Composer James Mtume Destroys Jazz Critic Stanley Crouch in a Debate about Miles Davis.mp4
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- James Mtume & Stanley Crouch Debate Jazz Great Miles Davis' Electric Period at the Amistad Center for Art & Culture in Hartford, CT
"I'll play it first and tell you what it is later." -- Miles Davis
If i were a bell
Miles Davis
My heart is profoundly heavy right now. RIP, James Mtume (3 January 1946 - 9 January 2022) 🙌🏿🙏🏿😭
🌹
Stanley Crouch should be punished.
Unreal 😢 Great Musician, Great Mind, Great Man. I will miss his voice that made a difference in Black Thought. Be At Rest 👊🏿
One the best that ever do it a true brother
You just informed me (1-27-22).
Ma'at Kherw. Ma'at Kherw. Ma'at Kherw. He is Justified. He is Free of His earthly fetters, and has become reunited with the essence of Creation Who birthed Him. Honor to His memory.
Who cares what critics say. Listen to the music and like it or not. I NEVER listen to music critics. Got my own ears.
As the brother says at the start, those that can do, those that can't teach, those that wish they could become critics.
Plenty of people care what critics say, and the main people who care are the artists themselves. Don't let any artist (and I am an artist) tell you they don't read what the critics say about their work. What critics write may not influence what the artist does in the future. However, it's only human to care what someone thinks about one's work. A positive word regarding our work signifies acceptance. What other reason would artists of all kinds allow the positive quotes of critics to be featured in advertising representing their work? (They do have a say in this). All of this said, Crouch and Mtume are allowed to disagree. One is giving their opinion (Crouch), and another is offering facts (Mtume).
Critics, historians and music nerd may be useful to create a coherent history of a music genre. Without guidance and with 1000000000000 jazz albums produced you won't have a single idea about how to navigate that made magnum of music. Hence you need a guide, main genres, sub genres, what are the main ideas at the time, who are the key players and so on. Without someone reconstructing music it would be only chaos.
"They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art": Charlie Parker.
❤️ you James Mtume! Thank you visiting earth and sharing your music, thinking and absolute brilliance. ‘Hope to see you again.
11:45 "influence found in the next generation" See, Flying Lotus; See, Thundercat; See, Christian Scott; See, Kamasi Washington; See, Nujabes; See, DJ Shadow; See, Nightmares on Wax; See, Cinematic Orchestra…the list goes on and on and on. Miles Davis was a Genius, who fathered this new generation of artists who fuse jazz and electronics - their listeners, and their critics.
+Darrell Fennell 100% agreed. His vision on masterpieces like "On The Corner" (Oh, the 'Complete Sessions' are pure magic) was waaaay ahead of its time. You will find it years later on hip-hop rhythms, drum n' bass, etc etc. And that fat dude's still stuck in the fucking 1950's.
+Darrell Fennell-Yup and Animals as leaders, anything from Radiohead after Kid A, Medeski Martin and Wood, The Bad Plus, Primus, Tool, Red hot Chili Peppers, even Metallica ( Trujillo doing a Doc on Jaco this year!), Phish, Bela Fleck, Artist Genius, Dave Matthews Band, and on and on
That's a list. I am very confused why the electric period wasnt continued as much as traditional music. Bitches Brew to me is a universe of future music still to be explored.
Funny how you mentioned Flylo and Nujabes but left out Dilla who even sampled Miles
They sayJazz is dead...I laugh at the Premature Autopsies once again. Precisely because of young Artists like these who are picking up the flag and running with it.
Loved this exchange. R.I.P. Mr. Mtume. 🙏🏾❤🖤💚🌹🌹🌹🌹
Nice to hear Mtume call BS against the Jazz police. Much more than that: fascinating new insights on a fertile period.
Mtume spoke like a musician who understood musical expression and exploration. Crouch spoke like a journalist who wanted to narrowly define jazz to match his biases. But Crouch's idea that the fusion music that Miles played a big part in creating is disappearing is completely wrong. Today we're living in a musical era that rewards cross pollenation and innovation. What Crouch thought is disappearing was really just the process of the evolution of an art form. From those early pioneers like Miles we ended up with Chick Corea and Return to Forever, Michael Brecker, The Crusaders, David Sanborn, Kirk Whalum, Larry Carlton, The Yellowjackets, Pat Metheny, Stanley Clark, Robben Ford, Roy Hargrove, and George Benson, to name a few. Sorry Mr. Crouch, you were wrong in so many ways.
If I'm going to believe anyone, it's going to be the man with first hand knowledge!
Exactly!!!!
I agree. Miles' influence on music is, not was but is, is boundless. IMOP, even his "acoustic" works were forward looking.
i agree brother T also they left out Prince and jay dilla and who put a muted trumpet in Hiphop? Certainly not Winton his brother Branford yes !! time for the old plantation thinking to take a nap i say Peace....
Bakunin says 'in matters of boots, refer to the bootmaker'
@@vernondgermanRecordingLoft I saw your comment what does Plantation thinking have to do with this or at least the way that I understand Plantation thinking it's obvious we have a different Outlook on what that term implies
James Mtume was in touch with his musical generation, the musical generations that preceded him, and the musical generations that succeeded him.
That is where his genius resonates the most in my mind, his openness to the fact, that all music has its place in time, no music is insignificant, it all has value. May the "Most High" forever bless his soul...🙏🏼...
Your talent, genius and gift of enlightening and educating others will be missed. RIP, James Mtume.
"Those who can't do, those who can't teach, those who wish they could become critics"
So damn glad to see Stanley Crouch get his ass handed to him by James Mtume. Thank you, James Mtume. Say good night, Wynton Marsalis, Stanley Crouch and the rest of the downtown knitting club in Concrete National Park.
As one of my music graduate professors aptly put it, when you think about Miles's career, it can be split into two parts: from '44 - '67 (roughly), Miles played acoustic. From '68 - '91 (his death), he played electric. Equal parts. Think about that for a second. 23 years in the acoustic world, 23 years in the electric world. Miles didn't sell out. This is how he heard music, and the duration of his allegiance to the electric sound underscores his artistic motivation.
Excellent comment. However, you left out that Davis' electronic stuff was crap.
@@mja91352 He also left out that Miles went electronic after he saw that the record sales of rock/psychedelic albums were dwarfing best sellers in jazz. I don't have a quote at hand, but Clive Davis talked about it in a show on Netflix. The idea that Miles woke up one day and made a strictly artistic decision to go electronic is a fantasy.
@Dylan It's from a documentary that basically quotes miles as saying he was frustrated that these kids who didn't know jack shit about music could sell out a stadium with fifths and electronic volume excitement despite being rockers who could barely tell you the difference between a A and an E.
And those slights to rockers and funkers isn't even mine. Miles said that.
Completly agree with spb. Miles had already made massive contributions to jazz. I don't care if you call it "selling out" He had a right to do anything he wanted. Besides, I would have never listened to "Kind of Blue" "Sketches of Spain" or "Porgy and Bess" If I had not been introduced to Jazz through "Bitches Brew" "Live Evil" and "In a Silent Way".
@@ChordtoChord this! Miles Davis had already made some of the greatest contributions to the genre so he can do whatever he likes as, not just an artist but a pioneer and figurehead for an entire genre of music
"What has that turned into?" Wow, Crouch seriously wasn't paying attention to any music of the time. Like, this was the period where Quincy Jones was the lord of the charts. Not noticing the jazz evolution in his productions is insane. Mtume dropping Mos Def's name shows he knew exactly how deep the influence was currently happening, and where it could eventually lead.
However, he probably knows the definition of Evolution," which you clearly do not.
@Jeremy Ellis - Exactly. Miles' fusion influence evolved into and inspired the music of Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, Robert Flack and even prog rock groups like Pink Floyd and Yes. Not to mention jazz fusion's revival and expansion in the early-mid 90's with hip-hop and neo-soul artists like A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, Gang Starr, The Roots, Eryka Badu and Maxwell bringing the sound to a new generation.
@@citizencain01 neo soul isn't fusion it's neo soul lol
@@fritzjackson4336 Never said it was fusion I said it was influenced by it.
Jeremy Ellis ...Most of Miles' fusion weren't played over the airwaves. It was very the same for 'Trane, as well!
Stanley Crouch always had a problem with Miles Davis and James Baldwin.
Sometimes he sounds like Wendy Williams about Whitney Houston...damn
Stanley Crouch is so conservative and rigid in his musical tastes it's ridiculous. He's actually very funny. It's almost like he's playing a role.
HE REALLY IS ITS DOWNRIGHT EMBARASSING AND IF WE WOULD HAVE COME TOGETHER,DEPENDING ON WHO WAS DRIVING, SOMEBODY WOULD BE CATCHING A CAB!!!!!!! AND THATS REAL!!!!!
Well maybe he is.
How can anyone listen to a person with such limited musical tastes. It always shows through in the personality.
Crouch was a wanna be scholar who always had something negative to say about Black people.
Funny, too, because was once the drummer in David Murray's Black Music Infinity, playing some pretty "outside" stuff, and he was an active participant with Murray in New York's loft scene in the mid-1970s. Hardly a a milieu you'd expect a "conservative" to emerge from. Not sure why he retrenched so.
Oh how I adore Mtume - he calls out Crouch's pretentiousness right at the start, and in a manner many of us wish we could.
See my comments above. Crouch has an opinion, that's all. You chiming in here doesn't make you "pretentious."
Guys like Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis practically killed Jazz by trying to turn it into classical music and building a wall around it and trying to gatekeep it. If it were up to them, the development of Jazz would have stopped somewhere in the late 50’s or early 60’s. Jazz to me has always been about innovation and bringing in new sounds and styles, mixing them into something completely new, fresh, and exciting. I’ve never got the hostility to electronic instruments - if you’re playing great shit, who cares if it’s on an electric piano or an acoustic one? Miles didn’t sell out, he was trying to reach a new audience. The worst thing that could ever happen to Jazz is to turn it into “classical” music, becoming less and less relevant as the years go on because it stops developing.
Agree. This was the main issue I had with Ken Burns' docuseries on jazz- him depended a little too much on the views of Crouch & Marsalis- whose views on post-1960s jazz affected the series as a whole.
Classical Music, developed and evolved for over 400 years. Many of the jazz musicians that we regard as the foundations gained insights through classical music and composers.
and also wynton is a racist piece of shit that follows in the steps of his white daddies
I’m pretty sure miles would love Robert Grasper Experiment. Regardless if he or anyone else considers them “jazz”. He’d hear someone pushing several art form forward
Jazz music IS classical music for all intents and purposes, it's an extension of western classical concepts, like a parent and a child. It's this conception, this affirmed cliche, this, frankly broad and tragic MISCONCEPTION that classical music (referring to the likes of Bach, Handel etc) is somehow stuffy and regimented and "set-in-stone" is ironically due to yet another bastardization of an art form. The modern era, critics, academics have bastardized classical like you're saying they're bastardizing jazz, gatekeeping it, building walls around it. We've been through this already. That music was free and interpretive before academia started attempting to standardize and mould it into some kind of hardened conceptual ruleset. I was taught strictly to not write consecutive fifths when writing 4 part harmony and that I would be marked down for that when I got my degree- Yet they told me to look at Bach's music, so I did. There are no less than 54 instances of consecutive perfect fifths and octaves in Bach's Chorales. Some of them in parallel.
It's this kind of bullshit that kills the spirit of anything. It was ACADEMIA that made people interpret Bach in the same god damn way every time, so they could measure one human against another without having to think too goddamn hard, it was ACADEMIA that established a false pedagogy filled with nonsense limiters in order to force a system of "stylistic appropriateness". Don't get it twisted, all music is free and breathing until some fool with authority puts it in a cage and throws a blanket over it to make his life easier.
Some Musicians are brilliant when they put down their instruments and tools to talk to you like an intellectual who will blow your mind away. These people are students of human nature, philosophy, psychology, music and other forms of artistic excellence.
the critics tend to keep jazz in a place where it's dying
this
Case in point, the Classic Jazz old timers typically aren't fans of Smooth Jazz.
@@tommyv8312 smooth jazz is basically RnB, they're so bothered by the name its annoying. Get over it
S. O I disagree, it should definitely be considered Jazz, while I can hear why people may consider it R&B. It would also depend on the Jazz musician. Certain ones added more Jazz to their style than others, but overall, R&B and Smooth Jazz should be kept separate.
James Mtume was a both a musical visionary and projector of possibilities, much like his former employer Miles Davis. Mtume dared to look beyond and reach for that which seemed intangible and inhuman when other musicians were content to create small variants of what had already been done. The success he had fusing his particular brand of lyricism and composition with musical synthesizers and drum machines to create a sound that was as lively and organic as with acoustic instruments bears this out. As befitting his Swahili last name, he was truly a messenger to those with an ear to hear. Respect and RIP.
But probably unable to check the accurate sound when speaking
to the mike .
That was a great exchange! Thanks for the video and being able to hear/see both sides.
This is an argument between a conservative and a ground breaker. Many folks who loved Big Band thought that Bop was noise when it came out. But after 20-30 years Bop became the new standard. Conservative folks always gravitate to what they are familiar and comfortable with. Ground breakers are always striving to move forward, to break from convention into new territory. Stanly Crouch is conservative, had he lived during the Big Band era, he would have thought Bop was a sell out. Simple as that.
Miles Davis is one of the greatest producers period. He created several different sounds and influenced music heavily for several decades.
The late Duke Ellington said it best. . . there are only two types of music: Good music and bad music.
Tysons Accosta ...Ellington wasn't the only one who said that!
Stanley’s playing checkers, James chess.
"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" (Frank Zappa)
Duke Ellington, actually
@@mingusman84 Actually actually it seems to be controversial.
Asinine
Love Zappa but that quote has always struck me as so stupid
@@lilacrain3283 I also love Zappa, but I also love talking about music! We should try to dance about architecture, and see if he was right! 😉
"If you wanna be consistent, go back to a quill." DAMN. Mtume SMOKED Crouch.
I’m always amused by people who claim the electric period was miles selling out and making a cash grab to appease the label. In what world is something like “Pharoh’s Dance” (especially past the 6 minute mark) seen as viably commercial or mainstream? Bitches Brew is quite obviously a natural though unexpected progression from what he did on Filles De Kilimanjaro,’ with Silent Way being a slight detour yet important in that evolution.
Mtune was a musical pioneer, performer, and teacher. Your legacy will forever be with us.
Miles Davis unique contribution was that he kept his ears open. I can't think many other musicians or composers who could do this like Miles. From Be Bop to Hip Hop, from Classical to Funk. He went a long way in inventing Cool Jazz. many musicians were brought through by Miles, Chic Corea Herbie Hancock, Kenny Garret many more.
there was no sell out.
Jazz is based on popular music any way. How High the Moon is the starting point for Ornithology. that critics whole argument is none sense. For me the exciting stuff now is in mixing and the creative use of samples etc. The best hip hop matches the best be bop.
Take a track in Tutu towards the end, dub reggae is mixed in with musique concrete with a hard funk back beat, blended seamlessly. whats the issue.
The danger for jazz is that it becomes a "classical music" that people interpret..
When Bach's Well tempered Clavier appeared were people up in arms because tonality was now seemingly fixed.
Miles spirit is essential. Listen, feel the pulse of the time you are in, this is not a sell out, this is keeping your ears open. Or do we all want a Simon Cowell universe where everything is predetermined for every one?
The Tenor sax...yes there is a problem getting beyond the trane. All modern players seem to sound like him. I play a tenor and it is a very open instrument. There is a problem.
Miles solution was simple....keep your ears open always!.
Jon Effemey Sell out. But it's okay. He made some fun music for the hippies and made some money that he thoroughly deserved. Music is a form of entertainment. I'm sure Bach wrote some pieces that he thought were garbage, intended to satisfy some prince he owed a piece to.
Jon Effemey "The best hip hop matches the best be bop." In your dreams! Nice rhyme, though.
His analogue is spot on. Nothing he said was wrong, just another interpretation of a thought. That's what "jazz" is. Keep your ears open.
Unfortunately, his later music was crap
@@gcrav obviously you've never listened to Freestyle Fellowship.
When Miles went electric that was new sounding music. It still sounds new. It doesn't sound "commercial" in the least, and if Davis suggested a change, well so be it. Miles wasn't gonna be stuck in the 60's
Mtume is a joy to listen to here. He really takes Stanley to school and educates us all about the evils of conservatism as well as the danger of close-mindedness. Once you close your mind AND your ears you stop learning as well. Miles' music was at the peak of its creativity and he was at his most innovative during his electric period. He stood out from all of the bop and cool artists in a way that wouldn't have been possible twenty years before.
"Once you close your mind AND your ears you stop learning".
Wow, you're a regular fucking Aristotle...
"evils of conservatism"? LMFAO, ok hillary. boomer!
@@tomcarl8021 So your complaint is the other post stated a truth that was too obvious? I guess you were pretty determined to find something to mock, but that's the best you can do? You didn't embarrass your target; the only one you embarrassed was yourself, although not really because to feel embarrassed you'd need enough intelligence to see why it was a such a dumb attempt at trolling, and you clearly lack that, so you're safe.
@@Gregorypeckory Jesus Christ. You sound like Mr Brady lecturing one of the kids at the end of a Brady Bunch episode.
@@tomcarl8021 I didn't watch the show so can't judge, but it sounds like Mr Brady was a rational person. You, on the other hand, just sounded like a dick.
WOW!!
First off, kudos to RUclips for putting this video in my feed, otherwise I would not have known that Mtume died.
I have respect for both of these men.
I actually met Stanly because he sat in once for Archie Shepp, who taught a course at Umass-Amherst in the late 70s (I also met some Jazz greats there too, Frank Foster and Marion Brown). He was a nice person to talk with, wouldn’t belittle my opinions.
I saw Mtume a couple of times on BET’s “Video Soul” with Donnie Simpson, and he was just as deep, intense and in-your-face.
As for the content of the debate, technology always changed the rules, starting with records, then the Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, Fuzz Box, Synthesizer, Turntable (scratching) Samplers and on and on.
I haven’t listened to part two of this debate yet, but was so excited I had to respond!
Ah... Dude? Thanking youtube for putting this in your feed is like thanking a calculator for the answer 4 when you put in 2 + 2.
@@mr.c8033 , I don't have any reliable source of information on the music/artists that interest me and the 'urban' radio stations in my city are totally useless, they didn't even mention Mtume's death. How and when did you find out?
@@gregoryphillips760 You got a point, Greg. I was insinuating that while you may not have realized, your viewing history and the algorhythm math brought you here. Same as me dude. I had no clue either.
What's to debate? You either dig it or not. No argument will change the fact about whether you feel the music or not.
Exactly, a tempest in a teapot, for sure.
R.I.P. James Mtume
It's good to hear from Brother James after a long time
"if the sun goes down, that's it" - lol.
Columbia was unhappy with Miles’s sales in 1967-68. They’d advanced him money, and wanted it back. Miles wanted to reach black youth. He knew most were not buying his music, but that of Sly, Stax, Motown, James Brown, and Hendrix instead. He incorporated elements of their musical language - 8th or 16th note grooves, electric bass, guitar, got deeper into the pocket, and reached more folks.
James Brown was an influence on them all.
The elements of so call funk was mastered by James Brown his music was never going to be abandoned by the Youth. He was a commercial success and a cross over long before many other Artist/ Performers.
Sherman McKinney ...False!
@@brucescott4261 You cannot say false. You can say you think it's wrong, but not necessarily false. James was influenced by jazz. Funk was heavily influenced by Jazz and Funk then influenced Jazz. Inspiration is influenced and influence is constant. Quincy Jones had an ear but was a poor composer. He influenced funk by mixing some sounds. Herbie Hancock is a funk master and a Jazz master.James Brown sound is the basis of the psychedelic funk that was influenced by rock that in turn would influenced Jazz. It evolves, rolls searches for new direction. Jazz would influenced Hip Hop, Hip Hop would influenced trip top, trip top would become House music and would go back to basis as acid jazz....and it goes on and on and on.
Ok you on to something here. The precursor to "black pop" the artists that made the wider/whiter audience come to them. From Neptunes (with Pharrell), MJ, Stevie, to JB the Godfather
Thank you for posting this. This man (James Mtume) is a Teacher. Wow. Impressive.
I saw this clip 11 YEARS AGO and the heading was always that "James Mtume destroyed Stanley Crouch" on this debate.
This Genius of Genetic
Mr.James Mtume
Legendary Genius Masters
Created among most Music
Today .
R.I.P/Mr.Stanley Crouch
Amazing Journey Jornual
Wall Street Journal/New York
Times writer.Ri.p..
Amazing leadership
👀 Watching Litsen
Learning 🌳 Trees
Brothers speaks
I
That is the most profound truth on innovation versus reverence that I have ever heard, and how he sums up Genius is poetic.
The critic reminds me in ways of an NME critic laughing at Queen, reviewers like this, they are stuck in their narrow field of view...or blinkered ears. RIP what a Man.
Reminds me about a conversation I had with my dad about this. He said critics can only observe art from the outside. Not being artists, they can only echo what other critics agree are higher forms of art. They intellectualize, but cannot form art themselves. As such, they will never truly understand the mind of an artist and the motivations that push them to create.
if you're familiar with miles davis's work you'll know that in his electric period he played the same as before the electric period, he just changed his rythym section to reflect what was going on in the current music.
Miles' body of work is like a grand river, wide, and it goes forever and ever. You don't just listen to a song or a hot solo. You bathe in the vibe and mood and you float downstream. The music will carry you and envelope you. It feels open, the rules are not the same. Listen, don't listen. Banal becomes beautiful and fascinating. Monotony becomes riveting, each note may become very intriguing, even though you've heard it played to death before in other contexts. Simple becomes complex. Repetitive but never the same way twice. Simultaneously trance inducing and electrically kinetic. The roadmap has become intuitive, marked with roads NOT to take. Contradictions make sense. For me, that's an aesthetic accomplishment.
I was present at this event and so happy Mtume put things in perspective.
James Mtume = If I played on it / it must be good
Yah, got that right!
"Second hand smoke screen"
DAMN!!!
Stanley Crouch left a bad taste in my mouth when he said Miles' Bitches Brew was his worst work. How can someone say such a thing?! Jazz isn't defined by a sound or instrument it's always been the approach and mentality towards execution and expression. Stanley, where were you when Coltrane was preaching this?! Shame.
He doesn't like later Coltrane either.
Yet, he supposedly was/worked as an Avant-Garde Jazz Drummer in the 1960s...I wonder if he was any good...
But, that wasn't jazz...., it was "social music".
What do you think?
@@tiluriso
@@wowserstar Yep and neither does Wynton Marsalis for that matter.
In the Miles doc on Netflix an argument is made as to why Miles “went electric”. It was late 1968 or so and he was playing to half filled audiences at places like the Vanguard, and he saw rock bands filling the Fillmore, MSG, festivals, etc - and he wanted that audience reach. That said - Miles being Miles forged a whole new genre of jazz with Bitches Brew and In A Silent Way and did it his way with super talented young musicians who went on to become legends in their own right (Zawinal, Jarrett, Corea, Steve Grossman, and Mtumbe and others ). Ironically, early on when Miles first came to NYC, he didn’t fully take to the bop scene with Parker and others, the Netflix doc suggesting that Miles may have had more of a classical (conservative ??) aesthetic, leading him to the Birth of Cool and then on to his great quintets. Wind bags like Crouch (and Wynton) just wouldn’t have it when Miles stopped playing what they liked him to play or really what they thought he should play
Look out anyone who dared disagree with James Mtume about music, RIP
Love Mtume!!
Clear concise.
Couch needed to concede.
.”...those who wish”.
When I listen to Mtume speak it makes me realize how stuck in my "purist" or "traditionalist" ways I am. I don't know why i just love the roots of it all more than the plant produced. And im an afro cuban/afro cuban jazz musician (percussionist) but it crosses over to jazz for me too.
R.I.P. Mtume & Stanley
" The note after the one you think is bad corrects the one in front of it " . - M.D. R.I.P. Mr . Mtume .
I loved Miles with Parker and Dizz. I loved Miles with Coltrane. I loved Miles with "Bitch's Brew". I only wish Miles had made a record with Hendrix. It almost happened. Miles was a giant.
Miles and Hendrix had great mutual respect. I agree that would have been a historical pairing.
We musicians get weary of music "know-it-all" music critics blasting Miles Davis...sigh... James Mtume, you are a genius - keep telling it like it is!!
Yo….if Crouch doesn’t like Miles’ electronic music (some of which l think is crap), he is entitled to do so, PERIOD.
I've done some dumb things in my life, but I've never been in an argument about music on the side that's against Miles Davis.
he's not. you just got fooled by a hit piece.
Fascinating convo. As more of a rocker than a jazzer, Miles's funk period has always spoken to me the most. It was admirable that he continued to stay in dialogue with contemporary currents when many in jazz were content to stick to within the confines of the previous generation's "technical exhaustion" as Mtume calls it. However, it would already be a pretty tenuous argument to most jazz people that his funk period is superior to his 50s-60s work and even I agree that his 80s work, while underrated and cool, was weaker than any his earlier work.
One conversation that neither Mtume or Crouch could have known enough about future to have was about the obsolescence of music technology. Mtume is right to bristle at the idea that music should be confined to older acoustic models. But at the same time, just because something is novel and different doesn't make it more valuable than what came before. There are sounds from the 80s that have endured and stayed with us. Then there are many that didn't age well. In particular a lot of digital synthesis from the 80s sounds very cheesy compared to what's available today. Meanwhile a saxophone remains a saxophone through the generations. As a result of leaning so hard into early digital synthesis technology, I'd argue that many of Miles's 80s records paradoxically sound MORE dated than the music he made in earlier decades.
Thank You James Mtume!
I miss both of these guys. This discourse is really illuminating.
Miles's music from the On the Corner period is great. As a musician, I can say that it's influenced me and almost everyone I play with. And I play with a lot of great musicians.
I must have missed the destruction. And by the way: it is obviously edited (see @ 10:51). I've never seen Stanley be this brief.
I'm so bored of hearing about what other people have to say about Miles Davies.
Then do as I did. Read his autobiography...numerous times. :D
When its people who were actually there with him, I get less bored.
And yet you intentionally clicked on this link where guys talk about him. Are you just a tool, a troll, a hypocrite or a masochist?
@@kevinlakeman5043 It'll be OK bud
All you have to do is listen to his music. Don't listen to anyone else, just listen to his music, man.
Any true artist is constantly evolving, for Miles to keep playing the same music in the same format as the Kind of Blue era would have been his artistic death. No great artist in any form of art, Visual, Written, Music etc... stayed the same through the entirety of their life. People who are stuck in the conventions of a period 60 or 70 years ago are missing the point.
Many, many great artists stay the same the same throughout the entirety of their lives: Michelangelo, Rubens, Da Vinci, Titian, Goya, Hemingway, Faulkner, Trevor ... Look them up.
If you're an up-and-coming musician and you don't at least sit down and learn some of the great rep of earlier jazz musicians, you're doing yourself a disservice.
Just because it old don't mean it get jettisoned. It still has value. Do you play a horn? Do you play drums? You ever learn Papa Joe Jones or Max Roach phrases?
There is still great value in what they played. Even if you don't do the Wynton thing and _stick wit it_ , that rep should still be in your ear and in your horn.
And what point is that? That because you like new music you think everyone else should? That is so selfish.
"Out of Bitches Brew came all those other broths" haha, my man.
My lord, every breath is pouring with WISDOM!!
Imagine a critic asking, after Van Gogh died "So what did he really accomplish at this point? Why is his creative art worth it, instead of sticking with what everyone else was doing?"
Alot of people earn their living by being harvesters, and spreaders of people's misery, be it critics, journalists, politicians, and most media.
Brother James mad respect and love to you ✊🏾✊🏾✊🏾
I understood zero percent of the dialogue/argument but enjoyed the passion !!!
I love Kind Of Blue. That said my favorite period of Miles career is from Bitches Brew to Pangaea.
...JAMES!!!...Great to hear him
speak his mind...Thank you Sir...
...S'up Kelvyn, Peace, Fox
Miles never stopped exploring. That's the spirit of innovation. He was never afraid to take on what he found, and offer new perspectives.
I found it to be a lively and fun debate to listen to. They are both intelligent and honest about their views on the artform.
Agreed!
Rest In Peace, James
Mtume has spent his life making amazing music and enriching the world and Crouch has spent his life... um... well, carrying out the functions necessary for mammals to stay alive at least... I can't think of anything other major accomplishments. Why do people still pay any attention to him? He's a "music critic" that has trouble understanding the difference between polyphony and homophony for dog's sake!
I totally understand you & I'm also a musician. I have a love of all things musical & I like nearly all genres of music (although some I like more than others). I can even "appreciate" music that I don't particularly like. Personally I prefer "acoustic" Jazz (1930's - 70's). I worship Oscar Peterson (saw him 2X in concert). I do like some "synthy" jazz & fusion. Stanley Jordan (AMAZING!), Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, etc. My musical preferences alternate randomly with my mood. :-)
Strength Knowledge and Class 🙏🏾
I appreciate the respectful disagreements
I like your style Mtume of telling the facts to Crouch and love your music! May U be blessed always. Right on brother!
Mtume was also talking about “technical exhaustion.” He said that after a given time, in a given context, everything has been played that can be played in that form of music. That’s also nonsense - in fact, the ability to doing something new with the rhythm and chord progressions of “Stella by Starlight” is exactly what we mean by art. MORE
I also disagree with him on that, but I think I see his point -- music, like any art form, needs to grow; it can't remain stagnant and also remain relevant. The great thing about of jazz, of course, is that a master improviser can STILL bring new ideas and new spirit to a "warhorse" like "Stella." And people are still doing new and exciitng things in all-acoustic contexts, as well. New wine from old wineskins is savory and nourishing.
Will, to not take it literally- the instruments you play, if they're all you use, will be limiting creativity after some time. Yes, it will appear new but sound "old". The expansion and progression is inevitable
Why are they arguing about a subject that Miles was quite clear about? Fundamentally Mtume is right but I'm not sure why he's irritated by Crouch. Miles wanted to change because he was ALWAYS exploring the possibilities of Music. He and Coltrane had essentially taken the acoustic Jazz small band as far as musically possible without going completely off aka "free". At the same time Miles saw the powerful impact of Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles etc and the fame they created with the Electric sound. He also saw the changes in personal style and fashion. So he made a wholesale change and created Fusion. And because he was Miles, a bunch of people followed his lead. Just like they did in 1959.
It's obvious Mtume is correct. The only question is whether the concept of jazz is capacious enough to encompass what Miles did, or if it isn't. If Crouch has his way, he sets limits around jazz and makes it a static region. It's worth bearing in mind that many critics don't like ever-shifting boundaries, as it makes their job more difficult. For example, Joyce Carol Oates, the writer, is so prolific that critics can't keep up, and that angers them. Imagine if she kept redefining the novel, too. That's what Miles did with music, and some critics can't hack it! I agree jazz needs some definition to exist, but if it's about freedom and improvisation, then Miles can surely expand. Wynton is not above being influenced by his education in classical music such that he shares its glacier-like devotion to certain instruments and fixed (rigid) patterns. Now, cellists are breaking out into new territories, finally, but that instrument has long been imprisoned in a solely classical mindset.
The problem with critics is that people listen to them. A friend of mine won every peoples choice, in every art competition he entered, but was never rated by art critics.
"The influence has been found in the next generation" dam right it has. I was born after the electric era of miles Davis but it's my favorite part of his career.
I have never understood why jazz critics make such a big issue (either way) of using "electric" instruments. By the time Bitches Brew was released, country bluesmen like Muddy Waters had been using electric guitars for a good 20 years. It shouldn't have been any big deal. But I totally disagree with Mtume that traditional jazz instruments had reached "technical exhaustion".
RonnieLeeDuck I sort of disagree too but how much more technically amazing can people get beyond Tony Williams, coltrane, or chik corea? Technique should be a means and not an end in itself- so what's the social the cultural point of becoming let's say 2x as proficient as any of the musicians I mentioned? Would it make better music?
people like Hendrix and the Beatles showed how maybe a future development in music might not be in doubling technique but in creating new timbres and sounds, tape loops, recording techniques.
I'm not sure just a thought.
@@contactkeithstack I agree -- that's why the legions who try to "imitate" Williams, Trans, Corea, Bird, Henrdrix, or anyone else by trying to imitate their technique ("Oooh, if I can jam as many notes as possible into this solo . . .!") almost invariably fall short. They need to remember what Dizzy said: "It has taken me my whole life to learn what NOT to play."
The more I think about it over the years, it's not an invalid reason at all to want a different, or larger, or younger, more energetic or "hipper" audience. In fact it's a fundamental choice. Artists, especially in an improvisational medium, feed off their audiences, so it is a key aspect. Choosing an audience is as much an artistic choice as choosing chord structures. Being in a narrow-minded, shrinking, aging audience of mostly white hipsters and "intellectuals" was probably killing his inspiration and reminding him of his age. No one holds it against somebody when they get a new job because they are uninspired with the old one or can't grow in the position. Critics act like musicians are immune to such psychological factors.
Secondly, Hendrix and Sly were such forces of nature how could he not want to react to it?
Thirdly, how could you be a living musician and ignore the possibilities and timbres that amplification and electronics in general brought to music, not to mention effects, that were around since the mid 50s? The aesthetic effect of amplification on a trumpet is a matter of taste... perhaps it does obscure some "detail", but I assume a lead guitarist and that power was Miles' analogy...
Damn, I needed to hear that. Respect Mtume.
RIP to both gentlemen....
i actually didn't know crouch died. i knew about mtume and will miss him more.
I was blown away Bitches Brew. Its now number one favorite album.I bought On the Corner in December, 1998. I finally stopped listening to it in November of 1999. At times that's ALL I would listen to.
Kenneth Driver same man. I own all of those on vinyl and I go through periods of time where that's all I listen to
I hitchhiked 40 miles to buy it the day it came out. If i had to choose one album and throw the rest out, this is the one.
Mtume’s thinking is so far beyond Crouch, that he managed to make this “debate” a representation of what he was explaining.
This speech was not truly meant for the people in the room. The entire point is to inspire the youth, open minded, and future generations. It was not meant to try to get a brick wall to bend like clay.
RIP. This man is an artist in nature and application.
Man I love these insights, musical black magic & jujitsu. This shit is deep.
Good stuff. I so enjoyed this.
I hate to say it because i detest Stanley Crouch, but he did get Mtume to reverse course and act like he didn't in a really bullshit way. Mtume specifically said "technical exhaustion -- there's no way to create a work of genius with the saxophone or piano at this point". Then when Crouch made, honestly a rather good analogy to language, Mtume, erased himself and was like, "no I never said throw away the existing vocabulary, I said open up your mind to new words". That was dishonest.
Having said that, Crouch's overall argument that Miles, Weather Report and Herbie's fusion material "never went anywhere" shows he knows nothing about music. The reason I hate the Ken Burns Jazz doc is because you have to sit there listening to Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis blather for 700 hours. It's really a form of torture.
And Mtume dissed critics as poseurs early in this debate, then halfway through favorably cited a classical critic’s argument because he agreed with it.
Miles Davis played pop tunes in the Fifties (like Someday my prince will come) and play pop tunes in the eighties (like Time After Time). He didn't change his approach the the music of his time.
I use to fall asleep reading crouch's long winded liner notes on wynton marsalis albums...and then i would fall asleep to the album. I loved every phase of miles career. The only critlcs i respected were nat hentoff, ralph gleason and leroi jones.
Wow..Both of these brothas are gone....RIP!