re: Davis' Modal Stuff

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Tillman wrote:
"maybe kind of blue has gotten so famous because it
has a wonderful feel to it and contains music that non jazz musicians 
understand easily."


That's an interesting and astute point.

Jazz has had an interesting history and evolution.

Originally, once it had spread out of New Orleans and up the Mississippi 
River and to the
rest of the Country,  it was the popular music of our country and had a 
very strong association
with popular dance.......swing and ballads...........into big band, etc.

There are a couple of theories about why Be-Bop developed with it's 
characteristic rapid chord changes.

Dizzy Gillespie has said that it arose out of the tradition of the after 
hour jam sessions that would
occur in nightclubs in New York , Chicago and other East Coast cities.

After the first saxaphonists started incorporating rapid fire 
arpeggiating runs into jazz playing and
also more noise oriented techniques (squaking, bleeps, high overtone 
playing, etc.)  he said the
young sax players would come into the clubs and want to sit in.    They 
had been influenced by
people like Bird and Trane but they had never spent the time to master 
scalar playing and
deep harmonic knowledge that players like that embodied.

They were into the 'freedom' aspect of playing but they lacked discipline.

After a while, Dizzy said that they began to write songs with rapid 
chord changes so that if some
unknowledgeable but cocky player came up onstage to jam that they would 
be blown out of the water
if they didn't hadn't paid their dues.

Another theory I heard is that during World War Two that they had put a 
tax on dancing  in an effort to raise
money for the war effort.
Club owners felt they couldn't afford to pay the tax so they encouraged 
musicians
to play music that was not so danceable..................swing itself is 
an infectious rhythm and wonderful to dance
to ,  so the musicians turned to more elaborate chord changes and less 
'populous' kinds of melodies (and harmonies).
I forget where I read this but it makes a certain kind of sense.

I'm no jazz historian (or even an expert on jazz) but I've listened to a 
lot of music in the history of jazz (and am familiar with all
the tracks that Rainer pointed out.  I've also read a lot about the 
phenomenon since my instrument (whose history I have a great love
for) was only invented between 1908 or 09 (when the bass drum pedal and 
snare stand liberated the drummer and allowed him
to play three instruments at once, thus eliminating the possibility of 
being fired from the economic crunch that reduced the
New Orleans bands from small big bands to it's present day trios and 
quartets (or quintets) and 1915 (when the high hat was invented)

So, however BeBop developed,  one thing is certain...............in a 
very short order, Jazz went from a populist and visceral music
to being more of an intellectual music.  It became more complex.   There 
was a great trend towards athletic prowess, speed and dexterity
in instrumental playing and tempos, in general start going much, much 
faster.

It just quit being a dance music and, as such ,  it started to be more 
cerebral and more like art music.
This isn't to say that a lot of BeBop tunes didn't swing,  but you 
hardly think of the style as a danceable one if you get my drift.

Why I think that Kind Of Blue was so influential and so popular was 
partially because it was suddenly much more spacious and because
the chord progressions became simpler,  melody suddenly came to the fore 
in the playing of it.

It was greatly loved (the facts support that).  You don't sell millions 
of copies of an album unless some chord is hit with the public.
You can say that you don't like it, or that you are bugged by the fact 
that the music was , in a lot of sense, simpler and more atmospheric
(it stuck out like a sore thumb in those regards).

So Tillman's comment is pretty spot on.

Personally, as a drummer and , perhaps because I am really a minimalist 
at heart in everything I enjoy and do,   I loved how the record
sounded and also the effect it had on the jazz world after it's release.
I loved the whole Blue Note phase that followed it...........the great 
music of the Miles quintet with Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and 
Tony Williams.
...........the beautiful orchestral/jazz that came from Gil Evans 
involvement with Miles..................the beautiful music of Bill Evans.

To try and deny that it was influential is just absurd.

To say that there were other important trends going on  (Coleman, 
Rollins, Bruebeck) can stand side by side
with the statement that it was hugely influential.    Was it the only 
major influence,   of course not.

When I was growing up,  my father , who loved Bruebeck and played him 
incessantly in the home I grew up in used to
tell me (as later collegiate jazz snobs would)  that Bruebeck was a 
lightweight.

But to bring odd time signatures and a lot of unheard ethnic rhythms 
from around the world into jazz
was really a revolutionary thing.    To sell more jazz singles in the 
entire history of jazz with
a track that was in 5-4 (that had a drum solo in it, no less)  was 
astonishing.

Jazz has been very adventuresome melodically and chordally.   From where 
I sit,  it has been almost stupidly
conservative, rhythmically speaking (not that there haven't been a lot 
of people who tried to break out of that
and successfully so)

I've heard people diss  'Time Out'   and "Kind of Blue'  all of my life.
I think a lot of this is just resentment and jealousy,  frankly, because 
they were so immensely popular.

I think Rainer has interesting points but we're going to have to agree 
to disagree on this one.

I've owned and listened to all of the records that he points out that he 
thinks were more revolutionary (which by the way,
doesn't always mean more influential) and they, frankly,  don't move me 
emotionally or even intellectually as much as
"Kind of Blue" does,   and no amount of intellectual reasoning or 
argumentative discourse will talk me out of that feeling.

It's just how I feel about it.  It's just how I think about it.

I"m down with you not agreeing with it, Rainer,  and I accept that you 
don't think it's an important album.
I respect how you feel and think about it.     I'd love to hear that you 
can respect me for my take on it, too.