Jazz for aficionados

****I don’t like to hear someone put down dixieland. Those people who say there’s no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don’t know.**** - Miles

****I say, play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you’re doing? even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years. **** - Monk

****Always look ahead, but never look back. **** - Miles

****I don’t know where jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens. **** - Monk

Miles defending Dixieland?? That's incredible! Nothing wrong with Dixieland, it just sounds incredulous.

I was just wondering if this was Miles, Pre or Post, dressing like a buffoon(wynton Marsalis) and looking like Sinbad the Sailor(our OP). :) We won't get into the 'Bitches Brew' Era.

Did Monk indicate how a players was suppose to eat and play rent for those 15-20 years? Spoken like a man with a secure income. (from that european countess, or whatever she was)

Looking back probably caused Miles too much pain and regret.

The last quote from Monk is true, I guess. That's why I have CDs of the stuff I like.

Cheers

Rok, on the off chance that you are actually being serious (which I still cannot really believe) - Haven't you ever heard of someone being called "ahead of his time?" Pick any art form you wish, and a very large percentage of the truly greats in that form were not "popular" during their time. Their art survived anyway because it was great art. Music history is full of such composers - to name just one, the symphonies of Gustav Mahler are now very often played, but during his lifetime, almost not at all. Some of them he never heard himself, except at his piano when writing them. There are many writers (James Joyce, to name one in English) and visual artists one can say the same of - folks who barely scraped by in relative obscurity during their lifetimes, but are now considered one of the all time greats. No one goes into the arts to make money - this would be an idiotic goal. In fact, huge numbers of very talented students majoring in the arts even at the very best schools end up dropping out (if not dropping out of school, at least abandoning it as a career goal), because they decided they didn't want to work as hard as is necessary, since it was not going to bring them the income level they wanted, even if they attained the very highest level in their art.

I look forward to your question on abstract art.

Mahler wrote Classical Symphonic music.
People didn't like his music
Mahler and his music are not POPULAR
Mahler is not great
Mahler dies
New people begin to play and listen to his music
New people like his music
New Orchestras play and record his music
Now Mahler's music is very POPULAR
Mahler is now recognized as a great composer.

I don't see a problem

Cheers

From my book.

" I would suggest that instrumental music is the most abstract art yet conceived by humankind. some might quibble with me; but in this I know I'm right."

He goes on to say; "Drawings or paintings, representational or not, are physical objects and exist in at least two dimensions. You can see and touch them."

"Poetry and literature, while not concrete objects, are written in a language that a person would understand. Therefore we fully understand what the artist is trying to say."

"But what is instrumental music? It is music that has no words, no literary information beyond its title, to explain why it exists, and why it sounds the way it does. It's neither physically dimensional nor concrete......Music has to be played, and when instrumental music is played, it exists only in the ether as concussion waves assaulting our eardrums."

"Color me a literalist, but as far as i'm concerned, that's about as abstract an art as I can Imagine."

NOW:

AS I was reading this, the local FM station was playing 'Don't cry for me Argentina' Instrumental version. My questions are:

would a instrumental version of a song originaly written with words, be abstract? Would it be abstract, if the person had never heard the words before?

Horace Silver wrote many instrumental Jazz songs. They would be abstract. Dee Dee Bridgewater did a CD of his music, put to words. Her words. Is her CD abstract? Does it change Silver's music from being abstract?

Why are sound waves assaulting the ear drums more abstract than photons of light assaulting our eyes? Speaking of abstract paintings here.

Thanks for your brilliant insights.

You guys up to speed on "triads"?

Cheers