Music History

[Su_H.]

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...00006994171905

The story goes: Young Bach extended a challenge to Marchand. Marchand received word of the challenge and made preparation go visit Bach. While in town and on the eve of the challenge, Marchand sneaked into the church where he found Bach was practicing. He heard and saw - what a masterful musician Bach was. On the day of the challenge, Marchand had already left town....and this story is told in the sense that Marchand was overwhelmed by what he saw and heard and decided to forfeit the challenge. I like to think Marchand admired the talents of Bach and respectfully turned down the challenge. As an aspiring musician, I will say the vast majority of musicians will not openly challenge another musician and that is why we have music competitions....so no one has to openly challenge another.

[capefisherman]

Very cool story. In certain New York jazz bars in the 1940s and 50s, "cutting" was the way jazzers earned the respect of other players. It was a competition although never called that: players who couldn't "cut it" were quickly weeded out and in many cases it helped them learn their craft and get better. The most famous example is Miles Davis who was basically laughed off the stage when he showed up at a cutting session in a bar in New York in the late 1940s when it was all about complex bop playing and Miles pretty much made a fool of himself. Some say that experience inspired him to refine the "cool jazz" style - no pyrotechnic licks, just very lyrical playing.

[Su_H.]

Originally Posted by capefisherman

Very cool story. In certain New York jazz bars in the 1940s and 50s, "cutting" was the way jazzers earned the respect of other players. It was a competition although never called that: players who couldn't "cut it" were quickly weeded out and in many cases it helped them learn their craft and get better. The most famous example is Miles Davis who was basically laughed off the stage when he showed up at a cutting session in a bar in New York in the late 1940s when it was all about complex bop playing and Miles pretty much made a fool of himself. Some say that experience inspired him to refine the "cool jazz" style - no pyrotechnic licks, just very lyrical playing.

Miles Davis was the man at one point.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I somewhat remember Davis and guys like him literally just gave up playing because the new breed of Sax players were just too good and fast....or was it the other way around and Davis was the new breed?

[Su_H.]

My memory is not serving me well. Davis played the trumpet and not the sax.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by Su_H.

Miles Davis was the man at one point.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I somewhat remember Davis and guys like him literally just gave up playing because the new breed of Sax players were just too good and fast....or was it the other way around and Davis was the new breed?

It's a complicated story and timeline. Bop developed in the years around WWII and had a strong virtuoso ethos: the harmonies and where folks played the melody on top were different from jazz before as were the predominate drummers' styles. Add some fast tempos and it was pretty easy to find the players who didn't have the chops or ears to grab that new style. Young Miles Davis learned to hang with that style in NYC while never being considered the best at it.

The "Cool Jazz" thing was a post WWII style that had elements of another 50s thing ("Third Stream") that added more direct borrowings from modernist "classical" music and a tendency to less frantic tempos and less urgent timbres. Composition (even it was just heads to be stated and jammed on) was give a bit more emphasis than virtuosity.

Add to that differentiation: Bop was largely East Coast based and Cool was also sometimes called "West Coast Jazz."

Now of course all of this (and musical labels in general) are very rough and approximate things for a complex art.

Davis played in both contexts in the early 50s, but eventually was placed (again, approximately) in the Cool Jazz bag due to his admiration and collaboration with Gil Evans.

[Su_H.]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

It's a complicated story and timeline. Bop developed in the years around WWII and had a strong virtuoso ethos: the harmonies and where folks played the melody on top were different from jazz before as were the predominate drummers' styles. Add some fast tempos and it was pretty easy to find the players who didn't have the chops or ears to grab that new style. Young Miles Davis learned to hang with that style in NYC while never being considered the best at it.

The "Cool Jazz" thing was a post WWII style that had elements of another 50s thing ("Third Stream") that added more direct borrowings from modernist "classical" music and a tendency to less frantic tempos and less urgent timbres. Composition (even it was just heads to be stated and jammed on) was give a bit more emphasis than virtuosity.

Add to that differentiation: Bop was largely East Coast based and Cool was also sometimes called "West Coast Jazz."

Now of course all of this (and musical labels in general) are very rough and approximate things for a complex art.

Davis played in both contexts in the early 50s, but eventually was placed (again, approximately) in the Cool Jazz bag due to his admiration and collaboration with Gil Evans.

I appreciate the information, Frank.

[JonPR]

The famous story about Charlie Parker is that, as a teenager, he turned up at one of those jam sessions, having practised and learned a lot of tunes, thinking he was ready, but lost track of the changes (one version of the legend says he played everything in wrong key, but that seems to be untrue). The drummer threw a cymbal at him as a signal to get off. He was so embarrassed he went away and woodshedded like crazy. When he came back - well, he was Charlie Parker. Blew everyone away.

[mr. beaumont]

The Parker story may or may not be true. Probably some element of truth in it...players were territorial...they would literally kick a person off the bandstand.

The Miles story is probably made up, he played bop with all the greats. He was not the pyrotechnic type player say, Diz, was, but the man made records with Parker and Max Roach...nobody was laughing him off any stage.

Miles' "reactionary" album was Kind of Blue, where Miles said that tunes were getting so full of chords he "couldn't play them" and he basically sat down and created a new kind of jazz with a lot more space. This style was developed upon endlessly over the next 10 years in jazz...jazz moved VERY quickly, and not always in a linear fashion...but comparing 1949 Miles to 1959 Miles to 1969...DANG.