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"All Blues" from his iconic album "Kind of Blue." Miles, Trane, Cannonball, Bill Evans, P.C., and Jimmy Cobb. Hall of Fame lineup.
Nuff' said.
Next up, "Nefertiti." Kind of a weird one. If you pay attention, nobody takes a solo. The improvisation is in the rhythm section. Tony Williams' playing is insane. I think this represents Miles very well. He wanted the musicians he played with to express themselves and hoped to bring out the best in them. He wasn't a tough taskmaster who wanted everything done his way. He had a vision of where he wanted his music to go, but that vision included the individuality and innovation of the musicians he played with. This is my personal favorite era of Miles, between 1961-69, with Wayne Shorter on sax, Tony Williams on drums, Herbie Hancock on piano, and Ron Carter on bass. Both Hancock and Carter are still with us and gigging. They embraced elements of free jazz but never went completely off the rails with it. Listen to their live recordings. They're amazingly locked in to each other.
I was going to write a bio about Miles, but it's too long to rehash here. He wrote a fascinating autobiography in the 80s. It's an honest and tough read. He was a bit of a jerk, kind of a complicated person - to put it mildly - but the book was very insightful. You can't overstate just how innovative Miles was. He was always searching for something new and never wanted to rehash his old stuff.
Happy 100th Birthday, Miles.
Melancholy RIP to another jazz legend, Sonny Rollins. One of the all-time great tenor sax players.
Discussion (12)
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Quite an understatement.
But unquestionably brilliant. I've listened to "Kind of Blue" so many times, just over and over - it gets better every time. And he recorded it in a weekend.
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For the full Miles Davis experience, I recommend a new box set that just recently came out. I listen to it on Spotify. I'm terrible. Live at Newport. It covers Miles performances at the Newport Jazz Festival from his classic sextet in 1955 with Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley on saxes. Thelonious Monk plays on the first couple of tracks. To his legendary quintet in the 1960's. To his funky jazz fusion days in the early 70's to his let's snort a pile of cocaine and jam while I play thru a wah-wah pedal of the early- mid 1970's. Really fascinating to hear how much he changed in 20 years.
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Call me a crank, but Davis has never rung my bell. I find his work to be self indulgent, trite and more than a little boring (for example the first cut that thelonious posted). Clearly mine is a minority opinion, given that Davis is the best selling jazz musician of all time, but I came by it honestly by listening to the stuff.
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I honestly don't appreciate Miles Davis artistically. He's definitely fun to watch being interviewed. For music I prefer Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, and Charlie Parker.
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I couldn't find it on YouTube, but Miles Davis was working with Scritty Polity for a while and he said some really complementary stuff about them. I thought it was really amusing. Any interview of him is really interesting.
I was lucky I had a girlfriend that was really into Charles Mingus. I would not have picked that up on my own.
Thelonious Monk to me is really expert, but I think both he and Charlie Parker really suffered for being original. I think they got a lot of unnecessary criticism.
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