[Dixielandjazz] Miles & Bix

[Stan Brager]

Steve;

I noticed small numbers by some of the points you've made. Do they refer to
books or references? If so, what are they?

Thanks;

Stan
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Barbone" <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: "DJML" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 8:22 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Miles & Bix


Miles Davis was VERY aware of, and very influenced by, Bix's recordings.

He was a huge Beiderbecke fan and he made that known to everyone who ever
spoke to him about influences. In his younger days, Miles was known to look
for players and people who had personally known Bix and could discuss his
work and life first hand. He was VERY interested in Bix's harmonics and
tone, and Bix's influencers. You can bet the farm that he was influenced by
Bix and certainly can hear it in much of Miles' recorded work, or see it in
solo transcriptions of of their efforts.

There is probably lots of information about this to be found in books and on
the net. However, the above information comes from personal conversations
with Miles Davis himself in the 1950s and 60s.

Davis has gotten a very bad rap from many people (who didn't know him) about
his supposed dislike of whites, and "attitude" etc. Most of what we hear
from those folks is pure bullshit. He was a stand up guy who spoke what he
felt without guile. He could care less what color you were. What mattered to
him was: whether you were a stand up guy; Whether on not you did what you
said you were going to do; Whether or not you could play if you were on the
stand with him. That and his burning desire to make rock star money playing
jazz his way. (which he did)

BTW, when hassled by some black fans about using Bill Evans (white) in an
early group Miles' reply was something like; "I don't care what color the
m***** f***** is. Nobody plays better."

Same thing with David Liebman on Sax, and other whites in his jazz fusion
groups.

Perhaps Bix was the very first "modern Jazz" player, harmonically and the
one reason we OKOMers don't realize that is because we don't follow the
"modern jazz" trumpeters.

A few Miles quotes:

(About Louis Armstrong) ³You can¹t play nothing on modern trumpet that
doesn¹t come from him, not even modern shit. I can¹t even remember a time
when he sounded bad playing the trumpet. Never. Not even one time. He had
great feeling up in his playing and he always played on the beat. I just
loved the way he played and sang.²

³I don¹t like to hear someone put down Dixieland. Those people who say
there¹s no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don¹t
know.²

³I don¹t care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can
swing.²

³I never thought that the music called ³jazz² was ever meant to reach just a
small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all
the other dead things that were once considered artistic.²

³Do not fear mistakes. There are none.²

³If you got up on the bandstand at Minton¹s and couldn¹t play, you were not
only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you
might get your ass kicked.²

³I still got my Ferrari.²

Cheers,
Steve Barbone