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Here's Alan Douglas:
Douglas also felt that Bitches Brew was a direct result of Miles spending time with Jimi.Although you could never categorize him as a jazz artist, he incorporated jazz, because he was probably the best improviser I ever heard, and that's what jazz is basically all about. I mean, he himself said, "I can't stand somebody playing 'How High The Moon' for half an hour," so he never considered himself a jazz player. But the jazz players sure did. Look at his stuff with Larry Young. Miles Davis and John McLaughlin had tremendous admiration for him, and I felt he was the one who incorporated all the musical influences that went down in the last hundred years into his own music. There was Robert Johnson, and there was Muddy Waters, and there was John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Mingus.
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11-29-2015 09:04 PM
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Hendrix, the "greatest improviser I ever heard?" Really??? Greatest Rock showman maybe, most impressive Rock sound maybe, even the songs and singing was very cool. But greatest improviser ever? A Jazz player would never say that. It's an insult to Jazz. Jimi played a handful of blues licks. He made them sound more exciting than probably any one ever has.
Let's leave it at that.
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In a recent interview with Vintage Guitar Magazine, John Mclaughlin was asked if he could pick one musician from the past he could play with, who would it be. His answer was Jimi Hendrix. Must have been a very impressive "handful of blues licks". Jimi was a musician who connected with people. I've seen "jazz" musicians with incredible technique, vocabulary, sound, whatever ...that have left me totally cold and bored. When I saw Jimi Hendrix perform in Hawaii it was anything but a "handful of blues licks".
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Jimi was great. He imitated the sounds of birds and copters, bombs and wind. He was so much more than a hand full of blues licks. Listen to Machine Gun.
But Alan Douglas was an ass and has a long line of discredit from musicians ripped off by him.
I'd also remind folks that Miles was cuckholded by Jimi with Betty, so I'm not sure how altruistic he may have been with Jimi. He loved the hell out of Betty Maybury and was very jealous of Hendrix. Complicated to predict what all of this was really about. Betty turned Miles on to Jimi because she talked about him all the time. Then Miles found out why she was talking about him so much!
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Miles wanted to make Jimi his "bitch" in order to impress Betty. Is that too much of a stretch given what we know about Miles?
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the great betty mabry davis
jimi or miles?
cheers
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Most of these so-and-so wanted to play with so-and-so before he died stories are bunk. It's pretty well-known Hendrix was in an artistic doldrum when he died and didn't really know which direction to go in. He could have done jazz but he could have joined ELP which was rumored at the time.
I have listened to a ton of both musicians, and 1) I think Hendrix could do anything he wanted to do with his instrument--we think there is something special about jazz chord progressions and improvisations (and there is) but it's nothing that couldn't be learned with effort. Hendrix was a musical savant with an incredible feel for music beyond 3-chord blues. He was the Charlie Parker of the guitar. There was no limit to his ability to translate musical ideas into sound.
2) Hendrix is underrated in the sense that people think he just knew the standard chords and scales and had a handful of tricks. Listen to the music. The musicality, the feel for the heart of the music. The striking way he played lead over rhythm without ever losing the feel of the beat. And he did it for the most part WITHOUT EFFECTS. Just a guitar and an amp. And he could do it on stage, drunk, stoned, playing behind his head, playing with his guitar down around his ankles, because he knew how to work that guitar. The more I listen to Hendrix the more I think, this guy's talent is so unique and off the scale. He never fails to impress.
Miles has a way of talking about people from a remove and commenting on them critically or not in a way that is extremely calculated. It makes it hard to take what he says at face value whether true or not. On the other hand we can see how Miles used musicians over the years as key components to whatever sound he was going for. Many times he used their virtuosity and insight into jazz idioms, but sometimes he just used them to get a certain sound or effect. If he was moving into funk and heavier sounds, as he was, he could certainly have used Jimi.
I find it amusing how Davis has commented on Santana and others in such a way as to express admiration and at the same time to point out how they could never do what he (Miles) could do. It's extremely narcissistic of course. The interesting thing is how envious Davis was of their success. And probably at the core he was respectful of how well they did what they were doing.
Anyway, bottom line, Davis was an extremely complex and conflicted figure, Hendrix not. Davis was a junkie and misanthrope who had to battle throughout his life with his dark side. Hendrix was an innocent who unfortunately made some tragic miscalculations in his casual drug use. (I don't know if he would even qualify as an addict, in a medical sense.)
Musically, Davis was a brilliant thinker and a gifted but limited player. Hendrix was not really an original composer or innovator except sonically and technically, but again he was an extreme virtuoso on the electric guitar. No one could ever say of him he plays well given the limitations of his technique.
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Oh, c'mon, lots of folks - even in the jazz world - like to throw around the term "greatest". It's hyperbole. How many times have folks on the forum here proclaimed Wes to be the greatest jazz guitarist ever?Hendrix, the "greatest improviser I ever heard?" Really??? Greatest Rock showman maybe, most impressive Rock soundmaybe, even the songs and singing was very cool. But greatest improviser ever? A Jazz player would never say that. It's an insult to Jazz. Jimi played a handful of blues licks. He made them sound more exciting than probably any one ever has.
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Wow doc Jeff. I disagree with almost your entire assessment. Miles narcissistic because he knows Santana and Jimi could never do what he could do? I'd call that a fair assessment. Miles a LIMITED PLAYER?? No one could never say Hendrix could play well given the limitations of his technique?? Wow. I disagree fully with each of those statements.
Miles was limited but not Hendrix??
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I listened to a radio interview on NPR decades ago...it was either Howard Roberts or Joe Diorio, talking as a music industry insider confirming that the wheels were definitely in motion for Jimi to get together in the studio with Miles.
Remember, they both had done the Isle of Wight festival, and if Jimi hadn't died a month later, it was his agenda to dive into the electric jazz scene, which he'd already been flirting with.
The interview went on to explain how Jimi was very unhappy that he had really gotten trapped into continuing to portray himself as this black psychedelic voodoo stud persona to satisfy his obligations to the record company. He was definitly eager to shed this image and find a new market and get away from the pressure of delivering hits. You don't think of Hendrix as a product, but he certainly was.
If you've listened to the insane guitar driven funk rock of Agharta, with Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas, you know that Hendrix could have fit right in and taken it to another level. Even dead, his influence was obvious.Last edited by cosmic gumbo; 11-30-2015 at 03:13 AM.
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I can see how people call miles limited technically. He didn't play lines like Clifford brown, but he could play pretty fast. However, the last thing I would call hendrix is a technical virtuoso. Hendrix was good in his own world but in the real world I reckon Miles was 100x the musician hendrix was. Miles could sound rough or sloppy but he could also sound refined and precise because he had control of his instrument. To me Hendrix doesn't sound like he has that control.
Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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Wow, have people actually listened to these guys' work/accomplishments??? Historically, these guys had no problem holding their own with the best.
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Hehe, it's all a bit of fun innit? We're like a bunch of teenage fan boi's .... But while we're slingin' around our insignificant opinions- Wes was the greatest Jazz guitarist ever! Originally Posted by zdub
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I know nothing about trumpet playing and so could never comment on Miles' technical ability. But his playing can move me emotionally in a way that few other musicians do (Wes shares that ability.) Originally Posted by nick1994
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If you don't think Miles was a narcissist, you haven't read his book. I love the man and the player, but he had some issues. He was unable to play for about 5 years because of his coke addiction--he admits it himself in his book.
Technically he was good early in his career but not the flashiest or fastest. I think that he moved into composing BECAUSE he understood that. On his later records he simply doesn't play very well. He lost his embouchure for quite awhile as well--more or less had to relearn how to play. Don't get me wrong, I love his tone and his playing up until the latter part of his career. I agree he had that emotionality, especially on the middle period quintet records. When he moved into Bitches Brew he moved away from melodic playing and used his horn more as sound coloring.
I disagree that Hendrix didn't have control. It's tempting to separate out the rock and jazz idioms--one is technical and complicated and controlled, the other is crazy and anarchistic and non-technical. I think both musicians would be the last to make that distinction.
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Miles got into "composing" because he was a "weak" player?
how many of his own compositions are on "Workin", "Relaxin", "Steamin" and "Cookin"?
In the 1960s quintet, lots of Wayne shorter and even Tony Williams compositions there . Also of note: miles changed his playing style a bit and was really able to extend his range and play a blistering tempos.
It is more accurate to say that he found his unique voice early on and developed it .
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Bitches Brew and On The Corner were lost on me. Having already heard Soft Machine, that old Miles period seemed too wet, white and wanky for me to waste much time on. That's my feeling.
What brought me back with a smile was when he rediscovered the blues - We Want Miles etcetera.
I think the possibilities for Miles with Jimi could have been very worthwhile.
There was a solid basis for shared language and idioms.
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I didn't say Miles was a weak player. He was not as flashy or as fast as Dizzy and some other bebop players. He was not really a bebop trumpeter per se, which valued showing off one's chops almost above all else. I agree he found a unique voice and developed it and started to move into playing his own stuff as he progressed. Originally Posted by NSJ
If you think I don't love or respect Miles you misread me. I have heard just about everything he's done. I don't think he played a wrong note or put out a bad record from the late 50's to the early-70's. I LOVE Bitches Brew and everything from that period. But in the 70's things fell apart.
I still like his 80's stuff--I saw him (one and only time) in Vienna in 1983 or 4. He still had that expressive voice, he could still get his message across. His technical skills were nowhere near where they were before though, and I don't think that stuff will stand the test of time like his earlier work.
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Wait -- I didn't say he wasn't a narcissist! I read more than is "autobiography" by Quincy Troupe. I also knew people who knew him personally and read several other books as well. What I was saying was the statement that Miles felt he was beyond Hendrix as INDICATION of his narcissism was unfounded. As a matter of fact when I talked to those people who were his personal friends and some who even worked with him it was DURING those dark days when he didn't work. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
The fact that you call him a limited player - - He had a style that was sparse, in contrast to Dizzy's. Yeah he couldn't play those high notes and generally struggled to play those fast tempos -- WHEN HE WAS A KID. But he was playing with CHARLIE PARKER when he was a kid. In no way can that be considered a limited player. Anyone compared to Dizzy or Brownie could be considered a "limited player." This is completely unfair and inaccurate. He was playing with Coltrane and later Herbie, Shorter, Jarrett. He was a very advanced player, like few of his era. He knew his shit.
I've done a lot of Miles transcriptions. Some were the Prestige and early Columbia recordings with Rollins and Coltrane and Red Garland. The tenor players were my intended targets at first, but man! Miles was so so RIGHT. His notes were amazing. He would sometimes reharmonize his solo sections and make them slicker. He created a STYLE, some say out of his limitations, I say out of his strengths. Miles Davis LIMITED??? Bullshit.
Hendrix -- and this is coming from someone loved - LOVES Jimi Hendrix. I started playing guitar because of him. I idolized the man. He couldn't play Along Came Betty to save his life. Not technically nor did he have the knowledge. That's OK. That's not what he was about. But in this sense he was quite limited. He came up playing in those R&B groups and blues. He didn't know anything about a Bb7b9,13. Miles did. And Miles could play the blues and R&B and fusion. And I also disagree in that Miles was no longer a melodic player. Miles was the same player, except when he got old. That was embouchure. He stopped practicing. He was old man. But he was always a melodic player. He was still playing those ballads, even on those one chord modal funk grooves.
Look, you can only look and judge by whats there in the record. Jimi never really played changes. Not really. The song Axis: Bold As Love has changes of a type. And I love his playing on that. And this has nothing to do with whether they would have played together and what they would have played. I believe it would have been along the lines of Cosey but more dynamic. More Jimi focused because that's the way he would have rolled. But to insist Jimi wasn't limited and Miles was just kin of burned my toast. A little.
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Yeah, I always felt Pete's playing was Miles' "Hendrix subsitute." The music at that time wasn't about heavy changes anyway, it was heavy groove...Hendrix would have sounded great in a "Dark Magus" type band.
I'm pretty sure even later on, (I remember reading in an interview somewhere) Mike Stern was told to "Play more like Hendrix."
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I've written before that there are many trumpet players I prefer to Miles D.
But limited, as a player?!...you might as well say that Beethoven was limited because he never wrote a 1st rate opera---or that Chopin was limited because he wrote mostly shorter pieces, for the piano.
But Chopin and Beethoven are great, great artists. To me, Chopin esp. has something in common with Miles D., namely taste and the ability not to overdo something. And while Chopin pretty much blew open the boundaries of piano playing, even in his day, some said his playing lacked "strength" as he preferred small intimate venues.
So, maybe Miles D. is greater as an artist, than as a pure trumpet player, if that makes sense.
But there is something else that is fascinating about Miles D. and that is his public persona/quest for fame. I think he was unsettled, by the fact that in a country that was 90% white (with 93% of the income), he was never going to make it big in the way that he wanted, by selling records to the 10% of the population that had 7% of the income--namely black America...it just doesn't make sense as a marketing proposition. Maybe there some black artists that can do this, but true commercial (i.e. big) success means, most likely, that you can't forswear that 90%.
The "newer" artists he was attracted to...Hendrix, Carlos Santana...Prince all had this cross-over appeal.
So, Miles had a big problem to deal with....and there is ambivalence/hostility/uneasiness about this Faustian bargain. He benefitted by working with Gil Evans, and the producers and A & R people at Columbia could make him into a crossover artist of appeal, at a time in history when this was possible. Imagine a Miles D. coming along in the 1920's or teens---it would have been a non-starter in this country, as far as widespread popularity...but the "cool" slightly defiant persona could go over in the late 50's...and Miles was not really a political rabble-rouser, with his whole Brooks Brothers presentation.
Image was significant with Miles...there is one of his albums that on the back reprinted most of an essay entitled "Warlord of the Weejuns", originally printed in Esquire, about Miles as the uber-cool clothes horse....there is one sentence at the end about music, and it says something like...."people who know such things state that Miles shows promise as a trumpet player". His book makes a lot of mention about his hair, his hair dresser, his clothes, his redesign of his Manhattan apt. to eliminate all 90 degree angles within the interior....his Ferrari, his Lamborghini that he drove until he fell asleep at the wheel, and broke both his ankles.
I have more Miles D. albums/CD's than any other jazz artist in my collection.
His autobiography is fascinating...it's like listening to the Nixon Whitehouse tapes...both of them end up revealing more about themselves than perhaps they wished.
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I recall Quincy Troupe saying after letting Miles read it prior to publishing, he commented that he thought it was pretty good. But why'd he have "me curse so much?" LOL. Quincy just laughed out loud. That's hey you talk! - paraphrasing. Miles insisted he did not curse that much MFer.
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Speaking of the producers and A&R people at Columbia Teo Macero deserves some mention. He would have loved working with Hendrix, I'm sure. Gil Evans is almost a household name (he will be after the movie.) * (Teo better get some footage or I'm out.)*
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Update on Miles D. film:
Ok, it was shown at the New York Film Festival last month. Reviews are varied.
Scheduled for release in April 2016.
Has, reportedly, quite a lot of music in it, which is probably enough to make me go out and see it.
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a class act Originally Posted by neatomic
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Grant Green, What is This Thing
Today, 01:59 PM in Ear Training, Transcribing & Reading