Three Shades of Blue

[sgcim]

20 hours ago, JSngry said:

I think that Percy Heath hipped John Lewis to Ornette?

Either way, yeah. MJQ Music handled Ornette's publishing for the Atlantic records 

 

They didn't like the way Red Mitchell was playing on Torrorow is the Question, so Ornette and Cherry went to the Black Hawk where Percy Heath was playing with the MJQ.

Lewis let them sit in, and flipped out over OC and DC, and they got Percy for the album. Lewis recommended them to Ertegun for Atlantic.

Kenny Clarke told Loren Schoenberg that he left the MJQ, because "John Lewis hated Jazz"

[Gheorghe]

Very interesting inputs.

First, reading the title I had thought it´s "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" which is a Mingus opus I saw him live playin it . 

Didn´t know there is also a book about that earlier time with KOB, Ornette, Trane and so on.

Well I don´t really have much about Red Mitchell, I think I have a lot of other bassists from Ray Brown, Oscar Pettiford, Chambers, Ron, Buster Williams and so on, but evidently no Red Mitchell. I have read that when Mingus got a new bass delivered to the hospital where Mingus was at the end of 77, Red Mitchell came by and tried it, but he tuned it to 5th, which I don´t understand, since I have a bass fiddle my self and it´s tuned in 4th as any bass instrument. 

I was astonished that Klook said that John Lewis hated jazz. Well I tell you what, maybe John Lewis is not my first choice as a pianist, but his little spare solos are jewelries and I love it. Just had listend to a set live with Parker he did, and he is wonderful on "Swedish Schnapps", and I love his MJQ albums for Prestige. 

Ornette has always been a favourite of mine, but the very early albums still sound very much boppish to me. I listen more to the things he did from the Mid Sixties on, from Golden Circle to Primetime everything.....

And I don´t think Miles hated Ornette, at least not on alto and as a composer, but yeah he hated that Ornette played trumpet since he is not a trumpet player. 

[Dub Modal]

On 5/18/2024 at 6:25 PM, sgcim said:

Kenny Clarke told Loren Schoenberg that he left the MJQ, because "John Lewis hated Jazz"

Damn, although I'm not exactly sure what that means. I mean, did that attitude affect the MJQ at all? 

[JSngry]

They ended up with Connie Kay, so all's well that ends well.

[sgcim]

9 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Very interesting inputs.

First, reading the title I had thought it´s "Three or Four Shades of the Blues" which is a Mingus opus I saw him live playin it . 

Didn´t know there is also a book about that earlier time with KOB, Ornette, Trane and so on.

Well I don´t really have much about Red Mitchell, I think I have a lot of other bassists from Ray Brown, Oscar Pettiford, Chambers, Ron, Buster Williams and so on, but evidently no Red Mitchell. I have read that when Mingus got a new bass delivered to the hospital where Mingus was at the end of 77, Red Mitchell came by and tried it, but he tuned it to 5th, which I don´t understand, since I have a bass fiddle my self and it´s tuned in 4th as any bass instrument. 

I was astonished that Klook said that John Lewis hated jazz. Well I tell you what, maybe John Lewis is not my first choice as a pianist, but his little spare solos are jewelries and I love it. Just had listend to a set live with Parker he did, and he is wonderful on "Swedish Schnapps", and I love his MJQ albums for Prestige. 

Ornette has always been a favourite of mine, but the very early albums still sound very much boppish to me. I listen more to the things he did from the Mid Sixties on, from Golden Circle to Primetime everything.....

And I don´t think Miles hated Ornette, at least not on alto and as a composer, but yeah he hated that Ornette played trumpet since he is not a trumpet player. 

Yes, it was a pretty weird situation back then. Lewis didn't seem to like bop very much at that point, and he was trying to take things into the third-stream direction. Besides Klook, Max had a more visceral reaction to Ornette. When Lewis made it possible for Ornette and Cherry to go to the Lennox School of Jazz, he was purposely trying to create a disruptive situation, because he knew people were not going to tolerate their presence at the school. Brookmeyer was trying to teach Ornette in an ensemble class, and he's quoted as saying to Ornette, "Damn it, play in tune!!" When Brookmeyer saw the attention Ornette was getting, he quit his teaching job in protest. The students were in a state of panic, not knowing who to believe. Martin Williams, the critic, lobbied the Termini brothers to book Ornette at the Five Spot.

Miles reaction to Ornette was,"Hell, just listen to what he writes and how he plays. If you're you're talking psychologically, the man is all screwed up inside." Other sources have Miles putting it more pungently, according to the book.

Ornette and Cherry didn't like Red Mitchel's playing, because he was doing what a bass player should do; outlining the chords. Percy Heath understood that, and tried to play more abstract bass lines that wouldn't involve the root as much as Mitchell did. Miles was a little easier on Ornette later saying, "I just didn't like what he and Cherry were playing, especially Cherry on hat little horn he had. It just looked to me like he was playing a lot of notes and looking real serious , and people went for that because people will go for anything they don't understand if its got enough hype. They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing, so they don't look unhip.

White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person is doing something they don't understand".

9 hours ago, Dub Modal said:

Damn, although I'm not exactly sure what that means. I mean, did that attitude affect the MJQ at all? 

One friend of mine said he felt like he was at a funeral when he saw the MJQ play.

[GA Russell]

15 minutes ago, sgcim said:

One friend of mine said he felt like he was at a funeral when he saw the MJQ play.

I saw the MJQ at The Cellar Door in '70 or '71.  Great description!

[medjuck]

I saw the MJQ in concert some 60 years ago and quite liked them.  But decades later I read something where  Milt Jackson complained about Lewis and his "goddam counterpoint" (not sure that's an exact quote) and now that's all I hear.  Sort of ruined my enjoyment of the Mosaic set. 

[JSngry]

So, I hate bebop and I have Milt Jackson as my main soloist.

Is that what I'm hearing here?

Sorry about all that counterpoint.

[sgcim]

19 minutes ago, JSngry said:

So, I hate bebop and I have Milt Jackson as my main soloist.

Is that what I'm hearing here?

Sorry about all that counterpoint.

Lewis had some type of ELRON/Freddie Hubbard mind control over Bags!

[JSngry]

Just now, sgcim said:

Lewis had some type of ELRON/Freddie Hubbard mind control over Bags!

Yeah, it's called money.

Bags kept trying to be a standalone leader. First the MJQ went to a "season", then finally broke up, and then post-finally re-formed.

Sometimes Lewis wrote some silly shit, sometimes/often not. But either way, the MJQ made money for all concerned.

Sorry about all that counterpoint.

[Milestones]

John Lewis wrote great pieces and he was a pioneer in Third Stream.  He had a unique vision and had his own style on the piano.  And if you want to hear the MJQ expressing their bebop roots, go to The Last Concert.  That sound nothing like a funeral.

Edited May 22 by Milestones

[JSngry]

Connie Kay with the MJQ was a thing all its own.

Kenny Clarke, period, was too, of course.

But those things were not the same thing, and besides, Kenny Clarke excelled at neither crotales or Atlantic R&B sessions.

Maybe they both played with Lester Young, though.

The 3D Venn Diagram of Jazz (never mind of America, period) is a dense one. Better to appreciate it as is, because trying to separate it out leaves you in an inesapable void of myopic blankness.

 

Sorry about all that counterpoint.

[Milestones]

Never apologize for counterpoint.  😁

[Gheorghe]

7 hours ago, sgcim said:

Yes, it was a pretty weird situation back then. Lewis didn't seem to like bop very much at that point, and he was trying to take things into the third-stream direction. Besides Klook, Max had a more visceral reaction to Ornette. When Lewis made it possible for Ornette and Cherry to go to the Lennox School of Jazz, he was purposely trying to create a disruptive situation, because he knew people were not going to tolerate their presence at the school. Brookmeyer was trying to teach Ornette in an ensemble class, and he's quoted as saying to Ornette, "Damn it, play in tune!!" When Brookmeyer saw the attention Ornette was getting, he quit his teaching job in protest. The students were in a state of panic, not knowing who to believe. Martin Williams, the critic, lobbied the Termini brothers to book Ornette at the Five Spot.

Miles reaction to Ornette was,"Hell, just listen to what he writes and how he plays. If you're you're talking psychologically, the man is all screwed up inside." Other sources have Miles putting it more pungently, according to the book.

Ornette and Cherry didn't like Red Mitchel's playing, because he was doing what a bass player should do; outlining the chords. Percy Heath understood that, and tried to play more abstract bass lines that wouldn't involve the root as much as Mitchell did. Miles was a little easier on Ornette later saying, "I just didn't like what he and Cherry were playing, especially Cherry on hat little horn he had. It just looked to me like he was playing a lot of notes and looking real serious , and people went for that because people will go for anything they don't understand if its got enough hype. They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing, so they don't look unhip.

White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person is doing something they don't understand".

One friend of mine said he felt like he was at a funeral when he saw the MJQ play.

Very very interesting thoughts indeed ! Thank you for writing them down ! 

There was always some contraversy about what Miles SAID and what he DID. The quintet he had in the late 60´s and the early "electric stuff" (it still was more acoustic indeed, only replacing the bass fiddle with a Fender bass and the concert piano with a Fender Rhodes) was very free and open, and there WAS many notes and Chick Corea was almost as "abstract" as Cecil Taylor, so I keep to what the man DID rather than what he said. 

The story you tell about Brookmeyer....I had to laugh because I dig Ornette and Cherry so much (I´m white but I don´t scream over stuff I don´t understand only to be "hip") since my earliest days of listening to "jazz". But I sure DID NOT like Brookmeyer. When he began to travel with the Mel Lewis Big Band and composed and arranged for them, I had to leave it just didn´t say anything to me. 

About John Lewis and his liking or disliking of bop I´d say: He was very important to bop, his contributions to the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra were enormous and as Tadd Dameron he was responsible for certain voicing that enriched that style of music, especially if it´s about tunes and ensemble playing. Fantastic. And as Dameron he didn´t care for all those who started to try to copy Bud Powell, he had his own thing. 
But I must admit I only have his early MJQ albums (one half of the Milt Jackson "Whizzard of the Vibes") and I think 2 or three on Prestige. I also think that "The Last Concert" would appeal to me. 
About Third Stream I doubt I know anything. It never was a topic among my friends and music colleages......

[sgcim]

5 hours ago, Milestones said:

John Lewis wrote great pieces and he was a pioneer in Third Stream.  He had a unique vision and had his own style on the piano.  And if you want to hear the MJQ expressing their bebop roots, go to The Last Concert.  That sound nothing like a funeral.

I'm just quoting from the book. I love John Lewis' playing and writing, and have many of his albums.

The book shows a lot of the reactions to albums like Birth of the Cool, Bitches Brew, On the Corner- you name it. If one of the three main people in the title were on it, it gets covered. Even their club appearances and concerts.  Stan Getz and Marian McPartland both didn't have any idea what was going on with "Kind of Blue" when it first came out.

It's not just about "Kind of Blue". Kaplan interjects many of his and others' opinions of the three musicians at different stages of their careers. It's 484 pages, he's gotta write about something other than one album.

[Milestones]

That's a pretty thick book.  But it sounds interesting, so at some point I'm sure I will at least dip into it.

 

 

[sgcim]

Kaplan is very good at finding quotes from Miles about how he felt about musicians' careers after he left his band. Miles said that Bill Evans never sounded as good after he left his band and went out on his own, than when he was in the Sextet. "It's a strange thing about a lot of white players-not all-just most- that after they make it in a Black group they always play with all white guys no matter how good the Black guys treated them ," Davis said. "Bill did that, and I'm not saying he could have had any Black guys better than Scott and Paul. I'm just telling what I've always seen happen over and over again."

This would have been news to Jack DeJohnette, who played with Evans from 1968 to 69.... Kaplan goes on to quote Ethan Iverson, "I think Bill could have done something different-- he could have had more Black musicians in his trio. He could have reached out, after being anointed by Miles Davis, and tried a bit more than he did."

Then in 1965, John S. Wilson lashes into Evans in DB, calling his music little more than superior background music. Readers reacted with a flurry of letters, both pro and con Evans.

Later on Jon Baptiste defends Evans , saying that his use of overdubbing on "Conversations with Myself" was more innovative than anything Trane or Miles did, and compares it with what is going on in hip-hop, currently.

But the pressure by critics and certain players kept piling on, and Richie Beirach asked him why he didn't pursue fourth voicings like McCoy did, since Evans had invented it in the chords to So What? Evans replied that "it wasn't lyrical enough".`

Finally Evans complained to Len Lyons in DB in the 70s, about "This preoccupation 'what's the most modern' instead of who's making the most beautiful, human music.[the most modern} may very well be the mos beautiful as well,but to make just avant-garde the criteria has gotten to be almost a sickness, especially in jazz".

Kaplan goes after Miles and Trane's later music as well, but seems to give them more leeway, due to Tranes LSD consumption, and both of their sicknesses.

Edited May 23 by sgcim

[JSngry]

Bill Evans did not invent quartal voicings.

[Dub Modal]

1 hour ago, sgcim said:

Kaplan is very good at finding quotes from Miles about how he felt about musicians' careers after he left his band. Miles said that Bill Evans never sounded as good after he left his band and went out on his own, than when he was in the Sextet. "It's a strange thing about a lot of white players-not all-just most- that after they make it in a Black group they always play with all white guys no matter how good the Black guys treated them ," Davis said. "Bill did that, and I'm not saying he could have had any Black guys better than Scott and Paul. I'm just telling what I've always seen happen over and over again."

This would have been news to Jack DeJohnette, who played with Evans from 1968 to 69.... Kaplan goes on to quote Ethan Iverson, "I think Bill could have done something different-- he could have had more Black musicians in his trio. He could have reached out, after being anointed by Miles Davis, and tried a bit more than he did."

Then in 1965, John S. Wilson lashes into Evans in DB, calling his music little more than superior background music. Readers reacted with a flurry of letters, both pro and con Evans.

Later on Jon Baptiste defends Evans , saying that his use of overdubbing on "Conversations with Myself" was more innovative than anything Trane or Miles did, and compares it with what is going on in hip-hop, currently.

But the pressure by critics and certain players kept piling on, and Richie Beirach asked him why he didn't pursue fourth voicings like McCoy did, since Evans had invented it in the chords to So What? Evans replied that "it wasn't lyrical enough".`

Finally Evans complained to Len Lyons in DB in the 70s, about "This preoccupation 'what's the most modern' instead of who's making the most beautiful, human music.[the most beautiful} may very well be the mos beautiful as well,but to make just avant-garde the criteria has gotten to be almost a sickness, especially in jazz".

Kaplan goes after Miles and Trane's later music as well, but seems to give them more leeway, due to Tranes LSD consumption, and both of their sicknesses.

Reads like a jazz tabloid. 

[JSngry]

I mean, they're all dead and everybody's made up their mind about what they're going to think (even if they're not thinking it yet).

Now about that Andrew Hill biography...I will take extra good care of myself if it means living long enough to be alive to read it.

[sgcim]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Bill Evans did not invent quartal voicings.

Tell that to Richie Beirach. He said Evans got the specific voicing of the two first chords of "So What" from Scriabin. I thought I knew the correct way to play them, but it's more complicated than just stacking 4ths. I played it that way in front of a poor starving adjunct jazz history teacher in college, and she yelled at me "NO!!!! that's not the right voicing!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I told her that's the way you play it on guitar, and she said it's different on piano.

So Scriabin was the first to use them in classical music, according to Beirach, and Glenn Gould called Evans "the Scriabin of Jazz".

33 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

Reads like a jazz tabloid. 

Yea, that's what it's supposed to be, a history of jazz for the guy in the supermarket line.

[medjuck]

4 hours ago, sgcim said:

Davis said. "Bill did that, and I'm not saying he could have had any Black guys better than Scott and Paul. I'm just telling what I've always seen happen over and over again."

This would have been news to Jack DeJohnette, who played with Evans from 1968 to 69.... Kaplan goes on to quote Ethan Iverson, "I think Bill could have done something different-- he could have had more Black musicians in his trio. He could have reached out, after being anointed by Miles Davis, and tried a bit more than he did."

 

Iverson is more opinionated than he is talented, both as a writer and a musician. 

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, sgcim said:

Yea, that's what it's supposed to be, a history of jazz for the guy in the supermarket line.

 

 

[Gheorghe]

10 minutes ago, JSngry said:

 

 

oh yeah, I have that CD with the complete RCA recordings. 

"Hey Pete let´s eat mo´meat" I already heard in my teens since there was a black cover RCA album "When Bebop met the Big Band" or so, but you know when you are a teenager you are so deadly serious, not much humour, so at first hearing I found it "silly", but I still listen to it 😄

[sgcim]

Miles even gets on Diz' case in this book. He's quoted as saying he doesn't want to come out like an Uncle Tom like Satch and Diz. After being humiliated nightly, and begging Bird to fire him every night after he replaced Diz in the Quintet, he bragged to Diz later on, "I can play all your stuff now".

Diz put hm in his place immediately, "Yeah, but you gotta play it 8va lower!"

15 hours ago, medjuck said:

Iverson is more opinionated than he is talented, both as a writer and a musician. 

Yeah, easy for him to say.