Miles Davis was Mediocre

[Peter C]

As a teenager, I had no "knowledge" of music outside of Rock to speak of. This did not prevent me from being blown away by Bach when I first heard his Brandenburg concertos, or indeed by Miles Davis. I remember noticing that he had this way of hanging onto a note, then releasing it that I thought, "something momentous is happening". Indeed it was. He spoke with a unique voice.

[Marto]

he had this way of hanging onto a note, then releasing it

Well said Peter. To me that reverence he had for melody is what I love in his playing.

[Philco]

Maybe it wasn't John's solo in Get Back..........but I think it was.

Such simple rock chords and he comes up with THAT.
Not a great technician but there are squillions of virtuoso players who would never have come up with that melody.
Sure it's probably the building blocks of other musical snippets from the past but that solo is like a separate composition.

Yeah I know, your thinking that it's real simple. It's not simple to invent.

Give 10,000,000 musicians 4 or 5 chords and get them to write a song.

One dude will come up with Blowin In The Wind.
The rest will be drivel.

Same with that solo. We all know the chords. They have been worked over since the guitar was invented. How many rock songs have been written, how many blues songs have been written.

But John comes up with that solo.
It still freaks me out.

And the chords and melody in I Am The Walrus.
WHAT!!!

What's my point?
Great musicians can be unschooled.

Come to think of it............Did Charlie Parker know all his modes? I mean was he thinking....."oh here comes a dominant 7.....hell where's that mixolydian scale........oh yeah I could flat the 5 here"

Was he a schooled musician or did he play by ear?
Just wondering.

[mattymel]

okay. miles is basically the polar opposite of players like Holdsworth. all flair, no substance. so many listeners want everyone to fit into their cookie cutter ideal of what they wish they could play like themselves.

as mentioned before, Miles CHANGED MUSIC many times. he said it himself, but its actually true. i could easily rattle off a list of 20 solos he played that are indisputable classics. there is a also a list of about 20 players that the world may not have ever cared about if not for his groups.

basically i think that this is a silly post.

[whatswisdom]

See #133

[nakim55]

Just listen to MILES play a ballad. I love Clifford Brown, but!! Well, Miles had more SOUL/FEELING going on than any one (jesus,can't you hear/feel that?). And, Wynton Marsalis, just ain't squat to Miles ( just standing on Miles shoulders, and his technique makes him sound like a clown). Every one ripps Miles off, then they act like they invented it!!! Miles was a innovater.PERIOD!

[whatswisdom]

...listen to some of the recordings with him in Charlie Parker's group...I actually can't listen to those, cause as brilliant as charlie is, as soon as he stops, I have to turn it off, can't stand mile's playing.

Interesting to listen to those early recordings and hear the beginning of his evolution. A stark contrast from Bird's solo playing, which was loaded with innovation and virtuosity. Mile's was just developing his voice and his sound. Bird blew him and everyone else off the bandstand. It stands to reason that Miles would go on to differ so greatly, playing fewer notes and using space so beautifully. The sound alone always was enough for me. Freddie Hubbard, Clifford, Lee Morgan had better chops but Miles was the genius who proved that less is more. Listen to The Complete Plugged Nickel and you'll know what I mean...

[JonnyPac]

By the 50's Miles was badass. Next to Bird, maybe just beginning stages- it was a period of jazz history were pure bop was on its way out and hard/cool was getting in. Some early Miles solos were still very interesting- In fact, Red took an early Miles solo (I believe from Now's the Time) and block-chorded it at 7:30 in this:

Original around 1:45:

[mattymel]

a few things...

jim hall CAN play fast. or at least he COULD, dude is like 80 something... listen to "the bridge"...its not ALWAYS the cleanest, but the ideas are some of the best ive heard from any guitarist at that tempo. especially from that era.

Miles is one of the top 3 greats in anybody's book that has a deep love of jazz music. BUT...definitely not for his compositions. if you research his "compositions" you quickly find out that 80% were "acquired" via his impressionable young bandmates. he wrote a few bebop heads. but i think he got pissed when Bird stole "donna lee" from HIM.

the bottom line with Miles is he just COMPLETELY OWNED whatever he played. musically he had the BIGGEST BALLS of any jazz musician before or since. AND he had something to say and wasnt afraid to f@ck up saying it. when he did, personally i love every note of it. if all he ever did was play the melody, that would have been enough to make him one of the baddest MFs...EVER.

if you want to learn something from Miles, learn to play ANY melody he played. write in down. you will sound better after doing it. now say he is "mediocre"...on the other hand...if you learn one of his solos note for note, it wont sound as good as he did, because you are not HIM. therein lies the definition of "genius" in a nutshell.

of all the silly things on this thread, the worst has to be the Lennon bashing. when someone says "mediocre guitarist", the first person that comes to my mind is Clapton. for two reasons, 1) because he is considered A GUITAR PLAYER, and 2) he is considered a "good" guitarist.

not only was Lennon a GREAT rock guitarist in that he played GREAT rhythm and fitting solos, he is probably hands down considered in the top 3 song writers of all time. personally i would rather hear him play a 4 measure solo (of which MORE THAN A FEW are actually him, not George...Paul too, though i still love George) that actually COMPLIMENTS the songs than Clapton wank off the same blues licks he always does for 5 minutes. bashing him in akin to the same mentality that claims "Kurt Cobain was a crappy guitarist"...cue the jet flying over your head at mach 4. i dont think he spent to much time practicing scales in his bedroom. alot of harm it did him...

to say that Lennon is not more influential than Clapton is ABSURD. the White album has probably sold more records than ALL Crapton's entire catalog. id say there in lies a good amount of "inspiration"...

Lennon's songs have MANY interesting harmonic and rhythmic things that almost everyone ignores until they actually learn them. go figure out "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and "Julia"...those two songs alone pretty much qualify him as a bona fide GENIUS in my book.

[Philco]

Great track, by the way what's that thing on Jim's guitar at the headstock? Looks like he left his truss rod adjuster on...............but I've seen these before.
To damp the strings of something?

[ejwhite09]

I think lennon was a great songwriter, but i dont know about the greatests, and i definitely wouldn't consider any of his solos memorable, honestly the get back solo, sounds to me like a john forgerty imitation. oddly, i think the best solo on a beatles song is either clapton on while my guitar gently weeps, or paul mccartney's solo on let it be, which is probably, to me the best solo played by a beatle on a beatles record. George Harrison's solo talents really didn't get shown until he went solo and I think Lennon's greatest attribute was as a rhythm guitarist, he gets little respect for this, and rhythm guitar is immensely simpler in concept than lead, but immensly harder in practicality(a slipped note can go unnoticed, a bum chord will be lke a chandelier falling).

I do not believe in the 'unschooled musician' I think it's an urban legend. Maybe Bird learned how to play O Tannenbaum on his front porch but he would never have written Blues for Alice or Now's the Time without meeting Dizzy Gillespie, who in essence gave Bird a musical education. The only unschooled musician is the musician who never plays. Being a musician is a constant education. Everytime I play with someone I learn something new, a new resolution, a new progression, a new lick, a new chord and its context. Everytime I play with someone it's an exchange of all my musical experience and knowledge and theirs, and we should both walk away better for the experience.
John Lennon had been a musician for years by the time he wrote I am the Walrus, in that time, he'd met musicians from all over the world. There's a reason 16 year old John who had only been listening to elvis and chuck berry didn't write I am the Walrus.
You don't need to go to Julliard or Berkeley or the Royal Conservatory to be a great musician, but there are no great 'unschooled' musicians. Great musicians find ways to learn from anything everything anyone and everyone.

[mattymel]

depends on your definition of "unschooled".

bird played rhythm changes, cherokee, indiana, etc. through all 12 keys starting as a teenager in Kansas City, well before he met Dizzy. if anything Diz probably had the know how to explain theoretically what bird was already doing before they met.

still, i wouldnt call robert johnson, hendrix, mcCartney, or even coltrane "schooled" musicians. the best music is a folk art form. this is why i think i prefer "old" jazz, blues, and rock. music created out of too much analyzing sounds like an exercise more than an expression.

if you are arguing that every musician is influenced and learns from someone else, that is obvious. but ive met many people that played WAY better than me that didnt have any schooling, lessons, or knew any theory other than their own system of musical understanding.

[Philco]

My definition of "schooled" has more to do with ...did he know about modes and scales and "avoid" notes and so on.
Talking about Parker not John.
I think John would have learned from other people. The "rock" way. Just listen and steal the stuff that moves you. It soon becomes a part of your bag and you bend it your way. Then mix that with incredible talent and away you go.

The Parker situation is more interesting to me. I am speaking hypothetically because I have not read about him at all. I did buy a book about him from Amazon but ended up giving it to a friend for his birthday. I never opened it.

But I think that those guys learned by doing. They had so many gigs that they knew the changes inside out.
Like an early blues player knew his 12 bar blues but probably never counted the bars to know it was 12 bars.
I think it gets to a point where your instincts tell you where to go. When you hear a turn around coming you just play and don't think.
Endless gigs. Year after year.

Watching the George Benson DVD it's clear that he has always gigged. From when he was a child.
He says.........."I'm not a technical guy" and he means (I think) he doesn't know the technical stuff about modes and substitutions.........but he knows how to play them inside and out.
He even misnames a chord or two.
But then he'll play something so complex it will beggar belief.
Oh he knows the changes alright and he's studied those changes. But I think those guys ....including Parker have a similar approach to what Jimmy Bruno said his father had.
The approach was ..........a turn around was "one of those"........a certain set of changes was........."one of them" and a certain substitution was ......."another one of those"

I suspect that the people who invented this stuff didn't sit down with pen and paper and write out their theory. I think they worked on it from gig to gig.

I also think that if you described to them what they were doing in technical terms they would probably fall asleep.

It's interesting listening to Jimmy Bruno "deconstructing" a lot of technical theory and conventional approaches.
To him it's all one scale and you change a few notes where needed.

If you look at Pat Martino's approach ...............and I've spent my life as a jazz player listening and working on his stuff..............you will see that it's basically the same approach.
No matter what name he gives it, or how many diagrams he draws, no matter what clever and elegant terms he uses to describe it. It's basically one scale practiced over the entire fretboard and changing notes to suit certain altered chords.
Not meaning to trivialise what obviously took years in the oven.

So it's another example of people working on their own method and understanding things that make sense to them. You can then look at it and make up some terms for it or picture it from a different angle and make it seem more complex than what it is.

I think the early jazz guys were like that. They discovered things that pleased their ears, they worked on licks ad infinitum........and Parker repeats his licks a LOT............Martino is a lick player..............Benson is a lick player.......they are all lick players...........they collected their licks and they became a basis for their improvisations.

Although a lot of bebob now sounds like one long cliche. So many repeated licks.
There's a lick for every occasion. Possibly one reason why the form was overtaken by fresher approaches.

Rock players are no different. Lots of licks.

Of course the people I've mentioned all have astounding techniques. Any of those guys will take a simple phrase and play it in such a way that you will be reaching for your modes book to figure out where it came from.
Perhaps they are using a "12 pointed star equal detuned Phrygian half step" approach?

Methinks it was just one of their fave licks.

Everyone cooks with water but some people make wonderful things.
The rest of us try to figure it out.

[fumblefingers]

I think lennon was a great songwriter, but i dont know about the greatests, and i definitely wouldn't consider any of his solos memorable, honestly the get back solo, sounds to me like a john forgerty imitation. oddly, i think the best solo on a beatles song is either clapton on while my guitar gently weeps, or paul mccartney's solo on let it be, which is probably, to me the best solo played by a beatle on a beatles record. George Harrison's solo talents really didn't get shown until he went solo and I think Lennon's greatest attribute was as a rhythm guitarist, he gets little respect for this, and rhythm guitar is immensely simpler in concept than lead, but immensly harder in practicality(a slipped note can go unnoticed, a bum chord will be lke a chandelier falling).

I do not believe in the 'unschooled musician' I think it's an urban legend. Maybe Bird learned how to play O Tannenbaum on his front porch but he would never have written Blues for Alice or Now's the Time without meeting Dizzy Gillespie, who in essence gave Bird a musical education. The only unschooled musician is the musician who never plays. Being a musician is a constant education. Everytime I play with someone I learn something new, a new resolution, a new progression, a new lick, a new chord and its context. Everytime I play with someone it's an exchange of all my musical experience and knowledge and theirs, and we should both walk away better for the experience.
John Lennon had been a musician for years by the time he wrote I am the Walrus, in that time, he'd met musicians from all over the world. There's a reason 16 year old John who had only been listening to elvis and chuck berry didn't write I am the Walrus.
You don't need to go to Julliard or Berkeley or the Royal Conservatory to be a great musician, but there are no great 'unschooled' musicians. Great musicians find ways to learn from anything everything anyone and everyone.

BS.

let's just say that for [FONT='Verdana','sans-serif']starters[/FONT] "unschooled" means not having been schooled in the entire history of western classical music - plus jazz -and formally. That’s the minimum standard brutha!

So, all "street" players, no matter how masterful (or how much better they are than everyone else), are unschooled.

Tough shit. Either you are scholarly or you are not.

[fumblefingers]

depends on your definition of "unschooled".

bird played rhythm changes, cherokee, indiana, etc. through all 12 keys starting as a teenager in Kansas City, well before he met Dizzy. if anything Diz probably had the know how to explain theoretically what bird was already doing before they met.

still, i wouldnt call robert johnson, hendrix, mcCartney, or even coltrane "schooled" musicians. the best music is a folk art form. this is why i think i prefer "old" jazz, blues, and rock. music created out of too much analyzing sounds like an exercise more than an expression.

if you are arguing that every musician is influenced and learns from someone else, that is obvious. but ive met many people that played WAY better than me that didnt have any schooling, lessons, or knew any theory other than their own system of musical understanding.

right.

[fumblefingers]

My definition of "schooled" has more to do with ...did he know about modes and scales and "avoid" notes and so on.
Talking about Parker not John.
I think John would have learned from other people. The "rock" way. Just listen and steal the stuff that moves you. It soon becomes a part of your bag and you bend it your way. Then mix that with incredible talent and away you go.

The Parker situation is more interesting to me. I am speaking hypothetically because I have not read about him at all. I did buy a book about him from Amazon but ended up giving it to a friend for his birthday. I never opened it.

But I think that those guys learned by doing. They had so many gigs that they knew the changes inside out.
Like an early blues player knew his 12 bar blues but probably never counted the bars to know it was 12 bars.
I think it gets to a point where your instincts tell you where to go. When you hear a turn around coming you just play and don't think.
Endless gigs. Year after year.

Watching the George Benson DVD it's clear that he has always gigged. From when he was a child.
He says.........."I'm not a technical guy" and he means (I think) he doesn't know the technical stuff about modes and substitutions.........but he knows how to play them inside and out.
He even misnames a chord or two.
But then he'll play something so complex it will beggar belief.
Oh he knows the changes alright and he's studied those changes. But I think those guys ....including Parker have a similar approach to what Jimmy Bruno said his father had.
The approach was ..........a turn around was "one of those"........a certain set of changes was........."one of them" and a certain substitution was ......."another one of those"

I suspect that the people who invented this stuff didn't sit down with pen and paper and write out their theory. I think they worked on it from gig to gig.

I also think that if you described to them what they were doing in technical terms they would probably fall asleep.

It's interesting listening to Jimmy Bruno "deconstructing" a lot of technical theory and conventional approaches.
To him it's all one scale and you change a few notes where needed.

If you look at Pat Martino's approach ...............and I've spent my life as a jazz player listening and working on his stuff..............you will see that it's basically the same approach.
No matter what name he gives it, or how many diagrams he draws, no matter what clever and elegant terms he uses to describe it. It's basically one scale practiced over the entire fretboard and changing notes to suit certain altered chords.
Not meaning to trivialise what obviously took years in the oven.

So it's another example of people working on their own method and understanding things that make sense to them. You can then look at it and make up some terms for it or picture it from a different angle and make it seem more complex than what it is.

I think the early jazz guys were like that. They discovered things that pleased their ears, they worked on licks ad infinitum........and Parker repeats his licks a LOT............Martino is a lick player..............Benson is a lick player.......they are all lick players...........they collected their licks and they became a basis for their improvisations.

Although a lot of bebob now sounds like one long cliche. So many repeated licks.
There's a lick for every occasion. Possibly one reason why the form was overtaken by fresher approaches.

Rock players are no different. Lots of licks.

Of course the people I've mentioned all have astounding techniques. Any of those guys will take a simple phrase and play it in such a way that you will be reaching for your modes book to figure out where it came from.
Perhaps they are using a "12 pointed star equal detuned Phrygian half step" approach?

Methinks it was just one of their fave licks.

Everyone cooks with water but some people make wonderful things.
The rest of us try to figure it out.

yeah sure, they learned by doing. BFD. in other words, they are/were unschooled. and if your're ok with unschooled, then fantastic!

but then when it comes to jazz listening, who isn't ok with unschooled?

its about what sounds cool/sexy/jazzy/bluesy, etc.

[Loobs]

Sure. He'd have been the first to tell you.

After reading his autobiography, I somewhat doubt this.

[Loobs]

Gil Evan's arrangement of this is fantastic!

[oldane]

Great track, by the way what's that thing on Jim's guitar at the headstock? Looks like he left his truss rod adjuster on...............but I've seen these before.
To damp the strings of something?

"George van Eps String dampener"

[mr. beaumont]

After reading his autobiography, I somewhat doubt this.

Miles certainly didn't have any self esteem problems, but he's been quoted several times about playing bebop and how cats came in with songs that had "all these chords" and how Miles says "I can't play them."

[Joe Strummer]

So let's recap:

Miles is a mediocre musician because all he accomplished in music was put together great bands, write great songs, innovate in the genre, and play lyrical solos with lots of space.

However, he would be great if he had gone to school so that he could play lots of notes, from lots of different scales and modes, over chords with lots of extensions, at high speed, and with immaculate technique.

And people on this site wonder why no one listens to jazz anymore!

[palz]

No offense, but some of the comments on Miles competence in this thread sound a bit like the one made by a hall-of-fame-pop guitar player that once said to Jim Hall something like Thelonious Monk being an OK piano player but played lots of wrong notes.

[nycjazzman]

That is my honest opinion I have formed after having listened to many of his recordings. He was nowhere near the player that Clifford Brown or Baker were. In fact, on top of rather mediocre I find alot of his playing annoying and not in sync with everyone else around him.

I think his true talent lied in assembling a band as well as composing. The cat could put a band together like no one else on earth, but he couldn't even hang with the fellas he hired.

I spoke to Mr. Paul Bley about this when I had the pleasure of meeting him, and he told me that Miles Davis was nothing more than a sit in who turned famous because he was classically trained and could compose well. To my surprise, he said alot of cats who came up during the same time didn't think an awful lot of him either.

What do you guys think about this? Am I the only one or are there others?

Miles was the reason why I started playing Jazz. I think you should listen to his Music again and also watch some bio's of him.

[Jazzpunk]

Come to think of it............Did Charlie Parker know all his modes? I mean was he thinking....."oh here comes a dominant 7.....hell where's that mixolydian scale........oh yeah I could flat the 5 here"

Was he a schooled musician or did he play by ear?
Just wondering.

There's a quote in a Charlie Parker book I have where Parker talks about experimenting with major arpeggios over dominant chords and using flatted fifths.

Obviously he didn't study the text book jazz theory curriculum that we have available to us today but he was not ignorant to music theory.

[palz]

"alot of cats who came up during the same time didn't think an awful lot of him either" So What? These cats were barking while the caravan passed by... With all due respect, I don't care for people who detracts great artists: they do not get out of it a thing other than a clear statement about themselves.