I find it interesting that there have been a lot of baseless assertions about “pleasing an audience” , “not about the music”, “nationalities/appreciation”, etc., and not a single comment about the playing on the Miles in Tokyo recording. Fantastic and interesting playing from masters surely deserving some commentary.
Musicians play tunes at different tempos or different other ways all the time. They may play it faster as a personal challenge; or, as is probably the reason on this recording, musicians react when there is a lot of energy in the room and the tempos tend to be more crisp.
The important point to understand is that no aspect of artistic integrity has to be sacrificed, as is being asserted, by playing the tune faster or slower. The idea that musicians of that caliber would compromise their artistic integrity by playing a tune faster, for any reason, knowing that the result will be an inferior performance is nonsense and insulting to the musicians.
The truth is that Japanese audiences are very knowledgeable about Jazz; more so than many aficionados in the USA. Sure, they like most people around the world are fascinated by many things American. So what? I find the suggestion that because of this they are less appreciative or insightful of the music, or cause musicians to cater to them in artistically harmful ways, to be very cynical and ill informed.
https://youtu.be/gwSfV4GWOgE
Musicians play tunes at different tempos or different other ways all the time. They may play it faster as a personal challenge; or, as is probably the reason on this recording, musicians react when there is a lot of energy in the room and the tempos tend to be more crisp.
The important point to understand is that no aspect of artistic integrity has to be sacrificed, as is being asserted, by playing the tune faster or slower. The idea that musicians of that caliber would compromise their artistic integrity by playing a tune faster, for any reason, knowing that the result will be an inferior performance is nonsense and insulting to the musicians.
The truth is that Japanese audiences are very knowledgeable about Jazz; more so than many aficionados in the USA. Sure, they like most people around the world are fascinated by many things American. So what? I find the suggestion that because of this they are less appreciative or insightful of the music, or cause musicians to cater to them in artistically harmful ways, to be very cynical and ill informed.
https://youtu.be/gwSfV4GWOgE