Jazz for aficionados

Not to re-open the debate about "best of" but I agree with @orpheus10 somewhat. That is, nobody could touch Lee Morgan. There was no better trumpet player from the hard bop era. To me, that period is synonymous with what I call "straight ahead" jazz.  Miles was hanging tough during his time with Prestige joined by Coltrane. Not close to what Lee was doing.

[+1 with @frogman ]But as far as this art form we call jazz, taken in its totality ... Miles is at or near the top. Miles continued to evolve and innovate beyond hard bop. There were large ensembles, full orchestras, a movie score, various kinds of arrangements and presentations. My personal tastes span from the 50's through some of his electrified stuff like "Jack Johnson" and "In A Silent Way" and most everything in between. He lost me at "Bitches Brew".

I have plenty of Miles and Lee, and thoroughly enjoy both.Thinking about it in terms of which artist I would miss most, if removed entirely from my collection, as a headliner (vs. sideman) -  I'd let go of Lee before Miles. We all have opinions. This is mine.

Please forgive me if this has been posted elsewhere on the thread. Hard to believe Lee was only 20 years old or so when this was done. So mature and professional after just 7 years of playing. Found myself sayin' "wow" out loud: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjG7IQIqN32eTtxW6Fph9gFVyGubGWF26

Happy Listening!

 

@orpheus10 thanks for Mark Masters "Blue Skylight" . Streaming it now. Great production quality.

Strateahed, your evaluation of Lee Morgan and Miles was the best anyone could have written; while Miles couldn't "out blow" Lee, he conquered "time", which is something relatively few "jazz" musicians conquered; there are so many Miles Davis's that you can have a small collection based on any one of them.


Enjoy the music.

Interesting discussion here re Davis, Morgan, and Brown.  This is more up my alley, being a professional brass player.  As Frogman has said, the removal of Davis would have changed the development of jazz much more than the other two, and I think this would have been true even if Morgan and Brown had lived as long as Miles.  

I am about 99% certain that if I surveyed all of my trumpet playing colleagues, that they would say Miles was by far the most influential.  I am tempted to do just that over the next couple of weeks and see what they say, and to ask them which was their personal favorite as well.  I'll report back if I do.

That said, all were fantastic players, and I don't think anyone is saying otherwise here.  All three are decently represented in my collection.

Strateahed, Somehow I don't get this statement, " As Frogman has said, the removal of Davis would have changed the development of jazz much more than the other two, and I think this would have been true even if Morgan and Brown had lived as long as Miles."

Beyond Diz and Bird, I don't quite get this development of jazz. Jazz musicians I've known were such staunch individualists, that I couldn't hear how they were affected by Miles one way or the other.

It could be said that Miles led jazz in "fusion", but not all jazz musicians were into fusion. The more I think about Frogman's and Learsfool's statement, the less I get it; I need help on this one.