The Sopranos

I hate to keep tapping into the old-school (wait a minute, no I don’t) but one of the defining moments of my experiences as a jazz listener is the first time I heard a recording of Coltrane playing “My Favorite Things.” Beyond the virtuosity of his treatment of the tune, I was intrigued, too, by the instrument he played. I’d heard recordings of way-out musicians like Yusef Lateef playing oddball instruments like the oboe, shenai, and argol (check out the Impulse! recording Yusef Lateef Live at Pep’s from the 1960s), but hearing Coltrane play the soprano sax on “My Favorite Things” added to its mystique. (to be continued)

Coyote

One of my favorite films is Martin Scorcese’s The Last Waltz. If you’ve never seen this film run don’t walk to your video store or else put it into your Netflix queue. After 16 years of touring, The Band (Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson) decided to film a final appearance in 1976 on Thanksgiving Day with friends including Dr. John, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Ron Wood, and Joni Mitchell. As one of Scorcese’s finest films, in a career of masterpieces, The Last Waltz is one of the more interesting music documentaries of all time. Others in that list would have to include Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser, Don’t Look Back, The Filth and the Fury, Gimme Shelter, Wild Man Blues, Buena Vista Social Club, Jazz on a Summer’s Day, and Monterey Pop. The performances of Dr. John and Joni Mitchell show how jazz music seeped into the rock world and became another ingredient in the gumbo that the music of New Orleans became. Joni Mitchell’s offbeat, and sometimes improvised, singing style and Dr. John’s performance especially are proof of jazz music’s subtle influence. Joni Mitchell isn't a jazz artist per se, but it's interesting to see the way she handles the vocals to her song, Coyote. I've always loved her lyrics, too.

No regrets Coyote
We just come from such different sets of circumstance
I'm up all night in the studios
And you're up early on your ranch
You'll be brushing out a brood mare's tail
While the sun is ascending
And I'll just be getting home with my reel to reel...
There's no comprehending
Just how close to the bone and the skin and the eyes
And the lips you can get
And still feel so alone
And still feel related
Like stations in some relay
You're not a hit and run driver, no, no
Racing away
You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway

We saw a farmhouse burning down
In the middle of nowhere
In the middle of the night
And we rolled right past that tragedy
Till we turned into some road house lights
Where a local band was playing
Locals were up kicking and shaking on the floor
And the next thing I know
That Coyote's at my door
He pins me in a corner and he won't take "No!"
He drags me out on the dance floor
And we're dancing close and slow
Now he's got a woman at home
He's got another woman down the hall
He seems to want me anyway
Why'd you have to get so drunk
And lead me on that way
You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines of the freeway

I looked a Coyote right in the face
On the road to Baljennie near my old home town
He went running thru the whisker wheat
Chasing some prize down
And a hawk was playing with him
Coyote was jumping straight up and making passes
He had those same eyes - just like yours
Under your dark glasses
Privately probing the public rooms
And peeking thru keyholes in numbered doors
Where the players lick their wounds
And take their temporary lovers
And their pills and powders to get them thru this passion play

No regrets, Coyote
I just get off up aways
You just picked up a hitcher
A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway

Coyote's in the coffee shop
He's staring a hole in his scrambled eggs
He picks up my scent on his fingers
While he's watching the waitresses' legs
He's too fat from the Bay of Fundy
From Appaloosas and Eagles and tides
And the air conditioned cubicles
And the carbon ribbon rides
Are spelling it out so clear
Either he's going to have to stand and fight
Or take off out of here
I tried to run away myself
To run away and wrestle with my ego
And with this flame
You put here in this Eskimo
In this hitcher
In this prisoner
Of the fine white lines
Of the white lines on the free, free way

Piero Scaruffi's jazz pages are worth a glance.

ESP

I had to listen to some early Miles Davis this morning. By 1957 when Miles Davis started working with Gil Evans on an album called Miles Ahead for Columbia Records, he’d already had an amazing career working with some of the best artists in the business including Charlie Parker and Lester Young—the two men most responsible for shaping modern jazz and taking it places that Louis Armstrong never envisioned. The Miles Ahead sessions included an army of talent with Johnny Carisi, Bernie Glow, Taft Jordan, Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Miles Davis, Joe Bennett, Jimmy Cleveland, Frank Rehak, Tom Mitchell, Jim Buffington, Tony Miranda, Willie Ruff, Bill Barber, Edwin Caine, Sid Cooper, Romeo Penque, Danny Bank, Lee Konitz, Paul Chambers, Art Taylor, and of course Evans as arranger and conductor. All of this is old news, but I still like to think of this moment in the history of the music because Davis was set to embark on an excursion as important as the discovery of flight.

The Miles in the Sky sessions though are some of my favorites with Wayne Shorter (ts) Herbie Hancock (p), George Benson (el-g -3), Ron Carter (b), and Tony Williams (d) recorded at Columbia Studios in New York in 1968. I like this line-up even better than the John Coltrane mix, because Miles seems to be at his reflective best. It may be that Coltrane put him on the edge and Shorter, Hancock, Carter, and Williams allowed Miles to dig deeper into introspection because there isn’t the sense there that Davis may be overshadowed by the talent in his own band, which seemed to be the case when John Coltrane stepped up to the mic.

When I think of the Miles Davis records, tapes, and Cds I’ve owned over the years, like Kind of Blue, Bitches Brew, On the Corner, Birth of the Cool, ESP, Workin’, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, In a Silent Way and others I’m still in awe of his output and ability to break with tradition and redefine the zeitgeist—-owning it entirely, and then throwing it back at the world and inventing new genres with such laconic gestures.

Later in his career Miles still cut groundbreaking tunes with the likes of Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, and Chick Corea but it started to become obvious that R&B and rock music had cast a spell on Davis that affected his entire conception of the music. He became much more interested in jamming and much less interested in breaking new ground on a technical level. This later music sold records but didn’t satisfy many of the critics, who rightly saw that some of Davis’s new soupy concoctions were barely jazz. For whatever reason, Davis never really grasped the burgeoning free jazz phenomenon and dove straight into funk, which ironically downplayed his abilities and left a bad taste in the mouths of many listeners that lingers even still. Davis also became such a cultural icon and scenester that this aspect of his personality obscured some of his earlier musical achievements. When taken in its entirety though, it’s easy to see that the Miles Davis discography is an amazing EKG of the Twentieth Century.

Also, an interesting read: Charlie Haden on Mingus, Miles, and what jazz means.