Miles Davis

     In a previous post entitled "Some Background Music", I briefly mentioned Miles Davis. Since that was a couple months ago and there were only a few pageviews, I thought I'd review what I wrote and expand on it in a full post dedicated to Miles. In the late 90's, I was burnt out on rock music and started checking out jazz cds from the library. I was into jazz a little when I was in high school, because our band would go to the jazz fest at Central Michigan University. We didn't perform because we didn't have a jazz band, we just went to watch the other schools. I continued to go when I went to CMU and saw Phil Woods and Freddie Hubbard. I had tickets to see Buddy Rich, but he cancelled. Shortly after that it was announced that he had died.
     When I was interested in jazz again I decided to start with Miles Davis. There are two things about Miles that made him the best bandleader in jazz. First, he always wanted to play with the best players and he was secure enough in his abilities to let them share the spotlight. The list of musical geniuses that were in his bands is staggering: John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea and John McLaughlin to name a few. Second, he wasn't afraid of silence. Many musicians feel the need to fill every space with sound, but he was able to express himself with silence as well.
     However, I made the mistake of starting with Bitches Brew. I was not prepared for that experience and decided to try Kind of Blue instead. It floored me on the first listen and remains one of my favorite albums. The secret weapon on that album is Bill Evans. He's not on every song, but when he is his piano playing is breathtaking. And, of course Miles and Coltrane are amazing. I tried the Gil Evans stuff and the Prestige material, but I was mainly drawn to his first two classic quintets. As I said before, his second quintet with Hancock, Shorter, Carter and Williams is in my opinion the greatest band of all-time in any musical genre. A thousand years from now they still will be. I wish some of those performances were on dvd. Eventually, I worked up to Bitches Brew and his other electric albums and love those as well. I wish I could afford the Complete Columbia Records boxed set that was released a couple years ago.
     I got into other jazz musicians, such as Charles Mingus, Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins, Paul Desmond, Stan Getz and "Cannonball" Adderley. I would recommend the following jazz albums from my collection for my kids to listen to.

     * Kind of Blue- Miles
     * All the Second Quintet stuff- Miles
     * Miles and Coltrane
     * Very Best of- Coltrane
     * Monk's Dream- Thelonious Monk
     * Ah Um- Charles Mingus
     * Best of Blue Note Years- Michel Petrucciani

     There are also two jazz albums that aren't in my collection that i ewould recommend. The obvious one is Time Out by Dave Brubeck. The other one is Money Jungle which featured Duke Ellington in a trio with Max Roach and  Charles Mingus. I'm not a big Ellington guy, but this album is awesome. I honestly don't know why I don't own it. Peace.