Why I hate Miles

[couw]

If you were blindfolded and otherwise cut off from your senses, would you be able to tell who was sucking your dick? [...] DEFINITELY not a Miles fan. But if you have to admit to yourself that you just don't know...

and the answer is: you wouldn't even know your dick was being sucked. Which brings us to the observation that even when driven purely by logic, "you have to admit to yourself that you just don't know..."

All I know is that I don't like the guy's tone. What I also know is that all the points of critique you list that people raise both against Miles and Pres, are scuffed off as unimportant by their proponents because of the emotional impact these guys have. With other players, these points of critique are judged valid, with these two they are not. That's strange, but understandable. It is in the FEEWING and maybe that's why we shouldn't judge it with logic. On the other hand it does all seem to fit with these guys. I don't hear it fit when Miles is concerned, but I do hear it in Pres. So in spite of all the criticism that may be raised based on logical observations, they seem to have found a logic entirely of their own and valid within itself.

Edited February 26, 2004 by couw

[Larry Kart]

Dick-sucking aside, I meant to suggest something fairly specific: That at at least one period in his career, Miles was trying to handle the trumpet a fair bit differently than it had been in jazz by and large in an attempt to realize a musical concept he had that also was a fair bit different than what most other people were playing, and that you can hear the (somewhat novel) trumpet-handling side and the (somewhat novel) musical-concept side of what he was up to really began to come together/talk to each other on those Birdland 1951 airchecks. And then there were obviously times later on when Miles' musical concept (and/or his Magus-like impulses--there were times when it seemed that Miles real instrument was The Persona) led him to handle the trumpet in ways that were utterly OTHERWISE, or even to just go over to a keyboard. But IMO he changed the instrument quite a bit for quite deliberate MUSICAL reasons. As Pres said in that famous Jazz Hot interview: "I got my tenor to sound like an alto, to sound like a tenor, to sound like a bass, and I'm not through with it yet."

[vajerzy]

Different people like different music......and different food, and colors, and places and people and sports and dogs and chili and beer.........it's a personal preference and no one's going to change anyone else if they don't want to be changed. The best you can do is expose someone to something and if they accept it great, if not, at least they tried.

I don't like Ornette Coleman and avant garde jazz- no structure, in my opinion. Other people think he's great.....I don't see it but I respect their opinion. I like Frank Sinatra and Lon doesn't......and that's fine- it's personal preference. I once said to a friend who worshipped the Grateful Dead that Jerry Garcia was not a great as everyone makes him out to be and this friend freaked and didn't speak to me for months.

Debate is good providing everyone's opinions are respected and nobody tries to cram their opinion down the other person's throat.

[JSngry]

Well, ok. It's NOT about the dick-sucking, at least not literally. What it IS about is how the ratio of expectations met to expectations not met can do different things to different people, depending on which are which.

Larry, you're definitely right about the change in concept that Miles underwent. What fascinates me is - why? Why did Miles go from being Miles Davis, interesting and disntinctive bebop-rooted trumpeter, to MILES DAVIS, the man who eptiomized jazz trumpet for so many by defying nearly all of its "obvious" conventions, conventions very much rooted in "traditional masculinity" yet at the same time reaffirming them in totally "non obvious" ways?

Seems to me that Miles for a while was looking for a way to "traditionally" in a "non-traditional" way, and then for some reason flip-flopped in his approach - he began to play "non-traditionally" in a "traditional" way. What happened? And why?

The thing with Miles is - what are you getting? Are you getting masculinetoughassertivedemonstrativeunambiguity or are you getting femininetenderpassiveunderstatedambivalence?

Or...

Are you getting both at the same time, in equal, indistinguishable measure?

And...

If we're not sure just exactly what is is we're getting, why does it feel so good to so many of us when we get it? What is it about unorthodox orthodoxy, about ambiguous definity, that attracts, thrills, even, so many of us? And how/why was Miles able to tap into that deeper than most anybody else? Surely it was a conscious decision on his part. Was it about personal liberation or hedonistic egotism? Or both, at the same time?

Hell if I know...

[John L]

The argument seems to be that our justifications for liking Miles are too subjective.

A question would then be what are the proper objective criteria to use for evaluating trumpet players? Certainly, technique and lack of mistakes are insufficient. if individuality is brought into the the picture, then Miles scores very high. If the ability to have an emotional impact on many people is considered, Miles scores very high. If influence on other trumpet players (and other musicians in general) is brought into the picture, Miles scores very high.

Lee Morgan has been cited here repeatedly as a superior trumpet player to Miles. While Lee may have been more rooted in Clifford Brown, he always cited Miles as a primary influence, notng Miles' use of space and nuance.

It seems to me that a fairly objective case can be made for Miles as a great trumpet player.

[agenbite]

To anyone who disparages Miles' chops as a trumpeter, I challenge them to listen to "Right Off" (track one from "Tribute To Jack Johnson") and tell me that extended solo isn't one of the most brilliant they've ever heard.

In other periods of his amazing career he made up for his lack of athletic chops (ala Morgan, et al) with his sense of lyricism and timing. He played his horn with a high degree of intelligence.

His talents as a bandleader are unquestionable. The hiring of Cater, Williams, Hancock, and Shorter was a stroke of genius, serendipity aside. Of course one can make similar claims regarding his 50's bands too.

I would never express disdain towards anyone who doesn't "get" Miles, but I'll just say I feel very fortunate that I do.

[Chrome]

A question would then be what are the proper objective criteria to use for evaluating trumpet players? Certainly, technique and lack of mistakes are insufficient.

But, from an objective standpoint, what else is there? You can't measure things like "emotional impact" objectively. That what makes these arguments both so much fun ... no wrong answers, lots of interesting comments.

PS: Man in the High Castle is fantastic ... I wonder when they'll make a movie out of this.

[Dr. Rat]

A question would then be what are the proper objective criteria to use for evaluating trumpet players?  Certainly, technique and lack of mistakes are insufficient.

But, from an objective standpoint, what else is there? You can't measure things like "emotional impact" objectively. That what makes these arguments both so much fun ... no wrong answers, lots of interesting comments.

PS: Man in the High Castle is fantastic ... I wonder when they'll make a movie out of this.

I was wondering what all this was about "Dick sucking" on this thread.

I think that's an example of some fine writin' and keen social observatin' (not generally the sort of material Hollywood goes for).

--eric

[John L]

A question would then be what are the proper objective criteria to use for evaluating trumpet players?  Certainly, technique and lack of mistakes are insufficient.

But, from an objective standpoint, what else is there? You can't measure things like "emotional impact" objectively. That what makes these arguments both so much fun ... no wrong answers, lots of interesting comments.

PS: Man in the High Castle is fantastic ... I wonder when they'll make a movie out of this.

I think that some of the points I summarized above have a strong element of objectivity to them.

We can objectively speak of Miles as an historically important and highly influential trumpet player (whether you like him or not).

Discussing how Miles affects you emotionally is completely subjective. But noting how many people Miles affects emotionally is an objective observation.

[mikeweil]

To anyone who disparages Miles' chops as a trumpeter, I challenge them to listen to "Right Off" (track one from "Tribute To Jack Johnson") and tell me that extended solo isn't one of the most brilliant they've ever heard.

In other periods of his amazing career he made up for his lack of athletic chops (ala Morgan, et al) with his sense of lyricism and timing. He played his horn with a high degree of intelligence.

Chops are the one aspect of a musician that is easiest to be judged. But the technique per se does not say anything about the musical qualities as a whole. Chops alone are not what it's about, but the chops you need to do what you hear, and there he was an individual of the highest order.

I have to admit this - I don't like his tone that much, just like couw, but I have to give him credit for what he did.

[Saint Vitus]

I'm surprised this thread has lasted this long ... oh boy.

[RainyDay]

I'm surprised this thread has lasted this long ... oh boy.

I think it jumped the shark with the, (ahem), phallic analogy.

[Chrome]

But noting how many people Miles affects emotionally is an objective observation.

But what does that get you? A lot of people are affected emotionally by Kenny G., too. Objectively counting people's opinions doesn't change the fact that it is still opinion.

[JSngry]

I'm surprised this thread has lasted this long ... oh boy. 

I think it jumped the shark with the, (ahem), phallic analogy.

Ok, guess I misread the room. My bad, and duly noted for future reference.

But...

The meat of that post (no pun intended) was in this paragraph:

Thing is, tenor has a built in sensuality to it, and trumpet is a MANLY instrument. Archie Shepp might have called the horn a phallic symbol, and properly so, but the axe is intrinsically hermaphroditic in both shape, tonal potential, and social character. Not so the trumpet, the descendant of the bugle, and, further back, the ram's horn, the instrument used to issue clarion calls for MEN to go to battle, to signal MEN that it's time to spring into action or end the day, to let MEN know that royalty is approaching, etc. And men have been bred and conditioned for centuries to be MEN, with absolutely NO room for uncertainty, ambiguity, or anything even remotely intimating that one's grasp of/on EVERYTHING concrete is anything but enthusiastically firm. "Playing between the cracks" of manly timespacesound might lead somebody to think that you'll play between some other manly cracks, and sound for the sake of sound implies a passivity to "let it be" that goes contrary to the traditionally manly "making it happen". A brave man has the confidence to go there anyway, becasue the only truth is found in resolving ambiguities, either through action or internal digestion. Real men don't DO that, especially Gabriel(s).

People had been asking how much of Miles' reputation was mystique, how much of it was purely musical, and what was the basis for the mystique. I'm of the opinion that the music and the mystique are at some fundamental level intrinsically intertwined.

Few artists of any medium have allowed so many (seeming) contradictions to co-exist in their work and their persona as did Miles Davis. Name any "artistic attribute" and you can find both it and its opposite in both the music and the life of Miles Davis. Perhaps I misspoke when I used the phrase "truth is found in resolving ambiguities", because Miles never really set about resolving the ambiguities. He instead seemed more than content to let them coexist, not as battling forces, but instead as opposites that peacefully coexisted as a matter of fact, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be equally yin and yang at the same time rahter than being one or the other at any given moment.

Which is how most of us are. We all have our various "sides", but how many of us can display them all at once, and in a most natural manner at that? Very few people can do that, and Miles, both as a person and as a musician seems to have been one of those few.

The implications of this are quite real - here is a man and a music who can more or less exemplify many different things to many different people without any of those people necessarily "getting it wrong". At the level of celebrety, this is called "charisma", but it goes deeper than celebrety - it goes to the very real possibility that Miles' appeal, both personal and musical, was based on providing us with "bonding" based on providing us with bonds of recognition of ourselves and recogniton of our "complimentary opposites". Miles' music was "masculine" AND "feminine". "sloppy" AND "tight", "tough" AND tender", yin AND yang, and not one or the other at any given moment, but everything all the time.

Arguments about Miles inevitably take the tact of Point A being refuted by a "yeah, bit" Point B, as if one refutes the other by having greater weight in the overall appraisal of the situation. Although that works in a lot of instances, it just doesn't fly with Miles, I think, because both are inevitably correct. Was Miles an asshole or a warm human being? Both. Was he a trumpeter with great chops or one who found a way to make do with what he had? Both. Was he a genuine innovator or an opportunist who was not above outright theft? Both. And none of those qualities necessarily takes precedence over the other. In fact, they are often all true at the same time. How many jazz musicians, no, how many PEOPLE can you say that about?

Very, VERY few, and I'll wager that those of whom you can are people with a "mystique" their ownselves. Which leads to the question - when we choose "what it is" about Miles that we like (those of us who do like him, anyway), are we choosing to ignore the very real OPPOSITE qualities that he also embodied? If we are, are we doing so because we honestly don't see them, or because it would bother us to admit being so attracted to the buzz from the positive that we are more than willing to overlook the negative? And if we are willing to admit the latter, does that not open up a whole other set of personal "quandaries" about who and what we ourselves REALLY are? What we are willing to accept in order to get what we want/need is a major defining element of our personal character, isn't it?

So, placed in the context of the above sentiments, I thought that a Glory Hole analogy was not only appropriate, but genuinely relevant, especially considering Miles' rumored bisexuality, which in itself is a literal embodiment of what I'm talking about and might go a long way towards explaining his personal and musical essence. That is, if it doesn't make the "enigma" (as it appears to a hetereosexual white male SERIOUS lover of Miles Davis' music such as myself) even more complex. Because whether we like to admit it or not, it's impossible to get the "good" Miles without also getting the "bad". If we like it, he music is fellating us, to use a figure of speech, but we really don't KNOW just who or what is doing it, not completely. And for something like that, if you don't know completely, you really don't know at all.

I thought it would make sense. I guess I thought wrong.

[RainyDay]

I guess you lost me when you ventured into penis land. It suggests that real women can't dig Miles, which I suspect you don't really mean. But the other points are well taken. No apology necessary.

I thought maybe you'd had too much coffee, or too much of something in the coffee.

Edited February 27, 2004 by RainyDay

[JSngry]

Thanks, RainyDay You're right - no "exclusion" intended whatsoever.

What can I say? I write what I know...

[Dr. Rat]

I guess you lost me when you ventured into penis land.  It suggests that real women can't dig Miles, which I suspect you don't really mean.    But the other points are well taken.  No apology necessary.

I thought maybe you'd had too much coffee, or too much of something in the coffee. 

No one need speak for our world champeen poster, of course, and I do suppose we male posters ought to be somewhat abashed at how easily we fall into talk of sexual organs and boogers (see other thread) and such,

but I think JSngry's point is that some of the reaction against Davis's sound is based on a sort of jazz fan's machismo and the sex-organ talk was intended as satire (with a bit of pure mischief thrown in for good measure).

That's my read, anyhow,

--eric

Edited February 27, 2004 by WNMC

[JSngry]

I think JSngry's point is that some of the reaction against Davis's sound is based on a sort of jazz fan's machismo and the sex-organ talk was intended as satire (with a bit of pure mischief thrown in for good measure).

Well, ok, maybe, but...

My REAL point was that the "mystique" and the music are at some point, inextricably bound, that there's more to the "mystique" than a cleverly calculated manipulation of imagery and such, that there's a REAL basis for it (which is really pretty rare), and that that basis is one which leads to some pretty interesting, and deeply personal, places if you want to go there with it. I also find it interesting that Miles & Prez share many of the same qualities in their playing, but that nobody (these days anyway, t'wasn't always so) expresses reservations about them in Prez, which I think is a reflection of some folks' more "macho" conception of the "essence" of the trumpet's true "nature", as opposed to how the same people view the tenor. There's room in a lot of people's mind for qualities on some instruments that they don't care to hear on others. That, I find interesting for many reasons.

But no satire intended, honestly!

Edited February 27, 2004 by JSngry

[Dr. Rat]

I think JSngry's point is that some of the reaction against Davis's sound is based on a sort of jazz fan's machismo and the sex-organ talk was intended as satire (with a bit of pure mischief thrown in for good measure).

Well, ok, maybe, but...

My REAL point was that the "mystique" and the music are at some point, inextricably bound, that there's more to the "mystique" than a cleverly calculated manipulation of imagery and such, that there's a REAL basis for it (which is really pretty rare), and that that basis is one which leads to some pretty interesting, and deeply personal, places if you want to go there with it. I also find it interesting that Miles & Prez share many of the same qualities in their playing, but that nobody (these days anyway, t'wasn't always so) expresses reservations about them in Prez, which I think is a reflection of some folks' more "macho" conception of the "essence" of the trumpet's true "nature", as opposed to how the same people view the tenor. There's room in a lot of people's mind for qualities on some instruments that they don't care to hear on others. That, I find interesting for many reasons.

But no satire intended, honestly!

OK. I suppose I should take your word for it!

Now, bringing in Lester actually sort of takes us away from the sexual end of things, because Lester's image in about as sexually ambiguous as Miles'.

So it was some other issue that was crucial or sex in combination with something(s) else.

You mention the trumpet vs. sax thing, and I think that probably accounts for some of the difefrences between waht we tend to think of Lester and what we tend to think of Miles.

My idea now is that another part of it was Lester's unambiguous embrace of outsider status, and Miles' very, very ambiguous relationship with money, power and "the establishment" (which comes through both in his image and in his music--part of his drive to be musically significant was his refusal of the outsider role) that might be what really puts some folks off.

[JSngry]

They say that "you can't have it both ways", but Miles did, and without hesitation or reluctance. I think the only "ambiguity" is in our perception, because we have a hard time concieving of having it both ways without adding in ambiguity.

But maybe we are wrong.

[couw]

I think the only "ambiguity" is in our perception, because we have a hard time concieving of having it both ways without adding in ambiguity.

isn't all of this just in your perception? just like mine doesn't allow me to hear anything of what you are writing about? I have the impression you take the "feminin-masculin" thing as something everyone can observe; that my dislike of Miles's tone has something to do with its feminin character. It doesn't.

[Dr. Rat]

They say that "you can't have it both ways", but Miles did, and without hesitation or reluctance. I think the only "ambiguity" is in our perception, because we have a hard time concieving of having it both ways without adding in ambiguity.

But maybe we are wrong.

Yeah, I think that's what ambiguity refers to: our inability to resolve. The ambiguity probably has a source in some quality of Miles's, but it doesn't necessarily have a two faced or unclear quality in itself.

But I DO think aside from ambiguity we perceive, Miles had an ambivalent relationship with "the establishment" as a public figure, but I am of a mind that his artistic expression was not at all ambivalent, but represented, as you say, both at the same time.

--eric

[Dr. Rat]

I think the only "ambiguity" is in our perception, because we have a hard time concieving of having it both ways without adding in ambiguity.

isn't all of this just in your perception? just like mine doesn't allow me to hear anything of what you are writing about? I have the impression you take the "feminin-masculin" thing as something everyone can observe; that my dislike of Miles's tone has something to do with its feminin character. It doesn't.

Sorry, your thread has gotten away from you!

You are an abberant case we'll account for later.

Everyone else is obsessed with sex.

[JSngry]

isn't all of this just in your perception?

Of course it is! What else have I got to go by?

I have the impression you take the "feminin-masculin" thing as something everyone can observe; that my dislike of Miles's tone has something to do with its feminin character. It doesn't.

No, I don't have that impression about why you don't like Miles. I don't know why you or anybody else doesn't like Miles. Can't relate. I can't understand why some people don't like shrimp either, but they don't. I can respectthat, but I can't even begin to understand it.

What I do think is that those of us who DO like Miles do so for reasons that might be a lot more "complicated" than why we like a lot of other jazz artists. At least they can get complicated if we let them.

Maybe it's best if we don't!

[couw]

thanks for putting things in perspective W, I'll go and get drunk now...