tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-413013422636027916.post1867226246350651079..comments2024-03-05T10:32:32.208+00:00Comments on IRRESISTIBLE TARGETS: RICHARD WILLIAMS' BLUE MOMENTMichael Carlsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04490121869284175945noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-413013422636027916.post-42790705084719459532010-01-20T20:18:26.046+00:002010-01-20T20:18:26.046+00:00on the other hand, form follows function: bitches ...on the other hand, form follows function: bitches brew works partly because of that limited percussive trumpet sound, which may have been necessity, and may have been saved by teo macero editing different takes together, but what did we stoned kids know abt embouchshire or wherever it was he came from...<br /><br />if kind of blue does reflect scag it would make the lou reed/john cale connection more of a, uh, connection?Michael Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04490121869284175945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-413013422636027916.post-17000119616014645882010-01-20T19:57:34.003+00:002010-01-20T19:57:34.003+00:00Two further thoughts on Kind of Blue (and Miles in...Two further thoughts on Kind of Blue (and Miles in general).<br /> <br /> The first is that three of the band that recorded that LP - Miles, Coltrane and Bill Evans - were heroin addicts and probably were heroin addicts when the record was made. And, if you think about the LP, it does have that kind of slightly droopy, slowed down feel that junkies seem to display. (I've never taken heroin so cannot comment first hand.)<br /> <br /> The second is a comment on Miles qua trumpet player. I played trumpet from age 12-21 and got good enough to know what's what. Miles' playing begins to deteriorate in the late 1960s for the simple reason, as he obliquely admits in his autobiography, that he simply stopped practicing. Brass instruments require you to practice daily, more or less. If you don't the embouchure deteriorates and with it your playing. Miles' playing got worse and worse and he compensated for it by (a) hiring terrific sidemen (b) wearing increasingly snazzy clothes and (c) footling about with keyboards.<br /> <br /> Critics (and most musicians to whom whom I have presented this) simply will not acknowledge this. I guess there is something about hero-worship which prevents people from acknowledging that their heroes are human.<br /><br />But there it is. By In A Silent Way Miles was basically playing not very much and making lots of mistakes; and it got worse from then on. I think you could say that from Bitches Brew til the end of his recording career he led a series of superlative bands which were all damaged by the presence of this crappy trumpet player whom they couldn't fire 'cos it was his gig.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-413013422636027916.post-17093997174371165282010-01-17T19:57:22.892+00:002010-01-17T19:57:22.892+00:00It's a good point. I think RW is feeling a cer...It's a good point. I think RW is feeling a certain 'cool' attitude or approach, but if you dont find Eno or Reed or Fripp or whomever cool, you won't make the connection musically: I see Coltrane and Shankar more directly, and maybe the Bitches Brew Miles too....Michael Carlsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04490121869284175945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-413013422636027916.post-59094596390007349762010-01-17T17:44:49.696+00:002010-01-17T17:44:49.696+00:00Aah yes, books about music..... books about musici...Aah yes, books about music..... books about musicians work but books about music generally do not.<br /> I agree entirely with your comment that it is hard to see the links between Kind of Blue and the prog-rock of the late sixties and seventies. Whoever the young Fripp or Cale were listening to, I would bet quite a lot it wasn't mid period Miles. (And I would bet the same is true of Richard Williams.) I was engaged with rock music in this period as well as liking jazz and no-one I knew was listening to King of Blue in 1964-7. By then we were all digging a spectrum from Paul Butterfield at one end through to the then emerging avant garde of New York on the coat-tails of Coltrane. <br /> In fact Kind of Blue looks more like either a kind of dead end or the beginning of that strange beast 'smooth jazz'.<br /> The only obvious link to Kind of Blue might be Steely Dan, for whom Williams, when writing for Melody Maker in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was a big boster.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com