MILES DAVIS: A CASE OF TAPPING INTO INNER STRENGTHS
June 20, 2008 by Josh
So many of us look up to role models, heroes whom we try to emulate. But all too often we find ourselves falling short and feeling frustrated. Yet there are inner strengths which we can tap to find our individual voice. And sometimes the results can be absolutely spectacular, defying all expectations.
In the history of jazz there is no example more inspiring and compelling than that of Miles Davis. When he first came to New York in the fall of 1944, supposedly to study at Juilliard, he was really intent upon pursuing bebop performing opportunities on 52nd Street with his saxophone idol, Charlie Parker. And in fact, the following year, at the tender age of nineteen, Davis had the good fortune to be included in an historic recording session, the first featuring Parker as a leader.
Yet, Davis early realized that he was out of his depth here, unable to match the blistering speed of his saxophone hero or the stratospheric brilliance and rhythmic virtuosity of trumpeter of Dizzy Gillespie. But, resilient and resourceful, he was determined to find his own voice. Rather than trying to compete with these greats, he looked inside himself to mine his particular strengths. What he came up with was a distinctive style and aesthetic, something very different.
His was a mellower sound in the trumpet’s middle register, where understatement, restraint, and even a touch of vulnerability became his distinctive trademark. Davis was soon to earn a place in the jazz pantheon for a series of recordings made for Capitol Records in 1949 and 1950, subsequently released as Birth of the Cool. Listeners heard this new sound of Davis as part of a nonet–an ensemble consisting of the three rhythm instruments of piano, bass and drums, together with six wind instruments arranged in pairs, in high and low ranges: trumpet and trombone, French horn and tuba, and alto saxophone and baritone saxophone. Pieces like “Jeru,” “Israel,” and ” Boplicity” are now part of the Cool canon.
Capitol Records’s liner notes suggest the effect this had at the time: “Under one branch of the modern jazz tree, it’s cool and quiet. Here a unique group of musicians is gathered–exponents of a carefully casual style that flows with studied ease. The jazz they play is pleasant, almost unobtrusive, but with each new hearing it reveals a surprising wealth of sparkling new ideas. Some of these stylists’ most imaginative music is collected in this album–thoroughly intriguing performances that truly qualify as classics in jazz.”
Davis never stood still after this. Two other landmark recordings from the 1950’s were Sketches of Spain and Porgy and Bess, both major collaborations with Gil Evans. In the following decades Davis was on the cutting edge of fresh developments, whether it be hard bop, modal jazz, jazz-rock fusion or MIDI sequencng and sampling.
Lynne adds: Josh is very intrigued by Miles Davis’s ability to accept the fact that he could not do what other great jazz musicians relied on for their reputations. Instead, by exploring his own gifts to their fullest, he developed a whole other form of jazz. After that he continued to innovate, as if by making that choice he had discovered the fountain of eternal creativity.
PLAYING THE BUILDING
June 1, 2008 by Josh
“I’m not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.” Amidst preparations for his launching of a highly unusual multimedia event, DAVID BYRNE, founder of the Talking Heads was recently talking about his hope for the future of popular music.
The scene is “a paint-peeling hangar of a room, ” the Great Hall of the Battery Maritime Building, once a bustling ferry terminal in lower Manhattan which has been dormant for over half a century. But these days it is alive with the sound of music. No, it is not exactly Rodgers and Hammerstein that you can hear, but a place vibrating with the sounds of rusty steam pipes, ceiling girders, and columns, triggered by a Weaver pump organ retrofitted with relays, wires, and air hoses, all connected to an array of solenoids and such.
This is a site to visit, until August 10, 2008, where anyone can come press those organ keys and play the building. But, more than that, it invites people everywhere into an egalitarian rather than hierarchical world in which, to quote Buddhist American composer John Cage, “Everyone is in the best seat.” Cage was in many ways a walking oymoron, one who refused to acknowledge boundaries and came to see all the world as music. He was prone to such paradoxical aphorisms as “My purpose is to eliminate purpose,” and “I have nothing to say, and am saying it.” He wrote a book with the highly provocative title of Silence. Wrappping up a seminal address to the Music Teachers National Association more than fifty years ago, Cage spoke of the importance of “a purposeless play…an affirmation of life…a way of waking up to the very life we’re living.” He composed a famous (some say infamous) piece of “music” called 4 minutes, 33 seconds, where a performer comes out on stage, sits down at a piano, stopwatch in hand, raises and lowers the lid at various points, but never plays a single note. The audience is asked to wake up to the sounds of the environment in a place where music is conventionally made and become alive to new possibilities.
So go play the pipes in your kitchen, bathroom, or whatever. Have fun as you sing with your environment, tapping into the child within you.