Welcome to jazz, LT.

Somewow someone dismissing musical tastes hurts more than someone dismissing a political opinion, don't ask me why.

Also, throw down some of your "I wish more people would listen to this" tracks for me,

Anything by the Bottle Rockets, the Dictators, the Bellrays, the Long Ryders, Don & Dewey, the Bluethings, the Gories, the Vandalias, the Raspberries, the Fastbacks, the Muffs, Potliquor, the Iron City Houserockers, Marshall Crenshaw, Tony Joe White, the Holmes Brothers, BR5-49, E*I*E*I*O, the Blasters, the Long Ryders, the Del Lords,South Side Johnny, Raven and Glen Glenn.

Eh, once they listen to them enough so they are more familiar, they will like them. The familiarity is all they care about, this is why there are cover bands and people who just want to sing along.
Don;t, bother crusading, just play your music loud and someone will be glad they recognize something because of that thing they heard once.

Hi, LT, i am a bit tipsy

HA! Run-JMC - you listed several bands that I respect but never quite grew to like enough: The Fastbacks (anathema if you live in the NW), the Muffs, BR5-49, and Marshall Crenshaw. (Someday, Somewhere! why do I not like this song more - it has everything.)

The Raspberries, however, are the total shit. I will investigate these others you mention.

Marshall Crenshaw. (Someday, Somewhere! why do I not like this song more - it has everything.)

"Whenever You're On My Mind" is better to my ears. Best 'smitten' song ever.

Paulsc - I like some jazz, but don't know enough - enlighten me. Here's what I know I like so far:

1. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew
2. Cannonball Adderley
3. Jaco Pastorius
4. Branford and Winton Marsalis
5. Stanley Jordan (seen him live twice).

IF you could build a set list around Kind of Blue, what would it be? That's one of my all-time favorite albums.

You might like Larry Coryell's '70's stuff. Big loud electric guitar lots of great guests. His version of 'The Great Escape' is great. It's fusion, but the good kind (Coryell played in the Free Spirits-possibly the first jazz-rock band(although in a very different sense than what that later came to mean.

I really wanted to share all this great new music with them, and it got turned down, all of it.

Wow. I think you have a much more optimistic view of humanity than I do. Or, at least, a much better attitude overall.

'Cause there ain't no way in hell I'd waste any of my precious free time on trying to improve my coworkers' musical tastes. The way I figure, they can be just as philistine and ig'nant as they want; it's a free country and they are, after all, just coworkers.

Jazz to go with Kind of Blue - easiest thing to do is look at who played on the album and go from there. Quick and dirty (and totally from memory, so I'm bound to screw something up), you've got:

John Coltrane - Giant Steps
Bill Evans - Waltz for Debby
McCoy Tyner - The Real McCoy
Cannonball Adderly - don't remember the title, but he did an album with Bill Evans that was quite good.
And I don't remember who played drums.

As for educating cow-orkers, it's a sure recipe for heartbreak.

True enough, Jason's Planet, but here's the subtext: Who would I be if I didn't have musical mentors along the way?
Jesus H., man, through this channel alone I've been exposed to the following "Not Really What LT Thought He Liked, But Sure Does Now" music:

1. Super Furry Animals, and an all-Gaelic album from their lead singer.
2. Hallucinogen, Jega and Infected Mushroom.
3. The Asylum Street Spankers and The Be Good Tanyas
4. Turbonegro

Hell, the first album I ever bought was Elton John.

Who would I be if I didn't have musical mentors along the way?

Good point. But you have an open mind. You're looking for new sounds. You're willing to change. You care very deeply about art and apply very high standards to it.

A lot of people out there are none of the above. They don't like change. They don't like art that challenges them. And they don't appreciate music the way you do. For them, music is something that you share with people in your age group because it was on the radio while you were in high school together. It doesn't mean that they're awful human beings. They're just kind of boring, conventional people. And most of them are quite happy to be that way. I'm sure that they're wonderful people and a lot of fun to work with, but if you scratch the surface . . maybe they're just not your type.

Who knows? You deserve credit for trying. It's a shame that they didn't like the mixes you prepared for them.

It's the jazz, see? It's sure as shit not "my favorite things", but at age 15, I knew within the first 5 minutes that Coltrane's A Love Supreme was a fucking towering pillar of achievement that would be with me for the rest of my life. HOWEVER - the early CD release was sonically worthless. This is art that must be heard on vinyl. If you've seen "City of Lost Children" on film, and then on DVD, you'll have some idea of what's missing from the CD release of A Love Supreme. Don't miss out.

Changing genres, your cow-orkers will like Great Big Sea. Nobody doesn't like GBS.

And what was the story about BR-549? Something like: For years they had a standing offer to play *any* Hank Williams tune on demand for $20, and one night some hot-shit plastic-fantastic Nashville pre-fab star with money to burn showed up and tried to see if he could catch them out with a Hank tune they didn't know - and they sent him home broke and skunked.

JP - they also hated the casseroles I cooked and the handknit sweaters I made for them.

Hope springs eternal!

Triode - 'member when we were in Oregon and hanging out with Mudpuppie and Specklet and Mats and Ramix? 'Member that? Member playing pool at that place and then having beer at that other place? (or maybe it was beer and then pool).

'Member that? I sure do.

JP - they also hated the casseroles I cooked and the handknit sweaters I made for them.

Well, that might have worked out better if you hadn't used the hair and flesh of your victims. I'm just saying.

"I didn't like it. I didn't know any of the songs."

Argh. My husband says this ALL the time when I make a tape for him. OF COURSE you don't know any of the songs....you only listen to stuff that was recorded in the 70s. Hows about expanding your horizons a little bit there, bub? Huh?

They didn't like the casseroles?

Well, there you go.

Iconomy - DUDE! I KNOW! Where was the Aha! moment I built the entire mix around? Where was the "Hey, this is really cool?" epiphany?

I just felt like I was surrounded by mice waiting for me to press the lever in their cage.

Hell, even my dead mum back in the day remembered Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon when I played it for her.
Of course, she referred to it as The Other Side of the Whosie, but still...

Run JMC - look man, I don't ride your ass about your bizzarro snack concoctions and fetishization of Utz chippery, don't sweat me about reconstituting human remains in a tidy casserole for my co-workers.

Besides, you liked it when I came by that night.

Hell yeah! Good times. We'll need to do an East Coast version of that someday.

Where was the Aha! moment I built the entire mix around? Where was the "Hey, this is really cool?" epiphany?

Yeah! Next time ask them what songs they already have on tape and then tell them you're going to make them a mix tape of those songs because you wouldn't want to expose them to anything new accidentally. THAT'LL TEACH 'EM.

Make them mix tapes of nothing but Sunn0))), Book of Knots, the Residents, Captain Beefheart, and Dillinger Escape Plan. Then duct-tape them to their chairs and superglue headphones to their ears. Then spit in their decaf skinny mocha lattes and laugh coldly when they beg for mercy.

I present:

The Fall, Jawbox, Prong, Thelonius Monk, Swans, Blonde Redhead, Sparks, The Melvins, Midnight Oil, Henry Mancini, The Chambers Brothers, Vicente Fernandez, Hoodoo Gurus, The Cherry Poppin' Daddies (not just the swing stuff - MC Large Drink is an excellent songwriter. Check the lyrics to "Master and Slave") and UNKLE.

You fuckers haven't listened to Mando Diao yet, have you? "Ode to Ochrasy" is the new one. (By "you fuckers" I mean most of the world, not just you fuckers).

Otomo Yoshihide and Ground Zero, "Revolutionary Pekinese Opera, v. 1.28," listen to that shit, yo, it'll freak you out a little but it's jacked up on mono no aware so it's easy to progress from there into the more abstract corners of this Japanese acid-jazz-noise-improvisation-collective. This and many other Ground Zero records have a general flow strongly reminiscent of a kabuki play; sometimes I wonder if it's deliberate or if I'm hearing an unintentional cleaving to an ingrained notion of art.

I love the High Llamas, check out "Cold and Bouncy" and "Snowbug." I don't expect anyone else to, though.

You know who I miss? Sixty Foot Dolls. Straight ahead rock has rarely been done better.

And hellyeah, LT, Turbonegro, woo! The Swedes are taking over!

Recent stuff I like: Husky Rescue, Money Brother, Thomas Dybdahl.

People should hear Jimmy Lee Williams. And Nelson Sargento.

And to get them to like jazz, play them "Duke Ellington & John Coltrane" (1962). It's not my favorite jazz record by any stretch, but it's accessible and great, and I've heard quite a few folks say, "I'm not a jazz fan, but can I get a copy of that?"

Oh yeah, have I ever mentioned Magma? Friends, Kobaïans, countrymen, lend Christian Vander your ears. Try "Üdü Wüdü" and "Attahk." Prog and Magog!

"... IF you could build a set list around Kind of Blue, what would it be? That's one of my all-time favorite albums.
posted by Lipstick Thespian 29 August | 20:41

Heresy though it be, I'm going to say that Miles Davis was somewhat over-rated as an innovative force in jazz, although he employed some of the people bmarkey lists (Coltrane, Evans, and Tyner). Miles did hit a certain chord of popularity, just when middle America was beginning to pay attention to post bebop jazz, and "Kind of Blue" reflects that turn of attention as much in its popularity, as it does in its musicality.

Still, everybody owns "Kind of Blue," so it's a good jumping off point in many discussions, and I'm personally indebted to Miles, just for providing a place to start conversations. And it is good music! Nothing wrong with anyone's taste, who likes "Kind of Blue," in my book. But, as music, it's more derivative, than many listeners believe. I like bmarkey's advice to "look at who played on the album and go from there." In that day and age, (late '50s and early '60s New York jazz scene) the crossover of personnel from one act/album, to another, was nothing short of incestuous. By design. The good guys wanted to play with the good guys. Period. Take their recommendations, above mine.

And remember, "Kind of Blue" was only recorded in 1959. If you start from "Kind of Blue," and go forward in time only, you miss the most fertile bebop period, and all of Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Billie Holliday, and much of many other seminal jazz artists with earlier careers, like Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, and Billy Eckstine. If you want to hear great music, I think you have to be willing to give up hi-fi, and stereo, and go back a bit, to 1920's and 1930's recording technology, limited though it was, and do your part, as a listener, to pick up the gold that was put down for your enjoyment, today. Personally, I derive a lot of satisfaction from jokes Lil Hardin-Armstrong recorded 90 years ago, for me to find, today.

But if I still get to answer your question, for a 2 hour set list, based on "Kind of Blue" I'd suggest:

1) Milestones - Miles Davis - (5:45) From 1958, a year before "Kind of Blue," here's Miles Davis playing what is rhythmically a bop inspired piece (looking back), with some of the "modal" changes that would later be cited as a "revolutionary" element of "Kind of Blue," (looking forward). I think this piece points to Miles Davis taking a much more evolutionary approach to his music in that period, than we sometimes now think he did, looking back.
2) Naima - John Coltrane (4:25) From his 1960 album Giant Steps, here's Coltrane with his first quartet, in a recording based on his own compositions and name. At this point, "Kind of Blue" had been out for just about a year, and Coltrane had left the Miles Davis sextet to make his own music, as a leader. Just a pretty ballad, for his then wife, Juanita Naima Grubb.
3) 'Round Midnight - Bill Evans -(6:30) With this 1963 recording by Bill Evans, I'm leading you somewhere, beyond "Kind of Blue," and yet looking back, still, to before "Kind of Blue," to Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie. You don't mind, do ya? Because this recording by Evans, even well after the commercial success of "Kind of Blue," marks the fact that jazz is really a big river, and even such brilliant drops of creativity as "Kind of Blue" get absorbed in the larger stream. It's also recognition by Evans of people like Monk, who were pushed aside by Davis as "too difficult" to use as sidemen in Davis groups, but whose contributions to jazz were equally seminal, in that same time frame.
4) Four on Six - Wes Montgomery, Wynton Kelly Trio (6:44) Again, I'm leading you somewhere, based on Wynton Kelly's appearance on "Kind of Blue" as pianist on "Freddie Freeloader." Via Wes Montgomery, I'm giving you some links out to the West Coast, to Stan Getz, Art Pepper, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, and all those guys doing West Coast jazz in the same time. More on this later.
5) Big Paul - Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane (14:04) Here's a tribute to bassist Paul Chambers, by pianist/arranger Tommy Flanagan, performed by guitarist Kenny Burrell and saxophonist John Coltrane with Paul Chambers on bass (contributing one of his trademark bowed bass solos), released a year before "Kind of Blue." It'll give you some additional perspectives of what I'm talking about, when I say that "Kind of Blue" wasn't as revolutionary as some writers make it out.
6) Cobb's Groove - Jimmy Cobb's Mob - (7:04) Might as well hear from the last surviving musician from "Kind of Blue," while you still can. Drummer Jimmy Cobb remains active in New York, as this cut from his 2003 album shows.
7) All of You - Bill Evans Trio - (8:19) Much has been written about the creative tensions between Miles Davis and Bill Evans during the making of "Kind of Blue" and by 1961, Evans was playing more dates as a leader of his own Trio than anything else. This cut, from the last recordings Evans made with bass phenom Scott LeFaro (LeFaro was killed in a car wreck 10 days after this recording), happens to be my favorite. And LeFaro contributes the kind of lyrical improvisation that Davis often seemed to see as competition from his sidemen. There's a relaxed freedom of spirit in this recording that you never hear from any Davis led group.
8) Work Song - Cannonball Adderley - (5:16) This tune, by Cannonball's brother Nat, is a recognizable jazz standard, written and recorded by the Adderley brothers around 1960, while "Kind of Blue" was still gathering momentum in the charts. Of all the players on "Kind of Blue," I think Cannonball's career was least deflected from its course by the success he had with Miles Davis. Cannonball and Nat had a bond that didn't require exploiting that connection with Davis, and that let Cannonball be the kind of contributor and sideman that could play with Davis, without threatening him.

So, that's our first hour, in a two hour set, and we've heard from all the contributors to "Kind of Blue." Now, let's branch out a bit, and follow some of these secondary links a bit further, in a second hour.

9) A Ballad - Gerry Mulligan & Stan Getz - (5:41) Back in 1949 and 1950, when Miles Davis was still playing trumpet in Charlie Parker quintets, Davis put together a rehearsal nonet (nine piece band), and recorded a number of tunes for Capitol Records, originally for 78 RPM single releases. Later, in 1957, these tunes would be gathered and re-issued as the LP "Birth of The Cool." But by then, West Coast people, like Gerry Mulligan, who'd gone to New York to work in the bebop scene for a couple of years, had pretty much returned to the West Coast as a base of operations. This tune, by Mulligan, from a 1957 "X Meets Y" series date put together by producer Norman Granz, is a pretty ballad by two jazz greats who sort of "bounced off" that New York scene in their early attempts, as Mulligan did in his work with Davis in '49 and '50, and went back to develop the whole commercial West Coast sound.
10) Teo - Miles Davis - (9:10) This cut, from a 1961 recording of Davis live at Carnegie Hall, is a tune written as a tribute to producer/arranger/saxophonist Teo Macero, without whose efforts, "Kind of Blue" might never have become the record it was. Regardless of Davis' sometimes prickly reputation with musicians, he was quick to recognize the contributions of producers and recording engineers in the process of bringing his music to wider audiences, and his collaboration with Macero probably benefited him more than it has Macero. And I just like Macero's stand on re-issues of original LPs, where he's adamant about not re-editing older cuts for the expanded time limits of CD format.
11) Summertime - John Coltrane - (11:37) This cut, from the 1961 album My Favorite Things is notable, for this set, in a couple of regards. First, it's a completely different approach to the classic Gershwin tune than Miles Davis took when he recorded it for his 1958 album Porgy and Bess. And second, it's a bridge to the earliest version of what would become the classic John Coltrane Quartet, here with McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums, and Steve Davis on bass (who would later be replaced by Jimmy Garrison).
12) Solea - Miles Davis - (12:15) I include this composition by composer and arranger Gil Evans for the 1960 collaboration with Miles Davis Sketches of Spain mainly to make the point that, in the same period of a few months surrounding the recording and release of "Kind of Blue," Davis was performing and writing with many highly creative people, whose influences show clearly in the music for "Kind of Blue." To my mind, that flies in the face of Davis' claim as sole composer of the all the music on "Kind of Blue," and I think many people believe that co-writing credits should have gone to pianist Bill Evans and arranger Gil Evans, and that Davis subsequent projects and support of these contributors was his way of paying them back for their unacknowledged creative contributions on "Kind of Blue." But, for the record, only Bill Evans ever publicly claimed writing credits for any of the music on "Kind of Blue," (specifically "Blue in Green" when Bill Evans later recorded it for his own album of the same name).
13) Peace - Ornette Coleman - (9:02) That Miles Davis had a huge ego, and could be publicly dismissive of the efforts of other musicians is well known. The release of Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz To Come in late 1959 certainly took some critical interest away from "Kind of Blue," and may have cost Davis some record sales, and interest by record buyers. There's no doubt that Coleman's music was less immediately approachable to the mass audience, for lack of a conventional rhythm section, as a constant chord and time structure device. But clearly Coleman was leading avant garde jazz in different directions, and stealing Davis' thunder as the jazz innovator. This did not sit well with Davis, and he publicly dismissed Coleman's work repeatedly. So, I include this ironically titled cut to remind you of that controversy, and suggest you decide for yourself.
14) Django - The Modern Jazz Quartet - (4:40) Pianist John Lewis was another early collaborator of Miles Davis, who "bounced off" Davis' personality early on, by all accounts. Lewis contributed to the 1949 Birth of The Cool sessions, but by the mid-50's, had gotten together with vibraphonist Milt Jackson, to form what would eventually become the Modern Jazz Quartet. In 1960, the MJQ recorded their very popular European Concert LP, which brought additional attention to so called "Third Stream jazz," and acted as additional critical and popular competition for Davis' work. And while "Django" is not, precisely, Third Stream, it's a pretty tune by Lewis, and represents.
15) Footprints - Miles Davis Quintet - (9:49) This tune by Wayne Shorter for the 1966 Miles Smiles LP is a fitting inclusion for this set, if for no other reason than Wayne Shorter is often described as the tenor sax player who finally replaced John Coltrane in the Miles Davis Quintet. Alternatively, Shorter is sometimes described as one of the few Davis collaborators whose music Davis didn't generally claim or change.

And that is my two hours of jazz suggested by "Kind of Blue." A day late, I guess, but I hope, not a dollar short. Enjoy.

Oh yeah, have I ever mentioned Magma? Friends, Kobaïans, countrymen, lend Christian Vander your ears. Try "Üdü Wüdü" and "Attahk." Prog and Magog!

MAGMA LIVE RAWKS THE UNIVERSE.

THAT IS ALL.

Does Mecha have a Nobel Prize for Awesomeness? I vote Paulsc.

Every time one of these threads comes along, I'm going to plump for Gilded Palace of Sin by The Flying Burrito Brothers.