Guy Berger Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 Woody did just as much if not more than Miles in terms of building playing units. Point taken in the way of "names" on Woody recordings (although it should be stressed that some of the aforementioned personnel were broken up into smaller combos on some of the albums, as I'm sure you're aware). At the same time, Miles's most successful groups have very often been touring bands--well-honed, road-worn combos that lasted for years (or at least longer than a recording session or two)... the Jackie McLean groups, 1st great quintet, quintet + Cannonball, second great quintet, the Shorter/Corea/Holland/DeJohnette band, numerous electric combos of variable personnel... Woody's bands are nothing to scoff at, but he certainly had far fewer canonically "great" studio or (especially) touring units than Miles did. Also, it's not THAT unusual to have star-packed record dates. Guy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 Jim, of course - agreed on all counts. My more pithy response is in no way taken as philosophical minimization of conviction in self - how could one, indeed, produce work of staggering conviction without that very fact of selfness? Assuming your last question was rhetorical - think that would be obvious to anyone here. But, there are many with far less than "icon" status who nevertheless had steadfast will to both art and action (action = self). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 (edited) Indeed there are, but in jazz, the great ones who achieve "market success" on the scale of Miles (and they are indeed few) are almost always those like Miles & Ellington (and even Cannonball) who came from, and more importantly accepted, a certain business/personal ethos that viewed "upward mobility" not as a sell-out but as a buy-in, or those, like Armstrong, who were so sure of their core identity that any (well, almost any) exploitation that was foisted upon them was treated like the proverbial water off the duck's back. As jazz and its musicians became more politically/culturally demonstrative, the tensions between "labor" and "management" became more intense, and the various balancing acts by all concerned became more difficult. I don't think that's any news. But I do think it's worth considering the skills required by somebody like Miles to continually walk that tightrope between the Personal Being and the Public Symbol. Lean even just a little too far in either direction and down you go. And it's precisely that skill that I attribute to Miles' (& Duke's, & Cannonball's) upbringing. To me, that's at the root of all of his success right there. Not of his talent(s), mind you, but of his abilities to successfully function in a system that was for all intents and purposes set up to use him until there was little or nothing left and then discard him, or at best let the little animals have a go at what the bigger ones didn't want anymore. The particulars he might have had to dealt with on the fly, but not so the nature of the game itself. He already knew what was up with that game, and he played it as an insider, which actually put him at a position of strength, for what I think are obvious reasons. Of course, none of this would be under discussion if Miles hadn't have been playing the game with the Royal Flush hand of gifts, tangible and intangible, that he was holding, but the point is this - he sat down at the table with some pretty savvy players at a very high stakes game and never (once he "cleaned up") allowed himself to be bluffed out of the game. That's not "luck", that's character, and not in quotes either. That's in no way saying that those who have allowed themselves to be bluffed out of the game (and Woody, with his truly tragically self-destructive bent eventually allowed this, as much as it pains me to say it) - or just flat-out got hoodwinked - lacked character. Far from it. It's just that Miles' character was, maybe not "tougher" than theirs, but definitely more suited to this particular game as it was (and still is) played. Most jazz musicians' character is better suited, for a variety of reasons, none but a few of them ignoble, for a different game. Not Miles'. Now, what about that other unquestionable icon of post-bop jazz, Coltrane? Easy - Trane came from a lineage of preachers, and preachers always find a way to get over! Edited January 30, 2006 by JSngry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cali Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 Miles is a marketer's dream - a guy with incredible charisma who is actually brilliantly talented - there is no comparison to Byrd or Morgan, particularly Byrd who never really got to a personal level of playing and who decided to opt for mass approval first (and than basically lost what minor talent he had) - Miles INVENTED several schools of jazz playing, on top of it all - and his playing, for all its complexity, is surprisingly accessible - I'm somewhat amazed that this is even an open question - No comparison to Morgan ????? My jaw is dropping in disbelief. Talking about playing horn, Lee Morgan could incinerate Miles anytime anywhere. Miles was an great innovator , a great bandleader , a great judge of talent , a melodic player with a superior sense of time and space but he wasn't anywhere near the league of Diz or Fats or Clifford or Lee or Freddie or Woody in terms of ideas or execution on the horn. And charisma .... well I'm too young to have ever seen Lee live, but I heard he was something else in person. As someone who had the priviledge of seeing Miles and Lee on several occasions, I'll attempt to compare their respective "charismas". Lee was a mofo! He was fiery, cocky, funny, a virtuoso and very personable. One of a kind. Miles had a different juju. For all of his so-called limitations I was witness to some awe inspiring performances. Concerts which left the audience shaking their heads at what they had just heard and seen. He was a brilliant performer. No one could "set the table" like Miles. In the 60's when you went to see Miles you had the feeling that you were in the presence of royalty. He had an air of mystery. His mannerisms, his "style" (some people would come just to see what he was wearing!). He was a trend setter. And when he was on, he was magic! He was our shining prince. I don't mean to sound like a smart-ass (please forgive me if I do) but to understand it you had to be there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnagrandy Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 (edited) A question - is there any icon in any area of Our Popular Culture, "deserving" or otherwise, who achieved iconic status entirely against their will? If you believe what he said in interviews, what he says in various lyrics , especially on "In Utero" tracks, and what friends said about him in interviews and via other sources, then Kurt Cobain of Nirvana qualifies for the above. Injecting 10x the lethal dose of smack for a hardcore addict into your vein and shortly thereafter blowing off half your head with a large guage shotgun is an indication of an extremely troubled psyche. Originally, Kurt was a guy who had learned how to be happy on $4 a day. Edited January 30, 2006 by johnagrandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnagrandy Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 As someone who had the priviledge of seeing Miles and Lee on several occasions, I'll attempt to compare their respective "charismas". Lee was a mofo! He was fiery, cocky, funny, a virtuoso and very personable. One of a kind. Miles had a different juju. For all of his so-called limitations I was witness to some awe inspiring performances. Concerts which left the audience shaking their heads at what they had just heard and seen. He was a brilliant performer. No one could "set the table" like Miles. In the 60's when you went to see Miles you had the feeling that you were in the presence of royalty. He had an air of mystery. His mannerisms, his "style" (some people would come just to see what he was wearing!). He was a trend setter. And when he was on, he was magic! He was our shining prince. I don't mean to sound like a smart-ass (please forgive me if I do) but to understand it you had to be there. Man, you got to see Lee live. Whoooaaahh ! From David H. Rosenthal "Hard Bop" : "In jazz, Lee Morgan in the late 1950s and early 1960s was just about the baddest thing going. His statement "I'm an extrovert person ... and hard bop is played by bands of extrovert people", is more a smokescreen than an insight and does nothing to explain how he differs from more congenial extroverts like Adderly. What Lee possessed and Cannonball lacked, at least by comparison, was malice. On "Caribbean Fire Dance" on Joe Henderson's Mode For Joe album, the trumpeter manages to make his colleagues -- Henderson, trombonist Curtis Fuller, vibist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Joe Chambers, all pretty "bad cats" themselves -- sound like a bunch of sissies sitting beside him. (... goes on for a bit describing the music ...) " Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 "On "Caribbean Fire Dance" on Joe Henderson's Mode For Joe album, the trumpeter manages to make his colleagues -- Henderson, trombonist Curtis Fuller, vibist Bobby Hutcherson, pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Joe Chambers, all pretty "bad cats" themselves -- sound like a bunch of sissies sitting beside him. (... goes on for a bit describing the music ...) " For me, that's the strongest cut on the album. It's interesting to hear him in the context of Grachan Moncur III's Evolution from a few years earlier - Lee adds a lot of balls that the record might not have had without him, and yet the entirely different weight of Grachan's music (and the rest of the ensemble) add a strange degree of 'otherworldly' poise to Lee's playing as well. Pretty cool record for those reasons alone (and a few others, too, fwiw). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 Miles was scary - when I saw him at the Fillmore East (yes, one of the nights they recorded) we were in the lobby at intermission, and I was just standing around with a few friends - one of them comes up, whispers something to me like "don't move, turn to your left" - as it turns out I was standing right next Davis - he was much smaller than I expected, dressed in that silly way he was dressed in those days (some kind of vevlet-looking red garment, as I remember) - I froze to the spot, even though my friend kept saying, "talk to him" - no thanks, as I'd read enought to expect he would give me some kind of nasty brush off. He definitely had an aura, however - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Songer Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 (edited) I met Miles Davis one night at Catalina's, the venerable LA jazz club, around 1990 or so. I was there to hear Dizzy (mostly because Sam Rivers was in the band!) and was sitting at a table right up front. Right behind me in one of the few booths at the old Catalina's along the far wall opposite the bar sat Miles Davis with a couple of guys I did not recognize. I was there with a pal of mine who DARED me to go up and say "hi" to Miles Davis. Well, I had a couple of drinks in me and figured "what the hell" and walked over and said as POLITELY as I could "hello Mr. Davis--I just wanted to tell you how much your music has meant to me over the years." He looked at me, then smiled and asked my name and asked me to SIT DOWN, We talked for about five minutes and he drew a little pic of himself playing his horn on a cocktail napkin and signed it and handed it to me. Nicecst mothefucker you could ever meet, that Miles Davis. My friend was BLOWN AWAY. Edited January 30, 2006 by Allan Songer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 Wow thanks for sharing those experiences Allen and Allan. John, I know exactly what you are talking about with Lee and with Woody. . . but. . . though I have the complete official recordings of both I believe and a lot of unofficial. . .the work of neither has something that I would be hard-pressed to explain that Miles' work has that makes me LIVE in the recordings, they're really a part of my life. The way they have captivated ME as a jazz fanatic makes me understand a bit how they captivated the attention and market in nonjazz fanatic ways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 A question - is there any icon in any area of Our Popular Culture, "deserving" or otherwise, who achieved iconic status entirely against their will? If you believe what he said in interviews, what he says in various lyrics , especially on "In Utero" tracks, and what friends said about him in interviews and via other sources, then Kurt Cobain of Nirvana qualifies for the above. Injecting 10x the lethal dose of smack for a hardcore addict into your vein and shortly thereafter blowing off half your head with a large guage shotgun is an indication of an extremely troubled psyche. Originally, Kurt was a guy who had learned how to be happy on $4 a day. Well, ok. But there are those who will tell you that death is the ultimate career move. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DukeCity Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 A question - is there any icon in any area of Our Popular Culture, "deserving" or otherwise, who achieved iconic status entirely against their will? If you believe what he said in interviews, what he says in various lyrics , especially on "In Utero" tracks, and what friends said about him in interviews and via other sources, then Kurt Cobain of Nirvana qualifies for the above. Injecting 10x the lethal dose of smack for a hardcore addict into your vein and shortly thereafter blowing off half your head with a large guage shotgun is an indication of an extremely troubled psyche. Originally, Kurt was a guy who had learned how to be happy on $4 a day. Well, ok. But there are those who will tell you that death is the ultimate career move. I'm certainly no Cobain/Grunge scholar, but I can't even imagine that Cobain's icon status was entirely against his will, as per Jim's question. I guess one could assert that Cobain was a reluctant icon, or that he didn't dig it once he got there, but come on: He grew up in a world where he knew what popular music and musicians represent in our culture, and he made business decision after decision, signed agreement after agreement to push his career to where it ended up. He didn't have to make videos, and he did't have to play huge venues. He could have made a decent living playing regionally, or even nationally, in smaller concert venues and clubs and built a fan base, and expressed himself musically without becoming an icon. That his situation was made more complicated by his mental/emotional/chemical troubles is obvious. But he was still a business man, working in the music business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
md655321 Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 A good contrast to Cobain is Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder. They legitimately scorned superstardom. They havent made a video since their first album, they refused to tour for awhile as they took on the Evil Empire ticketmaster, and they have created conciously weird and non-mainstream music. As a result, instead of being the 90s U2, or even Nirvana, they are now just regular band. Maybe Kurt just didnt have the strength, or the sober enough brain, to say no. But he sure went along for the ride. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnagrandy Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 A good contrast to Cobain is Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder. Yeah it is a good contrast. Nirvana is the greatest rock band in history. Pear Jam sucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 Which is funny, because Pearl Jam are still pretty huge if I remember it right. And to a degree, they are in a position to do whatever they want because they're living quite comfortably, I assume. Yeah, I can't think of too many people who tear up the cheques. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Indestructible! Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 (edited) A good contrast to Cobain is Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder. Yeah it is a good contrast. Nirvana is the greatest rock band in history. Pear Jam sucks. Hah! Sorry John, but Nirvana as "the greatest rock band in history" is a damn funny one liner! Don't get me wrong, I've dug on Nirvana ever since they were young, no money havin', down-and-out guys. Hell, I saw them more times in small little dives, playing in front of 20 people (that's with me included), than I can count. I watched them from their humble beginnings to their worldwide success (excess?). So I know Nirvana. And I love Nirvana. Nirvana being the best rock band in history? Hell, they weren't even close to being the best "punk-inspired" band in history! And each of them would agree with that statement! Kurt especially, if he were here... And, I find it wonderfully juicy that you harp on about how folks shouldn't call Miles "the greatest", and then you drop a quote like Nirvana being "the greatest"... Sorry to derail the thread. Carry on! Cheers, Shane Edited January 30, 2006 by Indestructible! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clifford_thornton Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 I did like some of their more Germs-y efforts on Incesticide, actually. Haven't heard either of those bands in YEARS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
md655321 Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 A good contrast to Cobain is Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder. Yeah it is a good contrast. Nirvana is the greatest rock band in history. Pear Jam sucks. Well that certainly begins to explain your other opinions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest akanalog Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 i don't really know what is going on here and don't feel like reading all these posts, but kurt cobain had that special quality which made him able to communicate with the masses sort of regardless of what he was doing whereas pearl jam and eddie vedder did not have this quality. kurt cobain was an icon. and actually miles davis was an icon. woody shaw-not an icon. eddie vedder-some shmuck in flannel. i mean it is nice eddie and his friends decided to fight ticketmaster, etc but really-i mean that has probably helped them in the long run as it sort of what is the word, i don't remember right now, but solidified their hardcore fanbase. without moves like that, pearl jam would be in the same place smashing pumpkins is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregK Posted January 30, 2006 Report Share Posted January 30, 2006 A good contrast to Cobain is Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder. Yeah it is a good contrast. Nirvana is the greatest rock band in history. Pear Jam sucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnagrandy Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 (edited) I'm certainly no Cobain/Grunge scholar, but I can't even imagine that Cobain's icon status was entirely against his will, as per Jim's question. I guess one could assert that Cobain was a reluctant icon, or that he didn't dig it once he got there, but come on: He grew up in a world where he knew what popular music and musicians represent in our culture, and he made business decision after decision, signed agreement after agreement to push his career to where it ended up. He didn't have to make videos, and he did't have to play huge venues. He could have made a decent living playing regionally, or even nationally, in smaller concert venues and clubs and built a fan base, and expressed himself musically without becoming an icon. That his situation was made more complicated by his mental/emotional/chemical troubles is obvious. But he was still a business man, working in the music business. Nirvana only became a renowned band and Kurt an "icon" upon their first major-label release of "Nevermind" (Sep 1991). (18 million copies.) Before then, Nirvana was very close to a garage band. Records were made for literally few hundreds of dollars. The following and final studio album, "In Utero" (Sep 1993), was actually originally conceived by Kurt as a tool to destroy Nirvana's mass-following (MTV, mall kids, ampitheatres/stadiums), etc. (preliminary title : "I Hate Myself And I Want To Die".) The album is filled with tortured, often undecipherable statements of self-hatred and loathing, extreme sociophobia, maladaption to the "adult" world where hierarchical economic and sexual relationships substitute for friendship, mutually parasitical relationships, and the pain of adulation by thousands of strangers -- many of whom he probably would have hated if met in person. In sum, "In Utero" is a nasal micro-videocamera snaked up into a brain well-into an irreversible process of self-destruction. Even if you're not a kid anymore, the shit is chilling to listen to. Unbelievably, "In Utero" sold in the general range of "Nevermind" (6 million US alone, perhaps 1/2 as many copies worldwide.) However, I believe few understand what is really going with Kurt on that album. Only a few months followed before Cobain blew his brains out in April 1994. I could go on about how Kurt routinely puked up blood just before going onstage, his probably severely dysfunctional relationship with Courtney Love (who honed her style and approach to relationships with men in transvestite bars), his ambiguous conception of his own sexuality beginning in junior high school, his improbable origins as a mass-genre-creating (and mass-genre-destroying) musician who grew up in backwoods mono-think town, his almost despondent regret regarding how his massive heroin addiction (an addiction which he attributed to fame and fortune) had (he perceived) irreversibly changed his core emotional experience regarding life and the world much for the worse. Most relevant to this discussion, though, is that "In Utero" contains a number of "Fuck The Music Industry" statements, statements that don't strike me at all as charlatanism. Additionally, the music bombards the listener with psychotic-sounding but conceivably rational conclusions regarding the most disturbing and depressing of topics. Reportedly, many executives at Geffen were so nervous about alienating or scaring the shit out of Nirvana's primarily white middle-class naively-rebellious SLTS ("Smells Like Teen Spiri") teenage fan-base that they made a number of attempts to tone all it down (with no success, I believe). Kurt was a bi-polar manic depressant and many of his detractors use that to explain his life and his music. However, I believe in his later years he fought a intense internal battle against his disorders and found stardom to be the final straw in a mental illness that led irreversibly to youthful suicide. Edited January 31, 2006 by johnagrandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Johnson Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 A good contrast to Cobain is Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder. Yeah it is a good contrast. Nirvana is the greatest rock band in history. Pear Jam sucks. Can I have some of that crack? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ep1str0phy Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 i don't really know what is going on here and don't feel like reading all these posts, but kurt cobain had that special quality which made him able to communicate with the masses sort of regardless of what he was doing whereas pearl jam and eddie vedder did not have this quality. kurt cobain was an icon. and actually miles davis was an icon. woody shaw-not an icon. eddie vedder-some shmuck in flannel. i mean it is nice eddie and his friends decided to fight ticketmaster, etc but really-i mean that has probably helped them in the long run as it sort of what is the word, i don't remember right now, but solidified their hardcore fanbase. without moves like that, pearl jam would be in the same place smashing pumpkins is. The capacity to communicate with the public is certainly a helpful attribute in the way of both success and stardom--but it is hardly a prerequisite for iconic status. I knew enough kids growing up in the 90's who connected with Pearl Jam on a far more visceral level (don't laugh) than with Nirvana. It's phenomenally difficult to gauge one's ability to "communicate" with the masses when 1) there's no way to objectively measure that stuff and 2) posthumous stardom and/or the canon and/or public hype constantly interfere with the clear representation of an individual's talents. I mean, death is as concrete a catalyst for iconography as something so nebulous as the "capacity to communicate." The connection is tenuous--anyone try spelling it out. Are we quantifying one's communicative powers? Again, let's see some numbers--I want to know that Cobain's voice is more scientifically "communicative" than Vedder's--especially when I never felt Nirvana like I do, say, the Pixies. And they only got really mainstream "famous" as of late. I mean, that's the point of this thread, right? If we have guys who are more "talented" (e.g., Woody) or communicate with us more profoundly (e.g., in johnagrandy's case, Woody) why the hell is Miles an icon? And the Pumpkins were a straw man act for Corgan. Among the reasons the Pumpkins went under: clashing attitudes and egos, creative slumming. If Pearl Jam had done Budweiser commercials, I still doubt that they'd be as bad off as the Pumpkins are now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim R Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 Nirvana only became a reknowned band... The word you're looking for is "renowned". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregK Posted January 31, 2006 Report Share Posted January 31, 2006 Nirvana only became a reknowned band... The word you're looking for is "renowned". I would suggest "overrated" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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