JSngry

A 1959 Tempo (U.K.) date reissued on Jasmine. Imagine the deliberate lyricism of Tina Brooks combined with the stoicism of Yusef Lateef, played with a tone that's halfway between Gene Ammons and John Gilmore and the "specificity of ideas" of J.R. Montedrose ca. IN ACTION, and that's what you got here. Sort of... This is not a "perfect" record by any means. The British rhythm section (Terry Shannon - Piano, Kenny Napper - Bass, Bill Eyden - Drums) does little more than keep time, which is a big pet peeve of mine for this era music, and at times their inertia combines w/the Jamaican-born Gaynair's deliberateness to produce a "stillness" of activity that is somewhat boring, but more often than not, what you get is a pretty damn interesting player who really doesn't sound ANYTHING like anybody else in front of a rhythm section that doesn't hurt anything, even if they seldom help it either (although to be fair, Shannon is never lost by Gaynair's more idiosyncrtic harmonic turns), and the results are a tantalyzing glimpse of a talent that should have been heard from more. This guy's not a "licks" player by ANY stretch of the imagination, he's defintiely an "ideas" player, and his ideas are very much his own, the good and the not-so-good alike. I think if he'd have either come to America or gotten more play in the U.K. (not sure why that didn't happen - where's P.D. or Bev?), he'd be a "cult hero" of sorts. In fact, from what little I can gather online, in certain circles he is, or at least this album is, in British jazz circles. Not a recommendation for those still getting grounded in "the basics", necessarily - I think you have to hear what he was so different from to truly appreciate how different he really was, if that makes any sense. But if you think you've heard pretty much all the distinctive variants of hard bop tenor playing, here's a refreshing splash of cold water to make you realize that there's at least one that you haven't. Gaynair's playing here fascinates me even in its less successful moments, and it might do the same for you. Check it out if you're into this sort of "unique" type thing.

Yep.

I think it might have been Herbie who's on record as saying that at first they saved their games for Coleman's & Herbie's solos, and played straight behind Miles until Miles asked them point blank, "why don't you do that shit behind ME?" As Herbie/whoever put it, "we started out leading him, but by the end of the week, he was leading US!" I think this anecdote is in the Chambers book, but don't quote me on that.

That's a bit "loose". Certainly Miles always had his ears open, and was not at all averse to using other people's "flavors", but invariably, he'd turn it into something distinctly and uniquely his own by the time all was said and done. Case in point - ON THE CORNER. You can hear Sly Stone ALL OVER that album, and can pinpoint the specifics, but it sounds nothing like Sly when taken as a whole - the specifics dissolve into something quite different. Or compare how Miles' band played Herbie's & Wayne's tunes w/how they themselves played them. Not even remotely similar. I think Miles was an opportunist in the very best sense - when he saw an opportunity, he not only took it, but did something with it to make it his own. And like the best opportunists, a lot of his opportunities came about through his own making. He heard Tony Williams and KNEW that he was going to get Tony in his band. He heard Trane and KNEW that Trane would blossom in his band. You could go on. Although I think there's a good case to made for Miles utilizing the talents of others as a stimulus for his own growth, I really don't think it's at all as simple as saying that he "picked up on stuff others were doing and brought it to the public at large". That implies that he just stood in front of the band(s) and let them do their thing, when in fact the opposite was the case. Hell, the stories of how he conducted his various electric bands through visual and musical cues are damn near legend!

Bunky's a great player who has never stopped growing. I don't know that any his records do him full justice, though. I've heard live things from the last 20 or so years, mostly college clinics and such, that outshine anything I've heard on "official" recordings. Don't have any though, alas.

Gardner was also in Schlitten's stable of Prestige liner writers. Perhaps a bit conservative musically for me to fully enjoy his work (the Prestige reissue notes seem to invariably get into handwringing about what the protagonists are into "now" and stuff like that), but a good writer who could fill up an entire back cover of an album and not leave you feeling cheated for reading it. I like Benny Green's Pablo notes too. The guy is a veritable gusher of gush, and he does like his verbiage, but he strikes me as totally sincere and not a little musically astute. You know who was a trip? Mort Goode, who wrote an ongoing series of blurbs called THE INNER SLEEVE, found on, naturally, the inner sleeves of Columbia LPs in the early 70s. Short sentences. Concise. Master of economy. An event in the making. Every time. Just like that.

Look at that! You answered your own question!

I'm not at all averse to 80s pop (or any other era, for that matter). Just that the mid-80s were when I slowly but surely lost my inner urge to "keep up" with things pop, if you know what I mean, and this was one of the many bands that slipped by. Heard OF them, and heard lots of good things ABOUT them from people I trusted, but just never made the effort to check'em out - the first sign of Middle Age, that and actually valuing sleep over TV, sex, or food at 4 AM, although that one took a little longer to gain footing. I'm sure they're exactly as you describe, and I'm sure I'd enjoy this album. But somebody's gonna have to give it to me! Seriously, I was "young" once, and remain "young", but it's a frozen "young" set in a particular time frame, and the soundtrack's already been written. The pop/rock version of it anyway. The other idioms are still in constant flux, although the "hard bop" volume might be ready for a test pressing in a year or so. But you know soundtracks - there's always room for a Volume 2 if a surprise demand develops!

Oh my God, yes! Almost ALL the Prestige sides released during the Don Schlitten years had liner notes that qualified for the Hall of Fame in my opinion. Morgenstern was a frequent contributor, especially on the "historical" sides, and to this day I rue the day I loaned my Prestige issue of Dizzy's Salle Pleyel big band concert to an unworthy accquaintance. Never did get the album back, but phrases from those liner notes still resonate in my mind as "true' observations on the music. To me, that's effective writing. VERY much looking forward to Mr. Morgenstern's book, as well as Mr. Kart's. I loves me some good jazz books!

I'll tell Juanita to get me the diner!

H. Allen Stein, the man who could say less and mean it more than anybody this side of Prof. Irwin Corey!

You are, and so am I. That's just how it goes...

But it's my only line!

Yeah, I found those too, but they're not suicidal, they're normal, as frightening as that seems...

That's what I was wondering, but I can find no mention of it anywhere.

Well, if my daughter was anywhere near old enough to vote, I'd say your concern was justified...

Once again my life has been touched by greatness!!!

Injuries - the great leveller, and wholly unpredictable.

No. I don't want my dreams to be shattered. Just to be totally clear, this thread is TOTALLY tongue-in-cheek. Last thing I'd want would be for somebody to misunderstand and get on the phone to Cuscuna inquiring about the "Porno Mosaic"...

there's music included too?!?

No. I don't want my dreams to be shattered.

For myself, "technique" only becomes an issue when it interferes with the impact of a player's emotional content. To this end, I'll posit that although Lee Morgan and Miles both played the same instrument and as such shared a common base of basic technical concerns, they ultimately had DIFFERENT "techniques", because the stories that they told were told from such different perspectives that they required ultimately different instrument methodologies. So, what worked or didn't, technically, for one is different for the other. It's a matter of intent above all for me - is the player doing what they intended, or are they being held back by technical limitations? That's how I "judge" technique. Case in point (and I know I'll get flack for this from some people) - Jameel Moondoc. I LOVE what he's trying to say, and I LOVE his spirit, but dammit, I can't get past his "sloppy" fingering. What I hear first and foremost is a guy with great ideas and great feelings that just don't come out of the horn exactly as he intended them. Now, I'll take sloppy feeling over precise emptiness any day of the week, but it frustrates me to hear such obvious substance not given the full execution that it so obviously deserves. It just bugs me, and detracts from my enjoyment of his work. There's a difference between "controlled sloppiness" and "sloppy sloppiness", odd as that might sound. Now, John, I suspect that that is how Miles affects you, so although I disagree totally, I know where you're coming from in principle. I just hear a "precision" in Miles that I don't hear in Moondoc. But that is subjective, I suppose, so what's a mother to do?

and ANOTHER thing... The whole "Miles=Vulnerability" equation is often overstated in my opinion. Sure, it's a psrt of his overall persona, but this whole "walking on eggshells" business tends to obscure the fact that Miles had one of the SHARPEST senses of time ever, and had an internal rhythm that couls only be upset by his own doings. This was a motherfucker who could lay out for a cuppla bars and pop one note in EXACTLY the right spot to kick the intensity level up a notch or two. Not for nuthin' did he always play with drummers who had no compunctions against playing harder than the law allowed - he played that hard himself, even if he broke it up into distinct segments rather than letting it all come out in a continuous flow like most others of his generation. (btw - this is not an "original insight". Gil Evans said much the same thing a long time ago.) Such confidence and assuredness is not usually the province of the emotionally delicate, or frail, or otherwise "vulnerable". The whole "tough on the outside/tender on the inside" thing is a part of the Miles Mystique. and is true as far as it goes, but I don't buy into it, because it doesn't go NEAR far enough. "Tender on the outside/tough on the inside" works every bit as well, and I defy anybody to find an instance where it can clearly be said that one is the obvious choice over the other, or that the two levels of the "interpretation" are the only two levels there are. I think when you get into "interpreting" the emotional content of Miles' music, you're doomed to a resolution in ambiguity, because by all accounts, this was one "complicated" individual who not only had a bunch of opposite tendencies at play internally, but was also one who made no attempt to resolve them either: Bisexual (rumored) vs. Pussyhound, Nice Guy vs. Total Asshole, Sensitive Lover vs. Wife Beater, Man Of The Street vs. Bourgeois Negro, you name it, if there's a conflict to be had, Miles probably not only had it, but played to it but publically and privately. I think it's this confluence of opposites (I can't really call them "conflicts", because I see no signs of them being anything other than welcomed by Miles) that makes the easy labelling such as "vulnerable" etc. fallacious and over simplistic. It might also explain why Miles is somebody that continues to "fascinate" many of those who are less than thrilled with his music - there is such an energy being created just by him being who he was that it's damn near impossible to ignore from a human standpoint. But that's the Miles Mystique, something that I acknowledge, but don't really fall for myself, not totally anyway. Ackowledging it, recognizing it, and attempting to define it are quite different than being drawn to the music because of it, and like I said, I find enough of substance and profundity in the music alone to discuss it on it's own terms, minus all the psychoanalysis/psychobabble. But where's the fun there?

Well, to show you how different people hear different things in different ways, vulnerabilty is the LAST thing I hear in Monk. Go figure! And yeah, the earlier Prestige (and BN) sides DO show Miles often having chops issues (the date w/Rollins & Bird is particularly "painful" at times in this regard). But those are from his "frantic" years of out-of-control drug addiction and frequent periods of inactivity. So there's a "reason" why the chops are off there. But a solo like "Basin Street Blues" on SEVEN STEPS TO HEAVEN has all the "controversial" qualities in spades, and to me it is one of the most audacious solos Miles ever recorded - a tune that virtually defines "hoary" is redefined, reimagined, reharmonized, re-EVERYTHINGed, and presented with a total control and discipline that bespeaks a master saying exactly what he wants to say exactly how he wants to say it. Again, whether or not one "likes" it is purely a matter of personal taste, but geez Louise, how anybody can say that there's no control there is beyond me! (and I know that's not what you're saying John) You couldn't make "mistakes" like that in a million years!

Ok... Miles' technique gets a lot of bad raps, and I think it's largely because of his tone. It's not a conventionally "brassy" trumpet tone, nor is it a traditonally "fat" one. It is what it is, and he spent so long with it, honing, refining it, and shading it, that my conclusion is that it's the tone he wanted and the tone he heard. There's certainly no indication that he wanted a different type of tone. If anything, his tone is the one thing that remained constant over the years. Although he showed a willingness to tweak it over the years as the need arose, its core qualities remained from beginning to end. Now as far as finger-dexterity and range goes, there's plenty of examples of Miles playing fluently in all ranges, as well as him popping out some high notes quite readily, throughout his career, so if one wants to say that the cat had "poor technique" or some such, one had best be prepared to say in exactly what regard. Because the fluency of, say, his appearance w/Dameron & Moody in Paris ca. 1949 and his various live bootlegs of the late 60s will refute most any notions that he couldn't play high and/or fast. You might have a case if you want to argue consistency of these aspects of his technique, but that's another argument altogether. I think what it all comes down to is intent, and where Miles differed from many a trumpeter, jazz or otherwise, is that he was first and foremost a sensualist on the instrument. His concern was often with PURE sound, PURE mood, PURE effect through manipulation of his instrument. So yeah, a lot of those cracks, waverings, etc. WERE intentional. But not all. The measure I use for what's intentional and what's a flub is more often than not timing - does the "event" occur in such a place and is it executed in such a way that is unfolds in a manner that sounds controlled, like the guy is creating an arc of "event" all the way through, from beginning to end. And far more often than not, the answer for me is "yes", and unambiguously so. Miles' true flubs tend to disrupt his flow, his timing. And timing is another thing that Miles was VERY much about - pinpoint accuacy of the placing of EVERYTHING, space included. His timing is amongst the most amazing in all jazz, because for me, the ante is upped considerably when you start leaving things OUT. When you lay out, you have to come back in, and doing so at exactly the right moment with exactly the thing you intend is a helluva lot harder (for me, anyway) than riding the groove and playing onward and upward, although both are certainly valid approaches in themselves. Now none of this is to say that Miles had chops of steel, or that he never flubbed notes, or that he was the greatest technician on his instrument in he history of the world, because those things are obviously not true. But I've heard the "Miles couldn't ever really play that good" line (from disparate sources) for decades now, and franky, I think it's a load of hooey. Although, like ANY brass player, when Miles didn't stay on his axe regularly, his chops showed it in no uncertain terms, I think in Miles we have an artist who nevertheless had the basics (and beyond) at their disposal whenever they wanted them (almost always, anyway - see the "layoff" aspect), but seldom did they actually have that specific want. Their aims were to utilize other elements of sound and technique to make a different kind of music within thier idiom on their specific instrument. Now, none of this is going to make you LIKE Miles, I know. If you're asking for somebody to give you a reason why you "should", I'm not your guy. Explain to ME why I should love Bill Evans, ok? Either there's a connection or there isn't, and all the logic in the world can't create one where none exists. I've got no problem with somebody saying, "I just don't get it". Well, ok, a lot of times I DO have a problem, but I am maturing that way, ok? The problem I have is when somebody confuses the subjective "I don't like it" with the objective "this cat can not play his/her instrument". And what I hear you saying is that for your taste, Miles does not play his instrument well enough for your tastes to convey his message successfully. Even though I would disagree 100 (or more) per-cent with that, I can't say you're "wrong" (although I damn sure WANT to ) because who am I to tell you what you should or should not feel? I can plead the case that Miles was an innovator and an artist of rare sensitivity and perception from now until the cows come back home to Capistrano and swallow ttheir cud in Sorrento, but if YOU don't "get it", what's the point? Like I said - convince me of why I should love Bill Evans, and then I'll work on you about Miles. But until then, let's leave well enough alone.