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From: marantz@null.DEC (Josh HL02-2/G11 DTN 225-4394)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: nessus' and miles davis
Message-ID: <2723@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Jun-85 11:46:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.2723
Posted: Mon Jun 17 11:46:28 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Jun-85 02:35:29 EDT
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> 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