marantz@null.DEC (Josh HL02-2/G11 DTN 225-4394) (06/17/85)
> Was going to check out Miles Davis, but now that he's doing Empty-V > videos complete with computer graphics and is covering songs by > Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper, I've decided that he's just too > trendy for me. I guess Miles is trendy, but you make it sound like he's a follower. On the contrary, Miles has been a pioneer, and for the last 25-30 years, there hasn't been a more influntial jazz artist. He was very influential in be-bop, cool jazz, and he is the undisputed father of jazz-rock fusion. A significant fraction of the most important jazz musicians in the last two decades started out playing for Miles: John Coltrane, Gil Evans, Cannonball Adderly, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Josef Zaniwul, John MacLaughlin, and Wayne Shorter, to name a few. I "discovered" Miles last year, and I've been trying to catch up on all I've been missing since then. I actually don't have any of the really recent stuff, though I enjoyed his Time After Time cover at the Newport Jazz Festival last year. Every Miles' album I own, I recommend heartily: My Funny Valentine, Sketches of Spain, Kind of Blue, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, We Want Miles. Of those I think the most important are Kind of Blue and In a Silent Way, because they both really created new directions in jazz (KoB spawned modality, IaSW spawned fusion). I guess that's a pretty sad collection, considering all Miles has done, but I'm working on it. I think exploring what Miles Davis has to offer has been really fruitful, not just because his stuff is so great (it is), but also because it has gotten me interested in some of the musicians he's played with, particularly John Coltrane and Chick Corea, but also Weather Report (Zaniwul and Shorter). Now that I've got some Chick Corea, I'm going to check out some of Flora Purim's work (she sung on the first of the Return to Forever sessions). I still haven't investigated Mahavishnu at all, or done Coltrane justice. I think you can see the potential for an exponential growth in my record collection. I'm obviously limited by my own budget, but interestingly enough, I've found these jazz albums to be relatively inexpensive, compared with rock albums. You can often find this music for about $5 per disk. > I saw Duke Ellington do "Carravan" on Night Flight. It was pretty > good. I definitely need to check more of that stuff out: Duke, Louis, etc. > Better yet, let's talk about all kinds of music! > > Listening right now to "Magnetic Flip" by Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. > What a great album! > > Stravinky's "The Rite of Spring" deserves it's reputation. It's the > best piece of music ever written in the classical music genre! (Okay, > I know nothing about classical music (and it isn't even classical -- > it's "modern") and am unfit to comment, but so what!) I don't have the album yet, but I saw them in concert a while back. An excerpt from my review posted in this newsgroup: {3-MAY-1985 09:52 ... Technically, they were very good. Compositionally, I thought they needed some work. They seemed to explore different themes and motifs without any direction or development. The highlight of the concert (for me) was without a doubt their "cover" of Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring. The piece worked well with the rock instruments, and the full power really came through. But it really exposed the weakness of the their compositions by contrasting them to a magnificent work such as ROS. The original works were as complex as ROS, but they didn't go anywhere; there wasn't as much substance. I actually liked and enjoyed many of their songs, but when I heard the same musicians do ROS, there was just no comparison. It was so good to hear themes being developed and explored and tensions and dissonances being introduced and resolved. } Well, that's my two cents worth. I should emphasize that I give these guys a lot more credit for trying to do something substantial and coming up maybe a little short than I give top-40 for producing flawless dreck. I think that Birdsongs could go far, but they need work. I will buy the album eventually, but for now, my money is mostly going towards my jazz collection. My Gentle Giant albums will have to satisfy my avante-garde urges for now. By the way, nessus, what is an "acappella instrumental"? :-) "Dig!" -m.d. -Josh
nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (06/20/85)
>> [Me] Was going to check out Miles Davis, but now that he's doing Empty-V >> videos complete with computer graphics and is covering songs by >> Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper, I've decided that he's just too >> trendy for me. > [Josh Marantz] I guess Miles is trendy, but you make it sound like > he's a follower. On the contrary, Miles has been a pioneer, and for > the last 25-30 years, there hasn't been a more influntial jazz artist. I wasn't really trying to demean Miles Davis. I was just poking at jcp. She claimed that Kate Bush was trendy because she uses a Fairlight, or something like that (of course, she was using one before nearly anyone else, so there wasn't a trend yet). I have a lot of respect for Miles Davis, even if his music is a little too kool for me. I am a bit confused as to why he would decide to cover songs by Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper. Maybe he's trying to prove that he can transform dreck into greatness. Or maybe he's just going senile.... I also didn't mean to demean Windom Hill. I like a lot of their stuff, even if it is yuppie music. >> Listening right now to "Magnetic Flip" by Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. >> What a great album! > I don't have the album yet, but I saw them in concert a while > back. An excerpt from my review posted in this newsgroup: It was your review that convinced me to go see them live! Thanks! I really appreciate the pointer. Too bad you don't seem to like them as much I do. I think they're superb! Yeah, well maybe their not as good composers as Stravinsky, but so what? I mean who is (besides Kate Bush and Pink Floyd)? > I will buy the album eventually, but for now, my money is mostly going > towards my jazz collection. My Gentle Giant albums will have to > satisfy my avante-garde urges for now. I will buy some more jazz albums eventually, but for now my money is going towards my avant-garde collection. My Ornette Coleman and Windom Hill (and Kate Bush if Dave Taylor is right) albums will have to satisfy my jazz urges for now. "I saw a lion & a snake Each killed the other From their bodies bred a horde of scorpions Which overran the world Their venom was Democracy" Doug Alan nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (06/24/85)
>>> Listening right now to "Magnetic Flip" by Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. >>> What a great album! > >> I don't have the album yet, but I saw them in concert a while >> back. An excerpt from my review posted in this newsgroup: I have been trying to get this album for weeks, ever since I saw it mentioned here. However, down at the record store, they have never heard of it, and further more, it is not listed in the "Phonogram" record listings. Is this just a long-standing joke that I have missed some how, like Kate Bush's alleged use of a Fairlight? > She claimed that Kate Bush was trendy because she uses a Fairlight, or > something like that (of course, she was using one before nearly anyone > else, so there wasn't a trend yet). If Kate Bush is the Goddess of all Music, and uses a Fairlight in such awesome ways, how come she gets Geoff Downes to play all the difficult stuff on the Fairlight for her? I mean, Geoff was using a Fairlight back when Kate Bush was still out running over kangaroos with her car. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Erny vfgf qba'g hfr Xbqnpuebzr."