[Dixielandjazz] Roy Eldridge followed Louis Armstrong?
Steve Voce
stevevoce at virginmedia.com
Wed Apr 12 10:07:20 EDT 2017
Maryk, as I anticipated, gave a short reply sent to me alone that
avoided having to consider the work of Miles Davis. He said only 'Sure.
Unswinging, lacking ideas, cool (as opposed to Bird's heat).'
Lacking ideas? !!!
Did he expect Miles to match Parker? Nobody did.
Would he similarly have expected Johnny Dodds to match Louis in the Hot
Five? Nobody did.
Cheap stuff, then.
(I'm not breaking a confidence since Maryk's reason for replying to only
me was simply to comply with what Fuzzy had asked for in postings).
Goodness knows how or why his bagatelle thinking deals with Von Freeman!
On 11/04/2017 23:03, Steve Voce wrote:
>
> Could you just amplify a bit more, Maryk, your suggestion that Miles
> Davis 'mars many Bird records'? I'm genuinely interested to know the
> reason. I'm sure you wouldn't make such a sweeping statement without
> having paid good attention to what Miles was doing on the recordings,
> generally regarded as classics of the genre. Or did you read it in a
> book? Could you tell us more too about the 'quite a lot of bebop'? You
> don't say whether you like it or hate it, and again I'd be interested
> to know more detail of what you listened to.
>
> Steve Voce
>
>
> On 11/04/2017 21:25, Marek Boym wrote:
>> 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
>> <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>>> <mailto: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 <mailto:csuhor at zebra.net>>
>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, 11 April 2017 10:22 AM
>>>>> To: jack_wiard at hotmail.com <mailto: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
>>>>>> <mailto: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
>>>>>> <mailto: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
>>>>>>> <mailto: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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