I don't 'get' Miles Davis.

[oldE]

I came to the conclusion many years ago that I am not a good enough musician to 'get' jazz. When they start messing with the harmonics of the harmonies it just starts sounding like a mess to me.
Keep it simple for me, please.

Best
Les

[jcommin]

I'm an old guy that grew up with the Beatles and the Stones. Some of the best Rock n Roll I have ever heard started around 1966 and ended around 1971. I hated Disco, New Wave and by about 1980, Rock n Roll didn't do it for me anymore. It is monotonous, not creative and with the advent of MTV, mediocre music made it, if your video was good.

I switched to Jazz and Blues. Just better music and the musicianship is great.

The Aja album had some of the best studio and non studio musicians:

Donald Fagen – synthesizer, keyboards, vocals, background vocals, whistle
Walter Becker – bass, guitar
Chuck Rainey – bass
Timothy B. Schmit – background vocals
Paul Griffin – keyboards, electric piano, vocals, background vocals
Don Grolnick – keyboards, clavinet
Michael Omartian – piano, keyboards
Joe Sample – keyboards, electric piano, clavinet
Victor Feldman – percussion, piano, keyboards, electric piano, vibraphone
Larry Carlton – guitar
Denny Dias – guitar
Jay Graydon – guitar
Steve Khan – guitar
Dean Parks – guitar
Lee Ritenour – guitar
Pete Christlieb – flute, tenor saxophone
Chuck Findley – horn, brass
Jim Horn – flute, saxophone
Richard "Slyde" Hyde – trombone
Plas Johnson – flute, saxophone
Jackie Kelso – flute, horn, saxophone
Lou McCreary – brass
Bill Perkins – flute, horn, saxophone
Tom Scott – conductor, flute, tenor saxophone, lyricon
Wayne Shorter – flute, tenor saxophone
Bernard Purdie – drums ("Home at Last", "Deacon Blues")
Steve Gadd – drums ("Aja")
Ed Greene – drums ("I Got the News")
Paul Humphrey – drums ("Black Cow")
Jim Keltner – percussion, drums ("Josie")
Rick Marotta – drums ("Peg")
Gary Coleman – percussion
Venetta Fields – background vocals
Clydie King – background vocals
Rebecca Louis – background vocals
Sherlie Matthews – background vocals

Some of these musicians are accomplished jazz musicians - they played with the Jazz greats.

I have several albums by Lee Rintenour, Joe Sample, Wayne Shorter and Tom Scott. BTW, Sample and Shorter played with Miles.

Take a listen to Shorter's latest album " Without a Net" This guy can still play.


Aja is a great album not only for the band members but it's production. I have this album on a direct to disk vinyl album: it is pure listening pleasure.

[jcommin]

Being from Chicago, the Blues is part of the city. There are great Blues clubs and some of the greats have played and still play here. This weekend is Blues fest, probably the largest free concert in the US.

City of Chicago :: Chicago Blues Festival

Short of going to a blues club, it doesn't get much better than this.

[Por_sha911]

I started listening to Smooth Jazz or as I call it Jazz Light.
Rippingtons, Bela Fleck, Spiro Gyra, Yellowjackets, Craig Chaquico, Acoustic Alchemy, The Crusaders...
I can listen to artists like Miles or Chick Corea but I really have to be in the mood for it. Its kind of like a Grateful Dead jam. You have to get into the atmosphere they create more than the individual notes.

[Baz]

I think some types of jazz are an acquired taste. In the end though you either like or don't like - same as for everything creative in life.

If I want to hear horns my preference is more for Herb....or Chicago....but Brubeck ain't too shabby either!

[95avblm3]

Pat Metheny, specifically the Pat Metheny Group with Lyle Mays on keyboard, is probably my favorite band/group of all time. I listen to a lot of music but I listen to a lot of Pat Metheny over and over again. I think you can argue that Miles Davis was the beginning of the jazz fusion era that really hit its peak in the '70's (maybe somewhat into the '80's) by his influence on musician's such as Metheny, Jaco Pastorious and Weather Report, Return to Forever, etc. As much of a fan as I am of Metheny and Weather Report, I've never really gotten into Davis... I feel like I need to listen to more to try and understand it better.

I've seen Spyro Gyra live and they are great but to me are more of the Smooth Jazz genre, which has some good musicians such as Spyro but in recent years has morphed into monotonous elevator crap... a remake of Dave Brubeck's Take Five in 4/4 time by a no name I can't remember really turned me off of Smooth Jazz.

On a similar token, Steely Dan has always appealed to me for their jazz-like structures on albums such as Aja as well as their extensive use of very talented studio musicians, some of whom have come to the forefront of their craft... e.g. Michael McDonald.

[95avblm3]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

I started listening to Smooth Jazz or as I call it Jazz Light.
Rippingtons, Bela Fleck, Spiro Gyra, Yellowjackets, Craig Chaquico, Acoustic Alchemy, The Crusaders...
I can listen to artists like Miles or Chick Corea but I really have to be in the mood for it. Its kind of like a Grateful Dead jam. You have to get into the atmosphere they create more than the individual notes.

You listed off some really good groups of what I consider to be the "real" smooth jazz genre... interesting you included Bela Fleck. I'm a fan of the Flecktones and have recently started exploring Bela's prior music... he has some really good pre-Flecktones tunes that boarder on the definition of traditional Bluegrass... the album "Drive" is a really great one.

As an aside, I got to see Corea and Fleck in concert together last year... It was an interesting pairing.

[DanielDudley]

My ex liked him, but she liked heroin too. I like a lot of seriously complicated music, but some things are too painful to my brain or my ears. I'm not wired for it, nor have I altered the circuits.

[scoe911]

http://youtu.be/yZO3uVu2qNk

Don't get Miles?
This scene from the Tom Cruise movie "Collateral" shows why Miles wouldn't care.

[techweenie]

I am not a fan of jazz... or maybe I should say, I haven't heard a jazz album I liked since:

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=1054189

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

But I never got Miles Davis either. Nor Billie Holiday.

Don't go there.

[widebody911]

Originally Posted by 5String43

Don't get jazz? Me three!

Me four.

[scoe911]

To all those who don't understand what has been described as one of only a handful of "true" American art forms. I have one 13 letter word IMPROVISATION...

[GH85Carrera]

I can appreciate Jazz but I an not a big fan.

What I totally don't get is the blues. I just don't get the blues. I guess I am a happy go lucky guy and don't get depression and singing about it. Life hands out some lemons. Make some lemonade and move on.

[herr_oberst]

This is what I mean.... From the Crossroads Blues festival, 2012, I think...
Powerful stuff!

Fast forward to 2:55

[herr_oberst]

Or this! Simple songs of broken lives, but with the promise of a better world - and fun to listen to:

[jyl]

I like a lot of stuff. Jazz was my main listening for a decade or so. I like Miles, Coltrane, Parker, Eric Dolphy, Sweets Edison, Ben Webster, Keith Jarrett, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, just to name a few.

Some of these artists were "searchers". They were always trying to invent something new, to change and push the boundaries. Some of the results are acquired tastes and some can't be acquired by me. For example Ornette Coleman. It's not for lack of instrumental skill; these men were incredibly skilled.

I think it is kind of like a period of modern art, where artists constantly tried to invent new things, and some of the prototypes are puzzling or half baked or simply beyond many viewers. I recall visiting the small Picasso museum in, I forget which Spanish city, it had almost none of his mature works (those having been done in Paris) but instead had his early work, including sketches drawn when he was just a boy and then a teen. His command of figures and lines as a child was so masterful, I felt like I understood why he was so relentlessly experimental in his career. How could he spend his whole life drawing and painting in styles that he had already mastered as a young man? John Coltrane and Miles seem to me much of that mold.

Then there are musicians and artists who I think of as "perfecters". They do one thing their whole career, brilliantly. A lot of blues musicians seem this way to me. One blues song sounds rather like another, to me, and one Muddy Waters song sounds very much like another. That was his groove and he stayed in it, and the music is accessible to many listeners.

[javadog]

A song like Blue In Green from Kind of Blue is about as simple and approachable as a jazz song can get. Nothing complicated or hard to understand... if you just listen to it...

JR

[911dean]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

Or this! Simple songs of broken lives, but with the promise of a better world - and fun to listen to:

Just saw them at SPACE in Evanston. Truly the best show of theirs I've seen. Also have seen Gary Clark Jr there.

SPACE is simply the best sounding venue I've ever been at. Even the performers comment about the sound. Recently saw Jimmie Vaughan at SPACE. After the show I had told Lou Ann Barton she sounded great. Her response "your so lucky to be able to listen in a place like this".

If you ever get to Chicago check this place out. In matter fact check their schedule out.

Dean

[john70t]

Dad was into several vocal jazz groups.
They weren't 'real jazz' by any means, but made good sounds throughout the atmosphere.
He played at the http://www.detroitjazzfest.com, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.