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Miles Davis 90th birthday anniversary


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Not a bad painter either.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In my book the second best jazz musician(not vocalist) of all time after Coltrane.

 

 

I think I'd have Davis first and Coltrane second but it's marginal. (I'd actually have Art Blakey up there too, simply for the number of greats he went on to mentor and the fact that I actually got to see him.)

 

Not sure you'd get too many detractors from the suggestion that both Davis and Coltrane together with Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley and Paul Chambers, all probably the greatest exponents of their chosen instrument, were on the best Jazz album of all time in Kind of Blue.

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Jazz is a broad church, so comparisons and rankings are pretty futile really.

 

It'd be like trying to rank Django Reinhardt, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Count Basie and Hoagy Carmichael, when your time would be better spent (and more fun) just listening to them.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Jazz is a broad church, so comparisons and rankings are pretty futile really.

It'd be like trying to rank Django Reinhardt, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Count Basie and Hoagy Carmichael, when your time would be better spent (and more fun) just listening to them.

Absolutely.

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Today would have the great Miles Davis' ninetieth birthday.

In my book the second best jazz musician(not vocalist) of all time after Coltrane.

I started listening to some of his music about a year ago and really like it. I have a few Miles Davis albums that are great for chilling out to.

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I started listening to some of his music about a year ago and really like it. I have a few Miles Davis albums that are great for chilling out to.

The early stuff is cooler than liquid nitrogen. Then he went a bit 'out there' with the likes of Bitches Brew before going back to a more chilled, but updated style. So you could get quite a shock if you bought indiscriminately.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The first Charles Mingus album I owned.

 

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If you want to chill on the cheap, search Amazon for '100 Masterpieces' by Chet Baker as an MP3 download. That collection of 100 tracks costs £5.99.

 

Or, if you were stupid enough to buy each track separately, £59.00.

 

Anyway, while not all of the tracks are 'masterpieces', they are cool, beautiful, melancholy and laid-back. You could dispose of just under six quid in so many worse ways.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The early stuff is cooler than liquid nitrogen. Then he went a bit 'out there' with the likes of Bitches Brew before going back to a more chilled, but updated style. So you could get quite a shock if you bought indiscriminately.

Bitches Brew....what a horror! Sketches of Spain...what a beaut!

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Jazz is a broad church, so comparisons and rankings are pretty futile really.

It'd be like trying to rank Django Reinhardt, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Count Basie and Hoagy Carmichael, when your time would be better spent (and more fun) just listening to them.

Quite so. I own copies of virtually every recoding that Stan Kenton ever made, and never tire of them. But then, I also have more or less a full set of Shostakovich symponies, concertos, violin works etc.
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Quite so. I own copies of virtually every recoding that Stan Kenton ever made, and never tire of them. But then, I also have more or less a full set of Shostakovich symponies, concertos, violin works etc.

I too like Kenton. Peanut Vendor is an illustration (IMO) of where jazz actually came from.  Spanish melody to an African rhythm.  I've heard it played just as well by a scratch band in Cuba too.

I've never been a Davies fan, great though he is. Always preferred Charlie Parker and Dizzy.  I was a big Brubeck fan at one time, saw him live in Leeds over 50 years ago.

I tend to go more for the swing tunes these days though there's something in the phrasing and arrangement that I find recalls Mozart.. Perhaps I'm not sophisticated enough for Miles.

“Few thought him even a starter.There were many who thought themselves smarter. But he ended PM, CH and OM. An Earl and a Knight of the Garter.”

Clement Attlee.

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