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The question about "chops" and if they can be reduced to "playing fast": as a former horn player (tuba, to be precise), 'chops' can be summarised as follows:
1. Range: If you can play as fast as lightening but only between middle C and F, no, you DON'T have chops.
2. Tone and Stability: the tonal nature of a sound comes from your pucker, basically, and how you're "buzzing" your lips. Similarly, you need to have a stable, consistent tone throughout the entire note. Lots of folks can play fast but when you make 'em slow down they sound like crap because while they've got okay attack they can't sustain it.
3. Tonguing: This is one of the two parts of "speed"; you need to be able to move your tongue to play multiple notes. As a tuba player, I couldn't tongue for crap, but that's okay because I was mostly playing "oom-pah". That said, the ability to play a triplet passage with triple-tounging is an impressive skill.
4. Fingering: the other part of playing fast- while you can't play a fast passage if you can't tongue the notes so they're clearly articulated, you're even worse off if you can't move your fingers fast enough to get the notes in the first place.
Of these, I'd say that Miles had a real strength in his fingerings- he could play pretty much any note in about 5 different ways, from everything I've read. I don't think his tonguing was particularly great, and I think his tone-and-sustain might have been a bit off, but he managed to make that a musical trademark of his. And his range was perfectly sufficient for what he played.
All in all: technically, I don't think Miles was the shit in the same way Bird or Diz were. But he still played good music.
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02-16-2011 06:14 PM
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I disagree. Miles knew a lot more about music than John Lennon did. (No offense to Lennon.) Miles was a better trumpet player than Lennon was a guitar player. Listen to some of the Charlie Parker recordings with Miles: Miles knew his way around the horn at the comparable age of Lennon doing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and leaving the guitar solos to George Harrison.
Originally Posted by Drumbler
As Mr. Beaumont pointed out, Mile's "So What" solo is a great one. When he came into his own, he soloed like a composer, which is no bad thing. I think it says a lot about Miles that he surrounded himself with *better* players and let them shine.
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+1. And Tal, one of the fastest players ever, plays "fast" differently than ANYONE I've ever heard play fast. It's so specific and identifiable to him. It was born from the fact that Red Norvo hired him for his harmonic and melodic sense, not for his speed, but then Talmage very quickly figured out that Red liked to push the tempo and realized he would be embarrassed if he couldn't keep up. So he learned to play very fast in his own sort of organic way, some of it on the bandstand, and some in which you can hear him struggling on early recordings. And Tal Farlow has more chops than a butcher. The musicality came first. I read that Mingus also said he became a much faster player with Norvo. He too was always MUSICAL. All three are in my top list of favorites. Originally Posted by bako
Jim Hall of course is outstanding and musical and I've heard him burn too:
Amazon.com: Interplay: Bill Evans: Music
Maybe not as fast as Tal, but he gets up at points. It's just not his main thing but he says so much without it being his main thing.
There's a famous story that he once told a student who had enormous technical prowess but lacked feel "Don't just do something; SIT THERE!
Tal and Jim were roommates at one point. I wonder if they ever had the "Do you think Miles can play?" debate...
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This is the most surprising comment (to me) on this whole thread. I speak as owner of at least two dozen Miles' recordings (-and I've heard lots of others that I don't own). He had a unique voice on the trumpet but I never thought of it as being "close to a human voice," ESPECIALLY for jazz. I thought his horn sound was UN-natural. (Beginning with no vibrato.) Also, his feel was very cool, more analytic than emotional. Originally Posted by bako
That's not said in criticism. I like Miles. I just never thought I'd hear anyone say his sound was the closest a horn ever got to the human voice. Heck, I think Louis Armstrong would be a better vote for that award, as would Lester Young (-his duets with Billie Holliday are staggeringly good). I think *Coltrane* blew more human emotion through a horn than Miles ever thought about conveying. Again, this isn't a dig at Miles. I'm just very surprised to hear Miles singled out as getting a more human voice out of a horn than anyone else. Is it just me????
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It depends on what you think makes a jazz cat "great." If it's smoking chops, then Miles ain't the guy for you. Personally, I hate flashy "chops" players - to my ear it gets boring after a while. I listen to Miles for his subtlety, his musicality, his taste, his phrasing, his sense of composition, etc.
I guess it really depends on what quality you're judging him on. If you've defined someone like Brown as the archetype, then yeah, Miles is going to pale in comparison. But I think that there are other ways to judge a player. To my ear there are better ways to judge a player.
Peace,
Kevin
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and a quote from the comments ...........
I feel like Miles was one of those artists that brought humanity a little bit closer to the divine. This essence transcends all egos, erases all faults, and lets one float and exist between the realms of the natural and that which has no end. Thank you Miles.
people don't care about chops
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Some people do. I don't know how man players I've seen lionized who were all chops and no soul or depth. Originally Posted by pingu
Especially younger players, but even some more experienced players that I've heard talk about music.
I'd say that there are far too many people obsessed with chops. After a certain point it's just genetics and time in the woodshed. But musicality? Soul? Subtlety? That's where it's at.
Peace,
KevinLast edited by ksjazzguitar; 02-16-2011 at 09:06 PM.
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F*ck chops!
I love Miles.
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If Miles would have been mediocre we wouldn't be discussing him here. Other people took care of answering that question for us a long time ago.
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This is a good analogy, but i think i have a better one. I know some people will disagree with this, but hear me out. I personally don't dig john lennon as a guitar player, singer, or songwriter. But that's beside the point. He definitely said some interesting things and i understand why people latched on to him, but I feel like his post-beatles fame was fueled mainly by the controversies he caused with his opinions. Originally Posted by paynow
Now...After hearing people knock miles' tone, I thought of a similar analogy.
Miles wasn't a great trumpet player like Bob dylan wasn't a great singer. (I happen to love bob dylan's voice). And as much as people complain about dylan's voice, nobody phrases vocal lines like he does. Dylan and miles where both masters of phrasing. To lennon, his message was more important than the music. You never saw dylan or miles pitch any goofy ideas like "bagism."
If you don't know about "bagism" you should definitely put it on your "things I need to google list".
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02-17-2011, 03:47 AM #36Baltar Hornbeek GuestYou are saying John Lennon was not one the greatest musicians of our (all?) time? Originally Posted by voelker
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Miles found his own sound on the trumpet, distanced himself from bebop, put together several of the best bands in jazz history and released a catalog of albums that is second to none. Plus he is the only jazz musician I can think of who owned a Ferrari!
I like his playing on a lot of his early stuff but I think once he started playing with Hancock, Williams and Carter he got left behind somewhat. He never tried to restrain them though and he did not mind being outshone by the other guys in the band and his albums are all the better for it.
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I did not say that. I said i personally don't dig his work, just like some people don't dig miles, and some don't dig dylan, but they all had something that made them unique. I was just saying that lennons guitar work is not the main focus of his music in the way that dylans vocals and miles' trumpet is. Like dylan, lennon was primarily focused on the words. you might say that lennons voice had a more pleasing tonal quality, but dylan is just more exciting when it comes to phrasing. Originally Posted by Baltar Hornbeek
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If you don't like Miles...are you sure you like jazz???
+1 Originally Posted by JonnyPac
well said, best post on the threadLast edited by reventlov; 02-17-2011 at 07:54 AM.
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I recently started transcribing Miles' recording of "It Could Happen To You". I checked out about ten versions looking for a way to approach learning the tune and Miles' version had some intangible thing the others didn't. When I started transcribing the head I was amazed. Unless my ears are deceiving me, almosts every phrase I've transcribed so far is placed in a rhythmically different way from the other phrases in the head. Whether Miles did this consciously or not who knows, but to my mind that counts as "chops".
I saw Miles in the early eighties when Scofield and Stern were in the band - one of the best musical performances I've ever seen.Last edited by Bill C; 02-17-2011 at 08:58 AM. Reason: grammatical correction
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I think this analogy is much better than the John Lennon one but there is a huge problem with it: Miles got into Julliard. The guy *could* play and he knew his theory. Originally Posted by voelker
After developing his mature style, he may have stopped practicing enough to keep up such chops as he had when younger---the guy *does* have a lot of cracked notes on records and it's hard to think they were all intentional--but the suggestion that he never could play and so developed a style that called for nothing much from his horn is well wide of the mark.
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I didn't say that before (--I know this wasn't directed at me, but I'm chiming in anyhow) but since you asked it, I *would* say that. Originally Posted by Baltar Hornbeek
The Beatles wrote a lot of great songs (and made a lot of great records: in rock, the dividing line between 'great song' and 'great record' isn't so clear as it can be in jazz and classical music). Lennon's greatest talent was writing songs, not playing guitar (or piano, even though "Imagine" is a great song.)
Gershwin wrote great songs AND played a mean piano, but no one called Irving Berlin a great piano player (or musician) because he wrote so many great songs, or Duke Ellington either. (Though one does hear people say Duke was 'better than most people realized.' But people didn't go to hear Duke's band to hear *him* take solos, even though he played a few choice ones.)
As for the digs at "chops," am I the only one here who appreciates the album Joe Pass (with bassist Neils-Henning Orsted Petersen) put out under that name? Or his "Virtuoso" recordings?
Or, hum, "The INCREDIBLE Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery"?
No one indifferent to chops bothers to belong to something called Jazz Guitar Forum. Some may be more concerned with "theory chops" than the playing kind, but we wouldn't practice hours a day if we didn't think technique mattered A LOT.
One doesn't do Miles any favors by attacking chops.
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+1 Originally Posted by bako
Miles solos are some of my favorites and are my favorite trumpet solos. He was inovative, he had his own voice, he was a great band leader, and a great soloist.
To me that makes him one of the greatest trumpet players. If the OP thinks he was mediocre, then he has a very different idea of what is musically important than I do.
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Hmm...There have been times in his career when Miles had incredible chops, it's kind of hard to miss if you've really listened to him. Speed, power, full tone, it was all there, when that was what he was into. Instead, he developed a very personal voice, and he said just as much as anyone, but with less notes. Like many great artists, he was willing to expose his vulnerability. The bottom line is, among other trumpet players, he is the most influential of all. The fact that he was even better as a composer, bandleader, and businessman makes him a legend.
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As for Jim Hall, I attended a Jack Wilkins seminar in Miami many moons ago---I was in hopelessly over my head---and Jack said that one night in a bar Jim Hall whined about not being able to play fast. Wilkins told this story because he thought Hall was a *great* guitar player but also a *human* guitar player: he itched to play faster than he could. Who doesn't?
But Miles *could* play fast when he was young, and he did this on record. That shouldn't be up for debate.
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Originally Posted by markerhodes
thanks, sums it up very well for me.
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I really started admiring Miles when I transcribed some Miles melody playing and soloing. His phrasing was out of this world as mentioned previously. Getting sheet music didn't get me there, I had to transcibe Miles for myself. It was that kind of detailed listening that did it for me.
This was first tune I ever transcribed. I was looking for something easy, but because of his phrasing and use of space, it wasn't as easy as I thought.
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Originally Posted by reventlov
Yes, I'm pretty sure I love Jazz just as much as the next guy here...
Anywhom, a bunch of you guys made very valid points here in this thread. I guess what I meant to say then is that Miles was a mediocre trumpet player (like someone here had mentioned). And I don't say this because of his lack of chops, infact, I find it funny that so many people are so quick to hop on the "Fuck chops, play with soul" band wagon. In the beginning of the thread I mentioned Chet Baker as one of the greats and he clearly doesn't have all the chops in the world.
That being said, thank you guys for bringing many great points to the light.
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02-17-2011, 11:09 AM #49Baltar Hornbeek Guest
you're tough on musicians! I hear what your are saying but I think your perspective is a bit limited. In my opinion you can't slice and dice these guys like that, it's just not valid. Think about it, who has inspired more people to pick up a guitar than John Lennon? His guitar playing and songwriting, it's one and the same.
Last edited by Baltar Hornbeek; 02-17-2011 at 11:34 AM.
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miles has nothing to prove...he played with the best and the best played with him...and they wanted to..
if miles called and asked anyone to play with him...who would reply...sorry man your chops are down...yeah right...
kind of blue is still the best selling jazz album...there is a reason for that..
wolf
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