Quote blog on Miles and attitude
Quotation blog Miles Davis Autobiography 413-413
Briefly towards the end of this book, Miles takes a brief moment to talk about Jazz as a whole. He does this after a long segment on the different styles of music that erupted from the 60s and 70s. This period in musical history yielded a huge amount of change and the birth of a load of new genres in music. Miles talked about how he would hear these different styles of music and decide that me must have certain elements of it in his own music. In order to do so, he would learn them and fuse them to Jazz. The one complication of doing this, however, is that it changes both forms of music and once again creates its own style. With music being full of different emotions and feelings, a new feeling would be born evert time that he felt this. Miles takes a step back in the book to explain Jazz.
"Jazz is something that I hear in my ear, jazz is an attitude." (Miles 344)
When Miles said this, it made me immediately think of another quote that I had heard Miles state; “Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.” I am unsure where this quote originated from, but I have heard it so many times. One can find it floating around on the internet. It appears that music to Miles is nothing but attitude. No matter what you play, or how you play it, it all comes down to attitude. The musical voice of Miles was extremely powerful and very confident. When looking at his past, one can see that his father was a wealthy doctor who taught Miles how to be very confident of himself and what he was doing always. This is an attitude towards life that stuck with Miles until his death in the 90s. When looking at other musicians, you can see how the attitude of jazz varies. Theolonius Monk is a good example of that. Theolonius grew up with a rather odd life. He was very poor growing up, yet his mother put all of her money together and bought Monk his own piano. From this, Monk learnt how to read sheet music from looking over his own sisters shoulders when she played piano. Monks father moved his family south and then decided himself to move back north but leave his family in the south. This disjointed confusing childhood gave Monk somewhat of a disjointed attitude towards jazz.
Personally my life has been pretty normal. The only crazy things that have happened in my life are music related and have to do with getting to know and play with a few of my idol blues guitarists. I think because of these events, my attitude towards music has developed into a bluesy attitude. When playing other styles of music, I still typically maintain that attitude of the blues. Short term, my attitude expressed through music expresses how I am feeling that day. If I am happy and/or excited, my music will be very energetic and full of life. If I am tired, then my attitude will be slow and melodic. If I am angry, then you will find me playing some intense blues music. This I think is what Miles was talking about.
Below is a video of me getting to play with Joe Louis Waker and a buddy Tyler Morris at the Regatta Bar in Boston. From my playing you can tell that I am excited and happy to be there!
Briefly towards the end of this book, Miles takes a brief moment to talk about Jazz as a whole. He does this after a long segment on the different styles of music that erupted from the 60s and 70s. This period in musical history yielded a huge amount of change and the birth of a load of new genres in music. Miles talked about how he would hear these different styles of music and decide that me must have certain elements of it in his own music. In order to do so, he would learn them and fuse them to Jazz. The one complication of doing this, however, is that it changes both forms of music and once again creates its own style. With music being full of different emotions and feelings, a new feeling would be born evert time that he felt this. Miles takes a step back in the book to explain Jazz.
"Jazz is something that I hear in my ear, jazz is an attitude." (Miles 344)
When Miles said this, it made me immediately think of another quote that I had heard Miles state; “Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.” I am unsure where this quote originated from, but I have heard it so many times. One can find it floating around on the internet. It appears that music to Miles is nothing but attitude. No matter what you play, or how you play it, it all comes down to attitude. The musical voice of Miles was extremely powerful and very confident. When looking at his past, one can see that his father was a wealthy doctor who taught Miles how to be very confident of himself and what he was doing always. This is an attitude towards life that stuck with Miles until his death in the 90s. When looking at other musicians, you can see how the attitude of jazz varies. Theolonius Monk is a good example of that. Theolonius grew up with a rather odd life. He was very poor growing up, yet his mother put all of her money together and bought Monk his own piano. From this, Monk learnt how to read sheet music from looking over his own sisters shoulders when she played piano. Monks father moved his family south and then decided himself to move back north but leave his family in the south. This disjointed confusing childhood gave Monk somewhat of a disjointed attitude towards jazz.
Below is a video of me getting to play with Joe Louis Waker and a buddy Tyler Morris at the Regatta Bar in Boston. From my playing you can tell that I am excited and happy to be there!
Yes, it's cool how you have to kind of dance to get into the music. :) Very fun.
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