Miles Davis vs. David Bowie

lyrically maybe but he is a reactionnnary and miles davis lost his balls or he'd have had a big band that do avant-classical backing on oscar night

And it's been said many times before, but part of the whole thing with Miles Davis is that besides what he actually played, his ability to choose sidemen and create an open musical situation was probably his greatest talent.

are any of DB's records actually worse than KIND OF BLUE? I say NO!! (i have not heard all of DB's records)

i haven't heard agharta since matt of coldcut/ninjatune borrowed my copy and NEVAH GAVE IT BACK!! agharta = miles's LODGER (ie his best record and arguably bettah than lodger, just abt)

i judge greatness mainly by greatness of HAIR (inc facial) = trevor bolder > chick corea ANY DAY OF ANY WEEK EVAH!!

Because that would be rude.

I am not dismissing all of the people named. They are all wonderful musicians, etc. I think Wayne Shorter is better than Miles on a lot of the mid-60s stuff, which happens to be my favorite Miles of all. Of course they all contributed to the records they made with him, and were often ahead of him conceptually. But most of them never came close to the work they did with Miles when they went on to lead their own bands, and the only thing they innovated was bad fusion records (perhaps someone wants to stand up for Return to Forever or Tony Williams' poetry, but personally I can barely stomach any fusion other than Miles'). I think that speaks to Miles' abilities as a bandleader.

As far as listings Miles' innovations goes... I'm not sure I can say anything that isn't completely rote and predictable there. But just to take the Hendrix/Stone example, he didn't merely copy them. He took their ideas (call them freeform electric guitar noise and rhythm as organizing principle, say), added some Stockhausen (call it electronic textures, say--I'm not so good on Stockhausen--which combined with rhythm as organizing principle in particular in new and interesting ways) and then put the whole thing in a jazz improvisation context. That added up to a hell of a lot more than the sum of its parts: music that anticipates techno, hip-hop, dub, ambient blah blah blah (cf Greg Tate)...

hiphop doesn't use space; nor does trip hop => actual real descendent = PARIS AU PRINTEMPS poss?

"When I came to New York Miles wanted me to write some pieces, but he was also rather vague about what he wanted. I never really got a clear idea. I was a big fan of [Karlheinz] Stockhausen and had brought several recordings with me, particularly of two pieces, 'Gruppen' and 'Mixtur,' which involve large chamber orchestras at times processed through ring modulators. Somewhere in 'Mixtur' there is a passage for solo trumpet that startlingly reminded me of some things Miles played. I don't know if Miles knew of Stockhausen, but when I brought these records he became very interested. He immediately put them on his record player, with the automatic changer on, and for four hours he had them loudly playing all over the house."

But if you don't like it, you don't like it... My own take on the 70s stuff is that it's patchy and it doesn't quite achieve what it set out to achieve, but since what it set out to achieve was so big in the first place, we'll take the attempt gratefully, thank you...

Wayne Shorter's 'Super Nova' rec from 1969 - w/ McLaughlin and my old pal Sonny Sharrock, not to mention the excellent Miroslav Vitous (check out his terrific first solo rec, also w/ McLaughlin), Airto, Jack DeJohnette and Maria Booker doing a Linda Sharrock - is as gd as most Miles albs from the period. Ditto 'Speak No Evil' w/Hubbard, Hancock, Carter and Elvin Jones - that's some line-up!

And Herbie's 'Sextant' alb is also the bizness in the post- Stockhausen stakes.

The later stuff--Dark Magus, Agharta, Pangaea--yes. But try Live Evil. That is some serious funk.

Ha ha so now all can be revealed and in fact it was not Miles or Hancock or Shorter who innovated, but Buckmaster!

sure there's a case for space creeping into davis' work a la stockhausen's pieces like procession, momente, punkte, or (so-called outer space in) ylem, and ideas of extended pieces running to sensible length, not just letting form be dictated by jazz tradition, they're there in agharta, but silent way and bitches brew were headed that way anyway, and maybe timbral exploration via electronic equipment was something he saw stockhausen do first with synths, ring modulators and editing,

ok, but i always thought it was stockhausen's austere autear m.o. that really changed the way davis went about the music business and approached his listeners

as for bowie's superficial always-doing-something-different = new-and interesting-and-revolutionary thing, it seemed to run out of creative juice by scary monsters, and his own quasi-autobiographical ramblings seem like bad self-mythologising, like an unfolding story that die- hard fans supposedly won't want to miss a chapter of

bowie seems cynical and cheap when compared to apparently genuine if slightly crazed stockhausen and davis

Well I havn't really said much about David Bowie, since I don't know him well enough, he may of changed music, but was the effect as large? and withstanding? I don't know enough of his music, all I ask is for you to be the judge.

Thank You for Reading, Geoffrey Balasoglou.

This is quite interesting because after working with Miles Davis, Buckmaster went on to work with Bowie on a soundtrack for 'The Man Who Fell To Earth'. It was never used, but apparently four or five tracks were completed, one of which eventually became 'Subterraneans' on 'Low' (recorded later that year). And Buckmaster's ideas of mixing abstract European influences with African-American beats is pretty much a description of 'Low' - the first side at least. I wonder if there's some connection.

Just wrote a thing about these two. Hope it's ok to link to it here.

http://dedodumdum.blogspot.com/2013/02/miles-and-bowie-thin-white-duke-and.html