Jazz for aficionados

The jazz musicians who I knew up close and personal, were driven ((unfortunately, not to make money) they were driven to create.

A musician I had not seen or heard for a few years (we were friends) came back with a new sound that I was totally unfamiliar with, that was spectacular; he was hard bop improvisational. When we see or hear Jimmy Smith do his thing, he makes it look easy; all pros make their thing look easy, maybe it is for them.

The only thing I know about hard bop improvisational jazz is how to listen to it, and I claim to be able to qualify how good it is. On our first outing (I say "Our", because we renewed our friendship, and he moved into my apartment) at "Helens Black Eagle", a club that cherished "improvisational hard bop" we wowed the crowd; they were mesmerized.

During that Summer, we had a lot of fun and repeatedly wowed crowds. That was in 69, and the only verification I recall was a write up about his performance on center stage at the VP Fair we have here in St. Louis.

Many years later, I was talking to a musician telling him how good my friend was, and he responded; "He was good, but he wasn't that good". The musician I was talking to, was on par with Horace Silver, not one easily impressed.

Maybe he didn't hear him after he got that good, I thought to myself. That was when I searched for every note my friend had recorded, and I only verified that "He was good, but not that good".

The music he was playing that Summer was new, plus it had not, nor was it ever recorded; consequently, I have nothing to prove he was "That good".

While I can not judge all "improvisational hard bop jazz musicians" by my friend, being on center stage, and mesmerizing a crowd of people is what drove him.

Frogman, I wont be back "in depth"; just making a comment here and there. Since partially explaining something is worse than not trying to explain it at all, my return will be more limited than I thought.

I'm glad to see that we have the most responsive group than I've seen in some time; they are all knowledgeable "aficionados", that means you are going to be very active.

Only time will tell how active I'll be; have fun.

The most pointless arguments we can possibly have are; "What is jazz, or what is not jazz". That's right up there with what is or is not "Blues"; this is determined by the current majority; I'm reminded of "The Beatles"; "Let it Be".

What we hear is determined by the same factors as what the musician plays musically. The musicians origination is one of the greatest factors in what he plays. What he is actually playing, and what he thinks he's playing might be two different things, but words are one thing, and music is another, and words, not music is what's in the books.

I have a number of music encyclopedias, and the musicians that are labeled as "jazz musicians" is astounding; it seems that the most current books are the most different in regard to what the musician is playing and what I hear, but in this case, definition is determined by younger people for younger musicians; whatever it states is what is, like it or not.

I must not forget that when a record is played, we hear differently; what sounds good to a much younger person may not be so agreeable to me. I'll give you a better example.

Since I knew some of Miles Davis's close friends and relatives; although they would never say it in public, but only in casual conversation with someone they confided in, they could live without Miles most current music. When you think of how many times Miles changed over the years, and how many generations have come to like his music, it's not hard to understand how those who based their collection on what was best during the 50's and 60's, might not have been too fond of his last music, although they didn't love Miles one bit less than when they grew up together.

We have to agree, to disagree, and "Let it be".

Most of the conversation/debate above can be summed up by looking at the recording career of Miles Davis, who I believe, over the long run through his contract with Columbia Records, made more money then any other jazz musician in history on recordings. Yet he still was constantly evolving in his music. He considered staying in the same musical comfort zone blasphemy. Eventually he did not even want to call his music jazz anymore. This is evident progressively in all of his years recording.

Starting out when be bop was the in thing he recorded on sessions with Charlie Parker and others. He then went into be bop/ hard bop so you could say he played mostly be bop/hard bop from 1945-1958, when he started to experiment with modality on the title track from the Milestones recording. Kind of Blue was based entirely on modality followed by Sketches of Spain based on Spanish folk music. Constantly evolving you could easily here the freshness of what he played from 1965-68 with Shorter, Hancock, Carter, and Williams. These 4 years saw Miles helping pioneer the post bop genre with more abstract recordings. He then moved into his electric and avant garde recordings In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Continuing forward using predominately electric recordings into a jazz/funk/rock type fusion, which, in my opinion was clearly predominant on the Cellar Door Sessions and Agharta. I had quite the listening session last night with Agharta disks 1 and 2, in which I have imported Japanese pressings and the sound is amazing. The music on Agharta takes you on a hour and forty five minute (both discs) "trip" through some amazing music.

So, IMHO, Miles' career tells us all we need to know about how jazz progresses if the artist wants to whether there is money in it or not as Miles was a wealthy man.