Re: [Harp-L] Re: Harp-L Digest, Vol 109, Issue 83

[The Iceman <icemanle@xxxxxxx>]

ah, my favorite subject - Miles.

One favorite story - Miles had no time for "pandering" and was one in the forefront of blacks being treated w/dignity.

He was "dragged" by his then wife, Cicely Tyson, to a White House Dinner, where they were the only black folk there. He was seated next to a white lady socialite, who, during dinner, looked down her nose at him and asked "and just what is it that you've done?". Miles paused, looked at her and said in his gravely voice "I've changed the direction of music three or four times" and promptly got up and left.

The new directions he brought to music (he hated the word "Jazz" -  thought it was a nigger label, preferring 'Folk Music") were Modal approach, jazz/rock/fusion, ambient music and music based on having the bass player just play off ONE CHORD, thereby freeing everything else above it to move in different directions.

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: mike <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Angelo Adamo <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thu, Sep 27, 2012 9:40 am
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Re: Harp-L Digest, Vol 109, Issue 83


Angelo
That's right if there ever was a Jazz Artist  that had a long and unusual growth 
history it would have been Miles Davis.
Coming from the elevated class, father of  a St. Louis Dentist ,was not " born 
of the ghetto "
As many of his mentors or peers...

That and the long journey he made as a musician to become  " Miles " gives 
another kind of Cred ....Miles earned this long notes and pregnant pauses.

Anyone that remembers when " Bitches Brew " was cut, he took a lot of heat for " 
going
Psychedelic "
Jazz people thought Miles had jumped ship but really, Miles was taking command !

Well that's my read on Miles Davis for what its worth.

Mike Wilbur 



On Sep 27, 2012, at 8:59 AM, Angelo Adamo <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I'd like to say something about playng few/many notes.
> 
> I think that everything is good when comes from a choice.
> 
> If you talk about Miles Davis and his "few notes poetry", don't forget that 
this phase of his artistic history was the natural prosecution of a path started 
in the 1940s.
> At that time, he was playing be bop with Charlie Parker and all the great 
names of that epoch.
> What I'm trying to say is that if Miles decided later to play few, long notes, 
he was doing that because he felt that as the right thing to do; he managed hi 
solos this way because he preferred those few to a forest of notes.
> But, if he would, he could play the forest...
> Being an artist of that level to me means also that you know so well your 
instrument and the music that you can prefer something to some other thing, 
being not the slave of your instrument and of the genre you are playing.
> This way, emotions can flow freely, regardless how many notes you decide to 
use in expressing yourself.
> 
> Angelo Adamo
> 
> 
> 
>