How many different styles of jazz

[JSngry]

I thought JSngry's post on drum & bass traced back to On The Corner pretty interesting, but he's not called a pioneer of it? Or is he?

Occasionally.

But I look at it like this was one of those times when Miles' music was one of those "in the air" things that got crystallized by somebodies else.

No denying the vision there, though.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

6. Funk/acid jazz: this was during his "On The Corner" up until the day he died, this style not as aggressive as his jazz-rock work, but still was hard hitting

First I've heard of this. You mean, Miles actually pioneered in 1972 a music that had been developed by James Brown and, on the jazz side, Freddie McCoy in the mid-sixties. Wow! That takes some doing!

MG

But neither of these guys dabbled in Indo-jazz fusion and Stockhausian repetitive grooves though, which Miles (with Buckmaster and Teo) did integrate into the mix.

Oh, well, that's something else then, not what I (or most people) understand by Funk/Acid Jazz.

MG

[Guy Berger]

The, for lack of a better term, "Plugged Nickel Band Style" had to wait about 20 years after the fact to become "mainstream", but it did. Same to a lesser extent for the "time, no changes" approach of the Second Quartet's studio albums.

As far as "innovator" v "popularizer", I don't really agree with either. I think of Miles more as a "crystallizer" somebody who who could pick up on various things already in the air and put them through his uniquely focused prism and come out with a fully formed "genre" where before there were just pieces waiting to come together.

Yes, I don't think it could be stated any better than this.

I also think that focusing exclusively on genres tends to overstate and understate his influence at the same time.

Guy

[medjuck]

I've even read (though I don't agree) Miles credited with creating, or at least popularizing, hard-bop with "Walkin".

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Who else has been a catalyst in several styles?

Nat "King" Cole.

MG

[jlhoots]

None of those people are pioneers, but catalysts? Who's a pioneer & why? I thought JSngry's post on drum & bass traced back to On The Corner pretty interesting, but he's not called a pioneer of it? Or is he? What constitutes it? (Insert another word if pioneer isn't liked)

I'll give it a try - pioneer - Ornette Coleman.

[BruceH]

As far as "innovator" v "popularizer", I don't really agree with either. I think of Miles more as a "crystallizer" somebody who who could pick up on various things already in the air and put them through his uniquely focused prism and come out with a fully formed "genre" where before there were just pieces waiting to come together.

He was like rock candy!

Seriously, you could also call it being a "synthesizer" and, no disrespect to Miles, isn't it more or less what every artist above a certain talent level does? That is, pick up on things already in the air, process them through their own sensibility and come out with some "new" synthesis?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

As far as "innovator" v "popularizer", I don't really agree with either. I think of Miles more as a "crystallizer" somebody who who could pick up on various things already in the air and put them through his uniquely focused prism and come out with a fully formed "genre" where before there were just pieces waiting to come together.

He was like rock candy!

Seriously, you could also call it being a "synthesizer" and, no disrespect to Miles, isn't it more or less what every artist above a certain talent level does? That is, pick up on things already in the air, process them through their own sensibility and come out with some "new" synthesis?

Well, no. I think that you're kind of using language to obscure.

There's a spectrum of innovation - and your statement is true right across the board - which, at the one extreme, is the development of a personal and expressive style and at the other is revolution. But at the revolutionary end of the spectrum, for a very few artists, something a bit more is happening. In my view, they're developing a new paradigm, through looking at whatever it is musicians look at from a completely different angle - albeit a "legitimate" angle; these people are not merely eccentrics; not merely geniuses; revolution occurs because there's a need for it and the innovator is the first to catch hold of the need and find the new way of looking at things that satisfies it, or the first to do so in a way which does satisfy it.

Some revolutions may occur without a genius innovator taking the lead, it seems to me. Who was the genius innovator for Swing? I think lots of people were experimenting in lots of areas and in lots of ways and things kind of came together - though I'm not terribly well versed in that history.

For Bebop there was actually a framework - the Eckstine band - in which most of the main protagonists came together formally, as well as informal get togethers at Mintons. So in this case there were several innovators/revolutionaries working in concert (couldn't resist it).

But Ornette seems to have had his ideas on his own.

So...

MG

[Shawn]

None of those people are pioneers, but catalysts? Who's a pioneer & why? I thought JSngry's post on drum & bass traced back to On The Corner pretty interesting, but he's not called a pioneer of it? Or is he? What constitutes it? (Insert another word if pioneer isn't liked)

I'll give it a try - pioneer - Ornette Coleman.

There's alot of bebop in Ornette (especially the early recordings with Cherry), kind of sounded like Diz & Bird in a blender.

[BillF]

There's alot of bebop in Ornette (especially the early recordings with Cherry), kind of sounded like Diz & Bird in a blender.

Agreed. When I first heard Ornette at the end of the fifties, I used to joke that this is what Bird would have sounded like inside Camarillo.

[Guy Berger]

None of those people are pioneers, but catalysts? Who's a pioneer & why? I thought JSngry's post on drum & bass traced back to On The Corner pretty interesting, but he's not called a pioneer of it? Or is he? What constitutes it? (Insert another word if pioneer isn't liked)

I'll give it a try - pioneer - Ornette Coleman.

No doubt a pioneer, but even he didn't literally invent a new style -- there were precedents for his innovations.

Guy

[Swinging Swede]

It is well known that all jazz styles were invented by Jelly Roll Morton.

[Guest Bill Barton]

It is well known that all jazz styles were invented by Jelly Roll Morton.

OMG, we can blame him for smoove too?

[dave9199]

It seems no one person or group is a pioneer/creator, but people pick up strands of things that have not been put together yet & put them together. It also seems that new styles are reactions to what preceded it; taking elements & bringing them to the fore, or doing the opposite of a previous style.

[montg]

To me, pioneers--inventors--were folks at the beginning who created the language. Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Coleman Hawkins, Jelly Roll Morton etc.

"You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played--I mean even modern.

-- Miles Davis

[jazzbo]

I think he pioneered new directions in Miles Davis music.

[Shawn]

Aside from those already mentioned: Armstrong, Basie, Ellington, Gil Evans, Nat King Cole, Hawkins, Jelly Roll Morton, etc. I'd also throw a shout out to a few more (IMHO).

Louis Jordan (for his influence on the soon-to-be rock n' roll scene)

Lester Young (the other side of Hawkins' Mirror)

Charlie Christian (for making the guitar an acceptable jazz solo instrument)

Charles Mingus (for taking the Ellington thing...one step beyond)

Ray Charles (talk about a crystalizer!)

honorable mentions:

Gerry Mulligan (for his early arranging work with Thornhill, Miles..and also for dropping the piano which Ornette and others would expand on)

Jimmy Smith (for taking the organ out of the skating rink and helping to create an entirely new genre)

...sorry for the slight thread drift...

Edited May 17, 2008 by Shawn

[Chuck Nessa]

Not sure why we want our favorite artists to be "distinguished" by the territory they marked like less "enlightened" mammals.

If necessary, all this shit will be sorted out later. In the meantime enjoy the products of Miles, Duke, Bird, Pops, JRM, Albert, Ornette, etc.

You are richer for their work. 'Nuff sed.

[AllenLowe]

Prez was definitely a pioneer - completely new -

Bud Powell was a pioneer - ask the guys who followed him around in the 1940s (the only one left may be Bill Triglia) -

and don't forget Brigham Young -

[7/4]

and don't forget Brigham Young -

now there's someone who started his own style of Jazz.

[Teasing the Korean]

You guys are selling Miles short. He also invented folk rock, boogaloo, exotica, and bossa nova.

[Chuck Nessa]

Miles WAS short.

[user0815]

I've even read (though I don't agree) Miles credited with creating, or at least popularizing, hard-bop with "Walkin".

didn't miles himself say about "walkin" that it was horace silver who was responsible for that funky sound ?

[John L]

It seems to me that Miles' Walkin'-Blue n' Boogie session was indeed a key recording in the emergence of Hard Bop, along with the Jazz Messengers work of the same time. I didn't even realize that there was much controversy about this.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I agree with this 100 per cent

Not sure why we want our favorite artists to be "distinguished" by the territory they marked like less "enlightened" mammals.

None of the people mentioned in this thread is a favourite of mine.

History makes us what we are.

If necessary, all this shit will be sorted out later.

Maynard Keynes - "In the long run, we are all dead".

In the meantime enjoy the products of Miles, Duke, Bird, Pops, JRM, Albert, Ornette, etc.

You are richer for their work. 'Nuff sed.

Quite right.

MG