the others (gotta leave
> Tony Williams out of this one) were solid players, but didn't break
> any new ground. Personally, I find them painfully boring.
Now, you should know that you're not going to get away with a statement like
that without an argument :-)
I am not sure how you can say Herbie Hancock broke no new ground. I can
understand how you might say it about Ron Carter - to me, his value was in his
interplay with Herbie and Tony. You don't mention Wayne Shorter - I also
wonder if you don't see anything innovative about him as well.
Let me get more specific here. Listen to any of the albums Herbie did with
Miles up to and including Sorcerer. Preferably with a fake book in hand so
you know what the chords were originally. Now transcribe some of Herbie's
voicings, and relate them to the changes. Try this same exercise with any
other pianist who played before 1965. You will probably not find anyone who
even remotely approached Herbie's harmonic sense. You will see more "out"
pianists, to be sure (Cecil comes to mind :-), but does innovative means "most
outside"? I don't think so. Herbie Hancock redefined the way pianists
approached the chord changes to standards, and showed how to interpret chord
changes to pantonal compositions like those of Wayne Shorter (although
admittedly one or two other pianists, including Andrew Hill, broke the ground
along with Herbie on the latter front).
Now as for Wayne, get the lead sheets for some of his compositions of the era.
Try to find the key center(s). Try to relate each chord to some key center.
Wayne's compositions, while containing very specific chords, contained very few
traditional ii-V's or simple 8-bar harmonic progressions. This was unique for
its day. Sure, you'll find people like Ornette, who transcended chords
entirely, but again, I don't equate "innovative" with "most outside". Wayne
compositions used more-or-less standard chords in very unconventional ways to
create textures that I believe are qualitatively different than could be
achieved by either standard bop-type chord progressions or atonal/changeless
music like Ornette's. A few of Miles' own or Bill Evans' compositions hinted
at this, but Wayne fleshed out the idea.
The specific players you mention do not seem to me to prove anything about
Herbie Hancock or Wayne Shorter. Mal Waldron's "innovations" (I personally
don't find him particularly interesting most of the time) are not along the
same lines as Herbie's, and thus do not detract from them. Ditto on Steve
Lacy or Sam Rivers versus Wayne Shorter. I am not sure what your point is
regarding Ed Blackwell - do you really believe he was more significantly
more innovative than Tony Williams? Again, it is to me just a different line
of innovation. No one can deny the innovations of Coltrane, Ayler, and the
AEC were major indeed, but again, I don't see that diminishing those of Miles'
group in the mid 1960's.
> I don't see 80s sidemen like Marcus Miller, Mike Stern and others as any
> different. Let's face it, if you aren't old enough to have seen Miles
> in the 60s, the work of a lot of those guys sounds painfully dated or
> insignificant.
Speak for yourself. The mid 50's rhythm section, now *that* sounds painfully
dated to me. But I really wonder how you could have become so jaded as to
find E.S.P. et al "insignificant", and I hand't it until the 1980's.
It is fine to say you prefer the innovations of Mal Waldron to those of Herbie
Hancock, or those of John Coltrane to those of Wayne Shorter. But you'd better
have some evidence to back up a claim that Herbie and Wayne were not innovative
at all.
andypl...@yahoo.com
When Stanley goes after Miles sartorial shift in the late 60s, it becomes oh-so-clear that it's about that most questionable aspect of critical opinion - what we call: personal TASTE. For the most part I don't want to convince anyone that this is better than that, and therefore that you MUST like it/pay attention to it. Gentleness goes a long way in motivating curiosity in any given artist.That, and knowing "the story", that is the artistic efforts and concomitant lived experiences of Lester Young or Miles Davis.
There is this video on youtube in which Crouch is debating James Mtume about Miles' "electric period" and Crouch says (and I paraphrase) " . . . where did that (style of) music go . . . ?" which I suppose means that it didn't go anywhere, that it just disappeared. What a fundamental philosophical mistake for a critic to make! As with all Jazz (and art) it went everywhere and no where, to places that are easy to see and places that we have absolutely no idea about.
Yes darling, it was the Electric Miles that led me into Jazz. He sold well and his records were in stock (easy to find). You might call it "Rock" but Bitches Brew was still not the easiest thing to listen to, it took some concentration. And then I started making other connections (simple connections that made me want to get complicated) such as, Round Midnight (the Miles Davis version) was written by Thelonious Monk! John Coltrane played on that Miles Davis version. Etcetera.
I have now tried to listen, consume, and digest all of Miles Davis' recordings. I don't think I've done it yet, but what has impressed me, is that, speaking for myself, I can hear the same person (Miles) playing quite proficiently, and in a similar manner ("walking on egg shells" for example) from one period to the next. I am glad that I started (and appreciated) the electric period first, so I didn't get stuck in any kind of ambivalence about it.
And to end on a controversial note, in my Miles survey I have come to the conclusion that the "electric period" really reached its apex with the Agharta, Pangea and Dark Magus line-up and recordings. This music really has an edge, is pretty avant-garde while yet remaining musically eclectic. Pete Cosey's guitar and percussion add so much to that mix while Michael Henderson's bass goes about as bass as bass can go, and Miles single finger keyboard playing is maybe not proficient, but utterly effective in terns of MOOD. I can call this Cleaning-Out-The-Carburetor music.