What 'Great' Jazz Musicians Do You Just Not 'Get' (and why)?

Also so many of his tunes are classic, and often really different from what was going on at the time. Epistrophy, Green Chimneys, Well You Needn't, Little Rootie Tootie, Evidence...for me they lend themselves to creative interpretations very naturally, while still always sounding like Monk tunes.

but i have Bowie's "Fast Last!" album from 74 that's just amazingly beautiful.

Perhaps another thing is that I don't think the "Genius of Modern Music" albums are the best place to start. "Brilliant Corners" and "Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane" are better and the one he did with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers is great too although marred for me by my low tolerance of drum solos.

But I think I've always "got" Monk, so I'm not the best person to ask. The thing about the "wrong notes" is just how "right" they are. There's nothing contingent or slapdash about Monk.

Don't get Bird - too many notes for my poor overloaded mind to deal with.

But something clicked and now I get him completely. Easily my most exciting musical find of the last 6 months. And of course it affects how you hear other stuff as well - the last couple of days I've been listening to Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker, who I've always liked, but I seem to get it at a slightly deeper level now that I've grasped Getz.

Still don't get Dizzy Gillespie, though, and I somehow suspect I never will.

23.57 UK time.

'Bitches Brew' = jazz.

Monk? Wrong notes? Wha?? I'm not sure what you're hearing if you get that out of it. "Monk with John Coltrane" is a good place to start. The trumpet players on Monk records tend to screw everything up for some reason. I like this compilation done by NRBQ's Terry Adams, "Always Know"--all stuff from '62-'68.

I guess you just have to listen to the tunes; in my opinion, they're pretty ingenious but not difficult. It seems to me that if you don't get Monk, maybe you are gonna have trouble getting jazz, it doesn't get much more bedrock than this. I myself am puzzled by folks who think something is not worth checking out because it's too "early"--what?? What difference does that make? Has the whole jam-band mentality become so embedded--those god dam Medeski, Martin and Woods--that we can't hear what jazz is anymore? It's not complicated.

I don't "get" Coltrane, or not to the extent other people seem to. It's not the fabled "intensity" or "free" style (I like Ornette, Ayler etc), there's just something cold about him that I don't like - it's almost as if he's playing for himself and doesn't care about the listener.

And the Modern Jazz Quartet. I can listen to Brubeck occasionally when I'm in the mood, but the MJQ just send me to sleep. I really can't hear why people get enthusiastic about a group who seemed to have a complete lack of enthusiasm.

Well, I don't know--fusion is all those fussy little compositions I guess you'd call them, Al Demiola and that sort of wankery. Jazz-rock seems more like Miles on "Agartha" or Larry Coryell or something--bit less effete. But it's terminology. Apart from a few things here and there, the whole fusion/jazz-rock thing was a big mistake, hey, why not just listen to ELP or Yes?

I don't know, what do people expect from something like "Bitches Brew"? It's just some rhythm tracks with electric pianos burbling around in the background. Nice rhythm tracks as far as it goes although the Meters or James Brown did it better. If Miles Davis had been really hip he would've gotten Allen Toussaint and Ziggy Modeliste to play on his records, instead he had to get those guys like Zawinul or Chic Korea...who could play better maybe but who didn't have the sense of discipline and form you find on the better releases by Lee Dorsey...so I think the problem is this completely stupid expectation that you're getting "art" or "jazz" when it's just the same old rhythm-section stuff you could pick up off of any reasonably competent funk record. On "Bitches" it's pretty boring for the most part, since it's just some grooves and the occasional trumpet blat to relieve the tedium, but on "Jack Johnson" he managed to get it all to hang together, plus John McLaughlin actually played well on it.

Too bad that Ornette and those guys never did just go down to New Orleans and hook up with some of those guys, it would've been great. "Cissy Strut" with Blood Ulmer and Coleman could've been great.

That being said, it's never seemed like a headscratcher to me -- it's groove music, really, with (some) highly complex harmonies. I liked it from the first moment I heard it (though I prefer the first disc to the second). I certainly see it as completely contiguous with Pangaea, which was the closer to that period of Miles' work...

(Please don't respond with stuff like "You need to listen to it in a dark room, forget about everything you know, let the music flow over you..." I got that advice with Pet Sounds and as a result it took me twice as long to appreciate as it normally would have, I think.)

If you live in a civilized part of the word, you'll be able to get some barbecue and use some fancy napkins. Make sure to ask for slaw on the sandwich. Now put on the record and try hard to forget all the bullshit you've read about it over the years. Try not to listen to the solos at first, that might help. Just concentrate on the rhythm section, pat your foot, try moving around to the record (careful not to drop your sandwich). Miles Davis always allowed that you need to tap your foot heel first, not toe first, in order not to look like an ofay. So that might help too.

Once you do that you might want to check out the solos on the first track. Try just getting with the swing and nice use of space between the notes on Miles' solo, it's pretty simple. Again, try moving your body or something--don't be a square. Cannonball Adderley's solo at about 5:17 in the first cut should get you to feeling better, just imagine Cannonball enjoying a big plate of food and a drink, stretching his belly, manipulating that sound like a big greasy rubber band.

If you don't live in a part of the world where you can get a decent, cheap pork barbecue sandwich, perhaps you can put some hot sauce on a piece of tofu. I think that might be part of the problem in general with jazz-appreciation these days, people don't keep any hot sauce in their refrigerators and become dyspeptic and worried about their "classic" album appreciation. Hope it helps.

I probably need to listen to more of their recordings, though; my most recent Jazz Messengers encounter was with "Three Blind Mice Vol. 1", by which I was remarkably unimpressed, and I think I need to cleanse my palate with another, better AB&tJM disc.

I don't expect the bullshit jamming that you get on bitches brew.

''It's just some rhythm tracks with electric pianos burbling around in the background.''

I don't think that's interesting or even worth wasting my time with.

''I should add that (1) the harmonies are generally superimposed over static pedal points, which "grounds" them nicely (I can't remember who it was, but someone made a great post about the role of pedal points in stuff like electric Miles), and (2) in "Pharoah's Dance" I've always heard the electric piano lines that open the song as part of the composition, but it may well be that they were improvised -- I didn't realize, when I first heard the LP, that it was so heavily edited. Still, they define the song for me, and create a harmonic ground that has always seemed endlessly fascinating and elusive to me.''

Now this is more interesting and it makes me want to listen to the alb again but the thing abt this rec is that I just couldn't find any coherence to it. The point abt being composed or improvised doesn't really matter at the end because the whole thing was heavily edited anyway.

And Mclaughin sucks BTW.

Except that the repetition that editing enables has turned an improvisation into a compositional element. In other words, I find myself listening to the parts differently in part because they repeat. I think, on my first exposure(s) to the album, that helped me to hear them as completely intentional and part of an interesting and self-consistent superstructure -- so that, for instance, implications of what comes later in the track can be heard in those piano lines. As it happens, those things are indeed there -- there are internal connections throughout "Pharoah's Dance" -- but I think I found them more readily than I might have had the piece not used exact repetition. If the piano parts were improvised, Miles' use and re-use of them brought out their compositional implications, if that makes sense. (And what an improvisation if they were -- not to mention all credit to Miles, for being able to identify such a fertile part of what I'd imagine must've been a lot of material.)

On the other hand, you could certainly make a case for the idea that In a Silent Way is actually more of a break with Miles' previous music than Bitches Brew is. It could also be argued that the impact of In a Silent Way, though less dramatic at the time, has actually ended up being far more substantial: Bitches Brew launched stuff like early Weather Report and Mahavishnu, but In a Silent Way has been hailed as the ancestor of everything from techno to ambient. (Maybe In a Silent Way's simpler harmonic palette has something to do with that; I know I keep harping on this, but the harmonies of Bitches Brew -- quartal, atonal, polytonal -- are such a big part of what gives the record its distinctive flavor, for me anyway.)

1. "It seems to me that if you don't get Monk, maybe you are gonna have trouble getting jazz, it doesn't get much more bedrock than this."

I dunno, I think I 'get' jazz too much sometimes - I mean, I actually like and enjoy MOST jazz albs I hear (w/ the exception of late fusion/modern jazz funk/quiet storm/smooth jazz etc. etc.) and a lot of what I like is plenty discordant or whatever - so my antipathy to Monk is therefore puzzling to me, but I think its always gd to question the 'bedrock', right?.

Thanks, I have heard 'Brilliant Corners', but maybe I need to listen to it again (tho' I generally like my Sonny Rollins w/out a pianist OR other horns/reeds - Jim Hall is esp. gd w/ SR. And FWIW, I too prefer Getz to Cannonball ("There goes Stan Getz in MY pink Cadillac" - Lester Young - fair enough, but I agree there's something special about the Getz SOUND when he's on form (eg 'The Steamer' alb, which is a crisp coolbop delight w/ some v. nice trumpet too))
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2. "If Miles Davis had been really hip he would've gotten Allen Toussaint and Ziggy Modeliste to play on his records, instead he had to get those guys like Zawinul or Chic Korea...who could play better maybe but who didn't have the sense of discipline and form you find on the better releases by Lee Dorsey...so I think the problem is this completely stupid expectation that you're getting "art" or "jazz" when it's just the same old rhythm-section stuff you could pick up off of any reasonably competent funk record."

This ignores the Stockhausen part of Miles' post-'In A Silent Way' project. Its not all abt the funk. I like the fact that this music often lacks 'discipline' and 'form' - its one big rolling oceanic mess, you cld smear it together, put it end-to-end, like one eternal super-jam w/ highs, lows and stinky bits where you go to the bar. 'Bitches Brew' is the first step in a process that culminates in 'Dark Magus' and the two Japanese concert albs. I like the Meters v. much, but I don't sit there listening to 'em thinking, god if only they had K. Jarrett to go w/ it - and vice versa - seems a bit pointless.

3. "Mclaughin sucks BTW"

On BB, Julio, or on everything? On 'Super Nova' and 'Spaces' and 'Jack Johnson' and 'Big Fun' and 'Emergency!' and 'Extrapolation' and 'The Inner Mounting Flames'?

Julio, I really think you might like 'Emergency!' BTW - Larry Young, Tony Williams and McLaughlin - not so v. removed from yr beloved Blue Humans, really...

On BB, Julio, or on everything? On 'Super Nova' and 'Spaces' and 'Jack Johnson' and 'Big Fun' and 'Emergency!' and 'Extrapolation' and 'The Inner Mounting Flames'?''

''Julio, I really think you might like 'Emergency!' BTW - Larry Young, Tony Williams and McLaughlin - not so v. removed from yr beloved Blue Humans, really...''

On BB (he seems a bit lost or maybe its the way the session that led to BB was edited). Haven't heard anything else with Mclaughin in but I'm gonna check some of these recommendations. thanks.

Well that's what happens when you compromise the 'compositional' and the 'improvisational': you get a bit of a mess (at least to these ears). I'm not saying it shouldn't have been done but what i am saying is that the experiment is a failed one.

You know the thing Phil is saying (abt the highly complex harmonies) is nice but since i don't much (or any) music theory its kind of difficult for me to appreciate.

If you're gonna try and make an arg abt why 'Kind of Blue' is good then that's not the way to start is it? I haven't heard that rec but I doubt yr arg would convince me Edd.

I don't know what happened on some of his solo albums (devotion, my goals beyond), and mahavishnu. I think he was throwing off the yoke of the Miles association a bit. All that pent up energy from being told to play restrained and quiet. (btw I like all that mclaughlin stuff but I can certainly understand anyone hating it)

McLaughlin is certainly a resourceful and polyvalent player, and I wouldn't dismiss him out of hand. I've never listened to the album w/ this thought specifically in mind, but there is that great quote from McLaughin about 'Bitches Brew': Miles told him to "play guitar like you don't know how to play guitar".

Yeah but the thing is you don't have to know any theory! What Phil is saying is that it is not all that complex. There are recurring harmonic motifs in the music. So in other words if at first it strikes you as this big sprawling mess, try to listen for the way the players converge and disspate over the course of the piece. It's not that out-there... Actually, Julio, given your appreciation of improv type-stuff (i.e. all real time) I'm thinking maybe it is actually the studio edits that might put you off this record?

I don't actually (don't know what he's saying). Its funny tho'.

The Miles quote I like is the one abt when he was asked the q: 'Why don't you play ballads anymore?' Miles sez something like: 'Because i love ballads'.

He knew that he would have ended up hating it to repeat the same thing, night after night. He had to keep taking risks (I think he took risks with BB and failed, which is fine).

''Actually, Julio, given your appreciation of improv type-stuff (i.e. all real time) I'm thinking maybe it is actually the studio edits that might put you off this record?''

well kind of but I like a lot of improvised music on record for instance. and then a lot of composition too.

(and i do really like skullflower)

But Blakey's job was to be the curator of the Messenger ethos — popular jazz without sinking to the level of pop-jazz. He was a master of "quality control" for 40 years, and raised dozens of great young musicians and composers into leadership positions. Part of the reason why I "get" Bobby Watson or Wynton or Terence Blanchard (even if I don't love everything they've done) is because I "got" the Messengers.

But the "Messenger ethos" is also, perhaps, the reason why Wayne Shorter didn't really blossom until after he left to join Miles, and why John Gilmore didn't seem to click with the band,

As far as Zorn goes I suppose he did shift what jazz was doing and what it engaged with, just as Miles did 15+ years before that. Surely that ws part of the point w/Naked City. xp

Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus.

If I like Sun Ra and Thelonious Monk, there is no earthly reason why I shouldn't like Ornette and Mingus, but, hey, there it is.

(But then again, I'm only a fairweather jazz fan anyway - I just like what I like...)

Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus.

Try Mingus' Tijuana Moods if you haven't heard it, esp. Ysabel's Table Dance; it contains my favourite jazz moment/splice ever.

I don't get Cecil Taylor - one for the beard-strokers I reckon.

(And Bitches Brew, for whatever it's worth, is easily one of my least favorite turn of the '70s Miles fusion albums. I like it okay, but way less than On The Corner and Get Up With It, which rank with my favorite albums ever, in any genre.)

But how much do the first two really sound like the latter pair?

I'd definitely compare Mingus with very early Sun Ra (Sun Song / Sound of Joy).

But all these artists have really distinctive voices, so it's easy to like one and not the other.

(I do like his composing just fine.)

I guess there's probably someone out there who still thinks that's a bad thing, but I'm quite content that pop was taken over by R&B and Rock&Roll and that jazz became Thinkin' Man's Music.

Try going chronologically starting with the early stuff like Jazz Advance (I'm thinking "Rick Kick Shaw"). A lot times this stuff is overlooked, but you get a sense of his post-Monkian aims. From the roots there he just blasts off into outerspace. If you pay attention to his attack and his technique and his use of the whole keyboard the stuff gets infinitely more listenable. Try not thinking of it as "jazz" either or even as something to try to 'get'. Also, listening to Cecil's solo recordings is helpful, too, but takes patience (problem for people is that a lot of the pieces are so LONG and demand a certain amount of concentration that it's easy to just say 'oh forget this'.) I can't tell you I "get" everything Cecil Taylor does by any means, but the more I listen to his recordings the more I find to enjoy in them.

Speaking of Chuck's comment on Charlie Parker above (and I agree with him on Davis' "Get Up With It," which is easily one of my 20 favorite records of all time; don't agree on "On the Corner," which my brain says is great but which I have to be in a certain mood of--what's the word, ennui--to really enjoy). The single most useful and cost-effective Parker CD I know is "Best of the Complete Savoy & Dial Studio Recordings," 20 tracks, great sound, superb liners, released 2002, catalog # 17120. Takes you from "Tiny's Tempo," a simple blues, thru "Cool Blues" and some of the classix like "Relaxin' at Camarillo" and "Au-Leu-Cha." What I get from this is that he doesn't actually play that many notes, and fits into the basically blues formats so easily and elegantly. It's his tone and his incredible timing that make it, and of course there are some great themes as well. Anyway, it's a really great introduction to Parker and maybe all a non-specialist needs.

Anyway my favorite Art Blakey stuff is Mosiac (the tune), with the classic Blakey afro-cuban beat and a sick sick solo, and Hank Mobley's Soul Station for swingin out.

I don't really get Sun Ra either.

Braxton: try his Lennie Tristano record. Or his great quartet with George Lewis.

This goes back about 16 years ...I think the problem lies within the fact that I leapt straight in and bought Conquistador (to add to my collection of Blue Note vinyl that was being sold off at a fiver an album). The chap in the shop said "You do know what you're buying, don't you?" ...I could hardly say no at that point. I also bought Grachan Moncur's Evolution (fantastic - Jackie Mclean is slightly flat throughout and it really adds something), Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, Joe Henderson's Mode For Joe (glorious!) ... and loads more. It became my weekly Saturday treatl until they'd sold out.

I think that means you get him.

I'm lucky. My old man was a BIG Monk fan, so I grew up with a big stack of Monk records to listen to. Check out Monk Plays Ellington and the solo records to get a hint of where he was coming from. Monk playing stride piano was a bit of a revelation to me when I went back to listen to them. I'm quite fond of those solos where he hits a tone cluster, stops (while the band cooks on behind him) and hits a slight variation or two before (it sounds like) he thinks he nailed it, and proceeds with his solo.

Ever notice that whenever anyone else covers his material, they lose all the subtle rhythmic shifts? His compositions are so startlingly clear, almost mathematical, explorations. Bach's "Variations" comes to mind, albeit from a very different cultural origin.

Re: Ornette's tone, and "flatness". Common thought is that it may derive from the fact that he started playing on a plastic C Melody sax, which may not mean a whole lot to non-musicians but imagine that you're playing with a whole bunch of cats who are playing brass instruments that resonate @ B flat, and yours is pitched a whole step higher... and is made out of plastic. Certain things might start sounding "normal" to you.

A lot of Sun Ra IS like stoned Elligton... what's so bad about that? I read a piece once that said, if Ra had been able to keep together as good of a band as Ellington could, the history of modern jazz might be very different.

And what did Charles Earland have that the other 1,964 jazz organ players didn't? Never understood what was so unique about him either.

-- Colin Meeder (amisrau...), November 17th, 2006. (later)

Tell us more! ;-)

i wld say to the Chet hatas that jazz isn't just abt virtuosity - tho' in fact baker is remarkably consistent, all in all - and that mystique, romanticism, cliche and poise can often be just as important, or exciting. the chet alb w/ bill evans, herbie mann etc. is the v. last word in neurotic white boy outsiderdom and sunday smack comedown - a superlush rec

not feeling monk is a little strange to me. id think he would be one of the most easily appreciable jazz musicians out there. i really like his solo pieces the best....

and i didnt think there would be so many bitches brew haters. i have to agree with the person who asked "what are you looking for in bitches brew?", if youre not feeling it its because your expectations for it are amiss. it managed to fuse jazz, ambient, dub, rock, and funk together, sometimes before some of those genres really existed!

and for those who didnt like mclaughlin, definitely check the mahavishnu stuff. there's some wild shit on there!

-- factcheckr (factcheck...)

I didn't know that (ugly) white sax was a C-Melody! Always wondered what they looked like. Who knows, that could indeed be a major contributing factor in his unpleasant-to-my-ears tone.

Really, I should check out Ornette On Tenor somedday - might be a revelation. I remember liking a non-alto track from In All Languages.

I think you can appreciate Chet Baker for what he is (a top notch pop singer and a fascinating tragic figure) and still acknowledge that he's not a great jazz musician.

and i think i got straight into "Change of the Century" bu Ornette, having failed to enjoy lots of other albums of his. Again, dubious, as maybe i'd finally set myself to appreciate "Change .." after all the other attempts,.. horse and cart.. yeah, maybe compared with the "Beauty is a Rare Thing" box set i'd borrowed it was merely finite
Anyway i found that album instantly accessible. It still sounds like an album of different versions of the one tune though.

not getting monk does strike me as unusual. that music is so accessible, in my opinion. kids get it immediately. just great melodies and the push-pull of his structures is addictive, too.

His most accessible to me is Looking Ahead from 1958. He had a stretch from 58-66 where he put out some amazing recordings, including Looking Ahead, New York City R&B/Cell Walk for Celeste, Nefertiti the Beautiful One Has Come, Conquistador and Unit Structures.

I fell in and out and back in love with Taylor's music. I reacted neagatively to something he said at a show at the Jazz Showcase in the early 70s to the effect that if you didn't "get" his music, you could not think fast enough to understand him. I've known too many bipolar people in the manic phase who feel/say the same thing.

Now, either my thinking has sped up (most people who know me would laugh heartily at that concept) or I have heard the Tzotzil/Mummers/Tzotzil and Live in Bologna material enough times that I do actually enjoy it.

x-post: I think you're right abt Monk's public perception in the 40s. Thank goodness he persisted.

Baker's was always too soft for me. But then, I make a steady diet of free jazz. So what do I know.

and yeah, baker is soft, and limited. nice, though. apparently he was, you know, a junkie and a narcissist...they was selling his face as much as his trumpet back then...

xp

bcz with ppl you can say to yr pal of a friend they don't think they like that if they knew them better they would like em, they just don't "get" them yet -- an the assumption that yr pal likes YOU and you like this friend -- but it AIN'T SO! sometimes the chemistry will always be bad between yr pal and yr friend -- they just don't hit it off!

so by logic i conclude that sometimes there will be a jazz voice you will JUST NOT LIKE and it ain't cz you DON'T get it it's bcz you DO -- and you know this person isn't for you and vice versa, and it's no good moralising the odds

most jazzers maintain cultural solidarity -- except for known feuds and wars between movements -- but as late as the 80s you could get miles to diss monk openly as not a good player -- and indeed be snidey abt parker and coltrane

there IS music that is "difficult" or that doesn't open up easily during a casual listen.

a lot of this thread seems to be about people not "getting" why other people rave about an artist or like an artist so much. people aren't hearing what the fans hear. and this is where mark's comments are most applicable. you aren't always gonna agree with people's takes on things. no shame in that. but i would tell people to at least give an artist that gets lotsa love from people that they respect/agree with about other stuff the time that music sometimes deserves before coming to some final judgement. and even go back and listen years later and see if there is a difference in their opinion because there often is.

another example, since i was recently listening to a show on him: there are probably people who base their opinion of wes montgomery on his later cti-style strings & things pop interpretations (which he still plays great on) and never even have heard the earlier innovative straight ahead stuff that he did prior to that. and if that's the case, then they are only hearing half the story. or less than half. this is true of other genres to some extent, but there are so many settings for jazz. solo, small groups, bigger groups, big bands, etc, etc, and in every different setting someone might play a little differently.

ha! i never knew ward fowler = andrew l. i feel dumb.

Me neither!

If Derek Bailey is jazz, then him, though I haven't given up. I liked his book though.

DB would not have wanted to be considered jazz, surely?

Yeah, I'm sure you're right.

I don't "get" him either, regardless.

DB was "not" a lot of things, but the main thing he 'wasn't' was jazz

DB (and some of the other names on this thread) are very tied in with certain currents in classical music. Looking back at this thread is hard not read that relationship between jazz and classical as forming some of the discomfort.