[Dixielandjazz] Roy Eldridge followed Louis Armstrong?

Tue Apr 11 16:25:13 EDT 2017

Definitely a trad lover, but, first and foremost, a loyal subject of His
(late) Majesty, the King of Swing.
Also (don't tell anybody - I'll flatly deny it!) quite a lot of bebop.  And
despite all the enthusiastic words about Miles, to me he still mars many
Bird records (that's where I discovered - in the late fifties, when I used
to borrow records from the USIS library - that his playing was boring).
Sonny Stitt and Von Freeman are still among my favourite saxophonists.
Cheers

On 11 April 2017 at 21:06, Charles Suhor <csuhor at zebra.net> wrote:

> Great anecdotes and personal stories coming from this strand on Miles,
> posted by perceptive fans and deeply involved writers and players. More
> broadly, I’m encouraged to find that fellow jazz “omnivores,” as one of you
> put it, are on the list. It has sometimes seemed like a club for trad
> lovers. Worthies all, for sure, but it’s refreshing to see the expanded
> conversation.
>
> Charlie
>
>
> On Apr 11, 2017, at 10:25 AM, Steve Voce <stevevoce at virginmedia.com>
> wrote:
>
> Much of what Charlie Suhor and Jack Wiard wrote resonates with me.
>
> I continue to enjoy almost everything that Miles played up until the '60s.
> (I'm in the middle of writing a 2,000 word piece about his wonderful 1961
> Carnegie Hall concert) up until and including 'In A Silent Way' and
> 'Bitches' Brew). He created gigantic classics with the Gil Evans
> collaborations 'Miles Ahead' and 'Sketches Of Spain'. 'Kind Of Blue', a
> masterpiece, remains the best selling jazz album of all time, and
> deservedly so. At least two excellent books have been written devoted to
> that one album, and I have another very good book on 'Bitches' Brew'.
> So, up to that point, 'Bitches' Brew', the man was one of the all time
> greats, with various elements of his work (improvisation, composition,
> forward-looking awareness, imagination, bandleading) ranking him with
> earlier giants like Armstrong and Ellington.
> Charles Suhor spots the switch into rock, where Miles would stick a few
> phrases into ten minute pieces. Quite so. Miles listened carefully to the
> bands who were playing the most successful rock and drew elements from them
> in what seems to me an unfortunately cynical way in order to make a great
> deal of money. Only last week I bought a much acclaimed (by rock people) CD
> of his famous Isle Of White performance and some stuff from the 1969
> Newport Jazz Festival. There is virtually nothing, amid the overpowering
> and unsubtle rock music, to please Miles's admirers. (Duke suffered an
> almost comparable descent with his latter-day 'Sacred' music.
> I was fortunate enough to meet both Miles and Duke. I live in Liverpool, a
> couple of hundred miles from London. When Miles first came over the editor
> of the Melody Maker, for which I then wrote, 'phoned and asked me if I'd
> interview Miles when he came to Liverpool. I agreed to.
> It was only after the call that I remembered that the warning had gone
> round that Miles was travelling with two body guards and neither he nor
> they had any compunction about thumping people. None of the Melody Maker's
> other writers had wanted the job.
>  Miles was to play at Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall - with a good band
> including Wynton Kelly and Sonny Stitt).
>  I arrived 90 minutes early and went to the Philharmonic pub over the road
> where, nervous, I drank three pints of bitter to bolster my courage.
>  Then into the hall and round to the Green Room, where I knocked on the
> door, ready to flinch if a bodyguard opened it.
>  But it was opened by Miles himself, who had one hand behind his back.
>  'Oh God,' I thought. 'He's going to knife me'.
>  I handed him my card and asked if we could have a few words. He read the
> card and brought his hand from behind his back. It held a bottle of Scotch.
>  'Come in, Steve, and have a drink,' he said, handing me the bottle.
>  I did, and as I drank, I must have leaned back too much, for I felt
> myself tread on someone's foot. There followed a string of invective which
> to this day holds me in awe. The only repeatable bit was that I was a white
> mother-...... I had stood on the foot of a strung-out Sonny Stitt.
> And Duke? He gave me a drink from Billy Strayhorn's bottle of gin. But
> that's another even longer story.
> Steve Voce
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 10, 2017, at 10:07 PM, jack wiard <jack_wiard at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Charles,
> My first hearing of Miles Davis was at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco
> in the 1960s. Not liking the music at all but believing one should hear
> someone at least three times before forming an opinion, I heard M . Davis
> again a few years later at the BOTH/AND CLUB in San Francisco.  I had a
> front row seat. Miles was introduced to huge applause.  The rhythm section
> set up an up tempo  c minor chord [nothing else, just c minor].  Miles did
> a long solo, then the rhythm  [bass and  [too loud] drums only, then Miles
> again.  Tonally, one chord for  the  25 minute length of the song was very
> ,very boring.  I might add that during much of his solo, Davis faced the
> wall, so he could hear himself better. That meant the audience got to look
> at his backside for 25 minutes.  Of course, I liked the tone and flawless
> execution but for me, on this number, the music element was not evident.
> At the end of the performance, the name of the 'song' was not announced, so
> even if one liked the 'song', you would not know what to ask for in the
> music store to buy it.  The applause was huge and there was not the
> slightest hint of a smile. He then walked off for a 30 minute break.
> But wait,theres' more.  In the early 1970s, Davis appeared at the Sydney
> [Australia] Entertainment Centre [sold out 12,000people] with  a rock
> band.  Davis  would just blurt out a few notes to establish a rhythm
> pattern  for the guitars/drums to play  and then he would play for 1-2
> minutes in a 10-12  minute  song.  He played 2 x 46 minute sets. Being a
> masochist, I stayed for all of it but by the end of the 1st set, about one
> third of the audience had  left  to go home.  Someone at the concert
> actually yelled out  'PLAY SOME JAZZ'.
> Davis approached a microphone and said  'I DON'T PLAY TO ORDERS'.    That
> was the only announcement he made all night. Wow, such stage pressence
> [NOT].. And   that[hand on heart]is a true account of my three encounters
> with Miles Davis.
>   Cheers   JACK WIARD
> From: Charles Suhor <csuhor at zebra.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 10:22 AM
> To: jack_wiard at hotmail.com
> Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Roy Eldridge followed Louis Armstrong?
>  Apology accepted, with respect. Re Miles, I lost interest in his playing
> with the famed “Bitches’ Brew” rock/jazz synthesis, though I believe his
> playing until then was often brilliant, sometimes transporting. I don’t
> relate at all to the post-Coltrane improvisers for whom formlessness is a
> stimulus. Random invention is sometimes fun to watch on site—they’re trying
> their luck in real time. But without physical presence, there’s not even
> the wonderment of  unfolding-in-the-moment. Why listen to something that
> has become a non-event? That’s my hobby horse, time to dismount.
>
> Charlie
>
>
>
> On Apr 10, 2017, at 6:31 PM, Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry.  I didn't mean to be offensive.
> I made the journey the other way round: I started listening to everything
> when in my teens. including rock and roll, which in my native Poland (and
> later here in Israel) was considered jazz, and became greatly disappointed
> by modernists, in particular by the then greatest hero, Miles Davis, before
> I ever heard Wild Bill Davison.  I had known the Brubecks ("Blue Rondo a la
> Turk," for example) and the MJQ records by heart before I ever heard ABOUT
> Wild Bill.  Gradually I lost all interest in their cool, to my ear -
> lifeless - music.  By the mid 1960's  I dropped most "modern" jazz and
> concentrated on jazz and swing.  I cannot see the connection between Miles
> Davis and jazz.  nothing wrong in liking Miles Davis - it just does not
> sound like jazz.  Eddie Condon had something to say on the subject: "A
> terrible thing has happened to jazz: it became respectable."  That must be
> the reason while so many musicians want their music classified as jazz.  I
> wish I could claim this is an original idea, but the explanation comes from
> Hughes Panassie's "The Unreal Jazz."
> I apologize again,
> Marek
>
>
>
> On 11 April 2017 at 00:42, Charles Suhor <csuhor at zebra.net> wrote:
> Marek, I came by my fandom honestly. Born and raised in New Orleans;
> before my teens, enchanted (still am) by Bunk, Louis, Bechet, and others.
> Moved along, without burning the bridges of my love for early jazz, to
> enjoying and playing drums in many styles. Gigged with big band and modern
> jazz groups on some weekends, on others with Armand Hug, Chink Martin, Paul
> Crawford, etc. But from inside your bubble, I’m not a jazz fan. You’re
> entitled to your opinion, man, but that’s an insult.
>
> Charlie
>
> On Apr 10, 2017, at 3:20 PM, Marek Boym <marekboym at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> some of us do not consider Miles Davis followers jazz fans, which makes
> the preceding part of this post irrelevant.
>
>
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