[Dixielandjazz] retro's the wrong word -- Dixieland and Miles Davis

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

well done Gary for posting the reference to "conversation" 
even better done you for bringing out the word CONVERSATION --
a horrible idea, musicians ignoring each other 
and noticing only the idea some guy has done something WRONG. 


Bruno Walter was a great orchestral conductor who didn't understand jazz, 

but he did say that any entirely note-perfect performance risks lack of 

involvement in the music. 


Jazz of course is a conversation, some contributions continue (e.g. Bix)
I was listening to a long interview with Sonny Rollins on YouTube. 

He said he loved stride piano, and enthused about Fats Waller, and 

Muggsy Spanier named a blues against a critic who had he thought 

caused bother by creating an ancients versus moderns false drama, 

which according to Art Hodes stifled plans for a Lester Young-Art Hodes session. 

When Bobby Watson joined Panama Francis's Savoy Sultans band he was only
following the example of Eric Dolphy, who liked jamming with many of the 

same men in Harlem -- but who felt that even he needed to be protective of 

a justified reputation for a serious interest in the new. 

I wonder what happened to the young man who maybe twenty years back
was declaring he wanted to be an innovator like his hero Charlie Parker. 

He was paired with a versatile musician who was then a young veteran --
and who responded with a derision such as the young Parker received 

when trying to play in public before he knew his horn.
Of course the later would-be innovator probably had good technical command,
maybe when learning his horn he never made the noises I did long ago, 

but his putative innovations amounted to making them on stage for pay. 


No more squawks from me here,
harmonious conversations to us all!

Robert R. Calder





>________________________________
> From: Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym at teledyn.com>
>To: ROBERT R. CALDER <serapion at btinternet.com> 
>Cc: "Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com" <Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com> 
>Sent: Tuesday, 28 January 2014, 17:02
>Subject: Re: retro's the wrong word -- Dixieland and Miles Davis
> 
>
>
>yes, a remembering is a better word; at the time I only thought 'retro' because it seemed to retrieve something of the all at once improv art of conversation that had been lost in the spotlit heroic-soloist bebop/post-bop era
>
>
>