I've been listening to some of Booker Little's playing recently and it sounds like a bridge between more conventional hard bop trumpet playing and Miles's mid-late 60s playing. Any thoughts on whether Miles was listening to Booker (and Don Cherry) in the 60s and this influenced his style? Or maybe Booker had been incorporating Miles's sound with more advanced ideas that Miles ended up adopting, and that's where the similarity comes from?

Guy

I've always felt that Booker ploughed very much his own furough. Obviously heavily influenced by Clifford Brown, Coltrane and (especially) Dolphy. A questing spirit that must owe quite a bit to the encouragements of Max Roach and a melancholy underlying all of his music which seems (sadly) very much his own.

Well said!

Ian Carr's Biog of Miles suggests that he was aware of Booker and Cherry in the mid 60s...ref: The Plugged N. period...although not sure how much he was actually influenced.

I've always loved Booker's playing - a perect mix of great technique, fire, taste and pensiveness - a lot of which (to me) stems from a Kenny Dorham influence as much as Clifford's.

Sure Miles knew their playing.I recall a blindfold test where Miles criticizes Booker Little's "just running 8th- notes style".I think he wanted more articulation and space.

I think in "Jazz Rock", Miles praises Cherry. He was impressed that Don Cherry could play on rhythm changes and stop his solo at the bridge. Kind of funny!

Myself--I think Don Cherry did influence Miles' mid 60's playing(Shapes,gestures,etc). I hear nothing in Booker that Miles ever used....

Yeah, in general I think Booker's music used modern harmonies in a way that Miles wasn't so interested in. My familiarity with early '60s Miles is not what it should be but I get the sense that for Miles it wasn't "about" the tunes and how interesting you can make them--it was more about getting a great, punchy sound out of the group, and then later (post-1963 or so) he started playing with form without spending his time dealing with Booker's kind of harmony.