Re: Davis' Modal Stuff (and other OT)

[Rainer Straschill <moinsound@googlemail.com>]

Yep, the fact that of all the jazz albums from that era "Kind of Blue"
is the most accessible (a theory which I already suggested in my
post). Thanks go to Andy Butler for, next to mentioning "Shape of Jazz
to Come" (which I consciously did not mention to point out that it
actually was a "traditional" lineup with piano), also pointing out
that "Ah Um" was released that same year. And I believe that Andy's
post clearly showed that db's theory that "not a heck of a lot" was
happening at that time is not very...spot-on.

On a completely unrelated topic:
One of the reasons "Kind of Blue" is cited as so great is that people
bought it even though it didn't have any lead vocals on it! "Singing
is a trick to get people to listen to music for longer than they would
ordinarily" ("Stop Making Sense" liner notes). And here's the problem.
Say you have a lead singer in your band (because otherwise you
wouldn't get booked for that Sunday brunch events), but that pianist
wants to play instrumental tunes with angular melody lines. Sometimes,
people sit down, write lyrics to go along with the bebop standards,
and fail miserably. This failure is then even outperformed when the
singer starts to sing scat in what he/she believes to be jazz.

Or it's totally different: here's someone writing lyrics for a bebop
standard, singing it, and then doing scat - and it works!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nHc5oqbFyw


Best,

           Rainer