Re:A story about Miles Davis and the nature of true genius
by byproxy on Wednesday May 09, 2012 @10:45AM
(#3948798)
His sense of melody, arc, and color were second to none. I don't think he was totally without chops, though. He was playing faster and more agressive with his hard-bop crew.
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Re:A story about Miles Davis and the nature of true genius
by chernevik on Wednesday May 09, 2012 @11:02AM
(#3948871)
Right, didn't mean to say that he was, just that the knowledgable could name technically better players who weren't anything like as important.
Re:A story about Miles Davis and the nature of true genius
by FreakLegion on Wednesday May 09, 2012 @10:15PM
(#3951538)
Although note that the knowledgeable will have different ideas about who's important. You often hear variations of the phrase "an X's X" (i.e. a poet's poet, a director's director), and the same is true for trumpeters. While Miles was a solid player, he couldn't pull amazing melodies out of thin air at breakneck speeds like Clifford Brown[1], didn't have the virtuoso skill of any number of other folks[2], and had kind of a crap tone to boot[3].
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2rGMGp6gYE
2. Sergei Nakariakov, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNT_eF9lCBY. Or Allen Vizzutti for straight up trumpet porn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr5SZrLk7Uw.
3. Neither warm like Brownie nor powerful, like, say, vintage Louis Prima: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46byB2YGePA (solo starts at 4:25 and continues after the break). At least I think that was Louis Prima. It's been a while since I've seen the liner notes for that one.