On Jazz in General

On Jazz in general

[quote] ... 70s Miles was a gateway to jazz for a lot of rock and RnB fans, as well as fans of more experimental and avant-garde types of music.[/quote]

Part 1

Given my experience in theater and directing in film, there is a side of the whole thing that I tend to consider is beyond "jazz" or whatever we end up calling ... some examples would be Picasso, changing all the time, as he got bored with pink, and then bored with blue and bored with broken pieces of glass (cubism), and he would find something else to do, and DID.

My take, after that Miles special was that he could do this in any kind of musical world, but the rock folks were married and jailed to melody and lyrics, and you couldn't do much there because of it, in terms of allowing a person to express themselves ... there i s no room for expression behind the lyrics or one melody that controls the "song", and at least, within the jazz folks, it was not about a "song", but about the MUSIC, which was now being investigated when folks noticed that Miles, and other contemporaries were free forming all over the place ... in other words, for me, as an experimental artist, you create another "something" that is not always possible to describe, and only seems to fit here or there somewhere, because it is where we heard it.

An example ... the Theater Director Peter Brook wrote in one of his books (the one about language, I think) that he directed Keith Michel in King Lear, and there are some important bits in there, and one that stands out is a repetitive series of words ... and Peter specified that in over 200 different performances Keith never one said the same line the same way ... I kinda think that it was "defined" by Keith about the specific feeling at that moment, which would not ... more than likely ... be the same every day, and an actor/musician sensitive to those moments would no doubt find a way to express the line and character without being repetitive or boring. I think that Miles would have done, and did, a lot of different things at many times and places within the music ... he just painted whatever was in front of him ... and this "style" of expression was already in motion in film, theater and literature, and only music, with its link to films, lagged because it had made a play for one thing only ... and the odd expressions, for a long time, were not appreciated ... but all of a sudden, Miles found a place for it, and it took off ... but it is not, I don't think, an exclusive thing to Miles ... the theater experiences and experiments of the 50's and then 60's were just as far out and wild as Miles was ... in a completely different form, which eventually got us what is known as "krautrock", which was originally 100% based on improvisation on stage .... which unfortunately is one thing that the majority of musicians are afraid of ... and the only thing you hear nowadays (in general) is the timing and its link to a style of some sort, a great example of how much folks DO NOT learn to express themselves, but are always ready to express/copy someone else ... the very "basic" of the arts we could say .... a good place to start and learn, but not a good place to stay in all your life ... folks will get bored really fast as is the case with the Internet "fans" dominating the music scenes.

I'm just glad to see "jazz" be appreciated ... but Miles individuality is something that many folks love to listen to, but I'm not sure that it is "connected" as to how he does it ... I kinda like to say that there is no learning here ... there is just doing, and not being afraid of being wrong or make a mistake ... and this is the place where most musicians stop ... the very moment that has the most possibilities is killed instantly ... and no one, would ever suggest that this did not happen with Miles ... it likely was where he found a lot of his moments and off he went ... musicians, in their "basic" ability can only count and follow someone ... and they think that one bad note is a problem ... and thus the bass stays with the drummer, and both are so high schoolish in the standards of progressive rock music that it is really sad, and you can see immediately that the talent for "expression" is not there and is likely not to get developed ... bring up the growl now!

Part 2

A bit more on the "jazz" thing ... considering the Miles bootlegs being released (finally!!!), we know for sure that European folks are much more entertained with a lot of music, theater, literature and film ... and it is interesting to me, that the "freedom" that Miles was enjoying by free forming each and every night ("play what's not there!!") ... it is not a surprise that some acting schools went back to some basics and learning to freeform a lot of things, which kinda culminated in the late 60's with things like The Living Theater, which had no script and their set involved all of the audience, with actors planted everywhere. And the dialogue ... I don't think I have ever seen anything about it!

Right at this time, the same feelings were taking place in Germany, and a lot of it ended up being called "krautrock", which is sad and stupid, since what happened to be called that was also taking place in theater, film ... but ignored by the German establishment. One important special in 5 episodes has some neat moments with various folks and the one with Edgar Froese is very with it ... no past, no future, no rules ... and what do we have? And the acting side of it was so freeform as to be scary at times (Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog's film "My friend"), and that carried to music, when Damo ended up in a rock band, and he didn't do lyrics ... it was all about the sounds, and expressions, and his impressions, which were far out and special for several years, until (likely) the band ran out of juice and wanted some lyrics and Damo never did lyrics to the last day of his life.

These, if we put up a set of bars, we can see them quite similar to each other with various touches here and there, that differentiate things, and we call Miles "jazz", and actors that free formed that came out of the West End in London, and we have not yet taken a look at the literature stuff that had similar freedoms ... it's hard to not look at Jack Kerouac's book all of a sudden ... and not seeing the bus driver creating stories and talk all night .... and his stream of consciousness was always appreciated, because no one could do that!

Only in America, with its commercial side of things (England as well in general), is a lot of this not studied and brought out in the open, something which Miles is an excellent representative of ... however, it feels like we do not like to compare the different areas of the arts ... and many people dislike this historical concept and idea ... because it diminishes the value of their song, and specially their (horrible!!!) definition of "progressive music" and later "prog rock" ... a commercial attempt to make sure it was all formatted in some form ... which is bizarre, since the first bands to be considered "progressive" did so pretty much as a reaction to bad radio and not having a chance to be heard ... which coincided with the rise of FM RADIO in the late 60's ... where ... guess what? It was freedom all over the majority of the stations as they were independent ... and it wasn't until the very late 1970's that the great American Radio Rape took place with commercial interests purchasing all the independent stations, and the next day ... they were all "classical rock" ... or better expressed as only playing the material they distributed, since you weren't going to hear The Grateful Dead in those stations anymore. At that time they were still very independent, though they had a few small distributors ... but The Grateful Dead was about their own art, and didn't need radio .... they had already broken the mold, and the record industry hated it, and still do and continuously trash the artists that continue to be "free" and "independent".

I wish that we could put all this together into one massive historical document ... because otherwise, all of it is just pop music and not going anywhere ... the artistic ideas and concepts alone are worth the whole story ... but the parallels are much closer than we give them credit for!!! As I usually say, there is no difference between Damo and Klaus , and now I can add Miles ... in their work! And because it is almost impossible to find an avenue of an idea as to how they did what they did ... many folks think it's just folks not giving a damn and doing whatever they want ... I, honestly, think there is a lot more than just that!

Part 3

It's interesting that we ask this about "jazz" ... I was never into "something" in music ... I started with classical music way before I even heard the Beatles and Rolling Stones, and already knew some of the famous names in pop music, and jazz/neojazz (songs with the airy/jazzy feel and Brazilian beat) in Brazilian music.

To me, at 15 years old, it was all about how far out MUSIC was, and the different this and that made no difference.

I came away from the "Progressive" folks for the most part, because the locations these days are being frequented by folks that have not heard "artists" and do not seem to appreciate folks that have been at it for 50 years, and then immediately consider them not good, because they like their thrashing, or their growl, or that one that is on top of all the lists.

And sadly, in my opinion (not necessarily a fact!!!), the folks that work every day in there are not capable of helping steer those youngsters into what "progressive" means ... and then you get a lot of thread created that ... sadly ... diminish the value of a lot of music and specially ITS HISTORY.

I came here, because it lists things, but won't rank/rate them, so you can listen at your own ... and not worry about anything else ... and unlike the sister location, there is a string need here to make sure you see the listings of things ... AND IT'S ALL OVER THE WORLD ... not just in two places. IN this area the folks in charge are not willing, or capable of steering things away from the commercial side of the numbers and rankings, and help the music, specially the new stuff from other countries and places ... and I am glad to see this much more open here on JMA ... and I started, posting reviews here because, it seems more valuable than in the other place, where no one takes a look at reviews, and half of them need to be removed ... because they aren't reviews ... they are fans' ... trying to get a better number for their favorite band!