Jazz for aficionados

"Well, O-10, no sense breaking the streak; since you want to keep track. The live Sarah/“Misty” wins hands down in my book."

When you stated that, you threw the gauntlet down, and it was my duty to respond.

"The studio version...just that. Studio produced; faster, with A LOT of “sweetening”, less intimate. A bit Muzak(ish); what some refer to as elevator music. Different performance environments and as always, she knows the tape is rolling."

And then you went on to call it "Elevator music"; if that's not denigrating I'd like to know what is?

Who are these "many others"? Sounds like a tactic for dragging others into your lame argument.

Yes, I am upset; I'm upset with the idea that anyone on this thread should exhibit such poor taste, as to choose that trio over the gold standard.

This is not a matter of preference; this over that, but it's a matter of one thing being clearly superior to another. This must be a joke you're playing on me, that's it, isn't it Frogman; because I can not believe that after everything was pointed out, and even after Sarah herself referred to that version as her best, you would stick to this "studio sound, elevator music thing".

While we all have different preferences, when the quality of one thing is so superior to the quality of another, and an aficionado chooses the wrong one, that's disheartening; I'm in the wrong room; it's about good taste in this room, and there are times when it's as apparent as the nose on your face.

Tell me this is a joke Frogman.

To paraphrase an old expression, opinions are like noses, everybody has one.

So one of my opinions is that the word "best" should be banned from discussions of music or audio gear.  To proclaim anything as best is to suggest that ALL other contenders have been compared.  In most cases that is simply not reasonable.

Now, one can state that "in my experience" or "among what I own" I like example X best, nothing wrong with that.

Regarding SV's "Misty" with Quincy, I can only state that it is a very rare jazz recoding that I enjoy when it is backed by strings.  For my taste and my experience that removes a basic element of jazz since it must be composed and played so carefully.  So that rather handicaps that particular version from the get-go for me.  But so what?  That shouldn't influence anyone else's enjoyment.

Again in my view, the best function of this entire post is for any aficionado to post or comment with a specific musical example and say "I enjoy this and would like to share it in the event someone else might feel the same."  The value is in hearing something not known before or learning more about the personal or technical background in a given piece of music.  Speaking for myself, that's why I'm here.  Not to judge or criticize anyone else's taste, even when it doesn't align with my own.

As a footnote, I happen to be a fan of Zappa as well pjw, and I find some of his music to suggest strong jazz elements.  That in spite of his comment that "jazz is not dead, it just smells funny."  ;^)   

Unintentionally, I presume, we touched on the subject of after the war Paris jazz scene, and general culture. I understand, that was an interesting and somewhat wild time there. Black American musicians were invited and welcome, treated very differently compared to the US. Speaking of Miles specifically, I think he is in fact more popular in Europe and Japan than in America, especially his late sixties and later music. He left classical jazz in an effort to put slavery behind him, and he might've succeeded. Orpheus10, we can be slaves of our own memories and even enjoy it, in a way.