What Jazz are you listening to now?

[Stanfordian]

‘Breaking Point!’
Freddie Hubbard with James Spaulding, Ronnie Mathews, Eddie Khan & Joe Chambers
Blue Note (1964)

[Conchis]

I listened to Miles In The Sky during a long car journey today - the first time in a long time.

Bit of it clicked with me in a way they hadn't last time I listened. I think Stuff may be one of my favourite MD tracks.

And I noticed how Country Son anticipates Shhh....Peaceful on IASW.

[Stanfordian]

‘Take Twelve’
Lee Morgan with Clifford Jordon, Barry Harris, Bob Cranshaw & Louis Hayes
Jazzland (1962)

[Stanfordian]

‘West Coast Blues’
Harold Land with Joe Gordon, Barry Harris, Sam Jones & Louis Hayes
Jazzland (1960)

[Stanfordian]

‘Blues Walk’
Lou Donaldson with Herman Foster, Peck Morrison, Dave Bailey and Ray Barretto
Blue Note (1958)

[Joseph K]

Really just currently obsessed with Miles Smiles, specifically the three more up-tempo numbers - Orbits, Dolores and Gingerbread Boy. I listen to them over and over. This music is so intricate and playful, incredibly riotous, full of vim and jouissance. Bassist Ron Carter is a revelation - it was a stroke of genius to get Herbie Hancock to avoid comping on these tunes. All these bouncing (micro-)rhythms ricocheting off each other, creating such awesome momentum and expression. The sense of rhythmic propulsion from Tony Williams and co. gets ridiculous, it's too much. You can tell from his playing that Miles (and everyone else) gets this. Seriously magical.

[elmo]

Really just currently obsessed with Miles Smiles, specifically the three more up-tempo numbers - Orbits, Dolores and Gingerbread Boy. I listen to them over and over. This music is so intricate and playful, incredibly riotous, full of vim and jouissance. Bassist Ron Carter is a revelation - it was a stroke of genius to get Herbie Hancock to avoid comping on these tunes. All these bouncing (micro-)rhythms ricocheting off each other, creating such awesome momentum and expression. The sense of rhythmic propulsion from Tony Williams and co. gets ridiculous, it's too much. You can tell from his playing that Miles (and everyone else) gets this. Seriously magical.

Coincidence - I have been listening to the Bootleg sessions Vol 5 which compiles the Miles Smiles, Nefertiti, Sorcerer and how the albums were formulated together the alternate tracks and breakdowns. These tracks are a revelation, that band functioned at such an elevated level it takes your breath away. The way Miles and the band worked up for e.g. "Orbits and "Footprints" demonstrates the empathy and inspiration that band achieved.

If you don't have this 3 cd set Joseph, for you it would be invaluable.

elmo

[Joseph K]

Coincidence - I have been listening to the Bootleg sessions Vol 5 which compiles the Miles Smiles, Nefertiti, Sorcerer and how the albums were formulated together the alternate tracks and breakdowns. These tracks are a revelation, that band functioned at such an elevated level it takes your breath away. The way Miles and the band worked up for e.g. "Orbits and "Footprints" demonstrates the empathy and inspiration that band achieved.

If you don't have this 3 cd set Joseph, for you it would be invaluable.

elmo

I noticed that when it came out - and I kind of decided that they were stretching things a bit thin, that stuff like incomplete out-takes wouldn't be worth getting (I admit I didn't look too closely at it). I might just have to reconsider that opinion.

[Serial_Apologist]

Coincidence - I have been listening to the Bootleg sessions Vol 5 which compiles the Miles Smiles, Nefertiti, Sorcerer and how the albums were formulated together the alternate tracks and breakdowns. These tracks are a revelation, that band functioned at such an elevated level it takes your breath away. The way Miles and the band worked up for e.g. "Orbits and "Footprints" demonstrates the empathy and inspiration that band achieved.

If you don't have this 3 cd set Joseph, for you it would be invaluable.

elmo

For me that 1965-68 period Miles still remains the gold standard (inappropriate terms, I know!) of creating jazz in that cusp area between free form and straight ahead. Fortunately there were quite a number of bands approximating that approach around that time, and it was catching on over here. There was "no looking back" to previous, more hierarchised approaches, even in the playing of old standards.

[Stanfordian]

'Today and Now'
Coleman Hawkins with Tommy Flanagan, Major Holley & Eddie Locke
Impulse (1962)

[burning dog]

'Today and Now'
Coleman Hawkins with Tommy Flanagan, Major Holley & Eddie Locke
Impulse (1962)

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The two Kenny Cox Bluenote albums from about 1967 (reissued on BN as a limited edition set) are very much in the Miles second Quintet mode. With Leon Henderson (Joe's younger bother) on tenor and Charles Moore on trumpet, both very fine themselves. In the mode, not on THAT level, but not a copy, a group with its own identity and flair. Worth a listen.

[Ian Thumwood]

The strange thing abut Miles' 2nd quintet is that the sales of the records were poor and did not have the popularity of the earlier records cut for CBS. I wish the band had made more records in the studio and concur that "Miles Smiles" is probably his finest achievement in the studio.

Picking up on SA's earlier comment about material, I would seriously recommend the first volume of the Bootleg series which catches the 2ns quintet on a European tour in 1967 and is, perhaps, even better as a live experience than in the studio. The musicians seriously push things and pieces seem to blur in to each other. However, it is interesting to see that whilst the repertoire included a lot of stuff from "Miles Smiles", it also included standards such as "'Round midnight", "On Green Dolphin Street" and "I fall in love too easily" and you can appreciate that the audience wanted to hear familiar material. I believe that Herbie Hancock explained in an interview that Miles limited the repertoire performed live so that they had total familiarity with it to allow them to take the music in all sorts of directions. The "standards" were abandoned as the music became more electronic in the later 60's but Miles returned to playing songs again in a big way in the 1980s when he plunged in to the then current pop culture.


The best example I have heard of a band influenced by this quartet was the new directions groups with Mike Brecker, Hancock and Hargrove who I caught live in Vienne and produced an intensity of musical performance only rivalled in the early 2000's by Wayne Shorter's Quartet.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I'd second that 67 European tour box set, & DVD, not least for the look of exasperation and FU! gesture from Miles when Herbie loudly intrudes on one of his ballad intros. If looks could kill.

And the neglected earlier "Miles in Berlin" where Shorter really goes for it. Wayne's heavy "cognac" days according to Herbie's memoir. So that was IT!

BN.

[Tenor Freak]

Weather Report - "125th Street Congress" from "Sweetnighter" (1973 and doesn't it show it)