Summer English Blog

Herbie is telling a story about the time the Herbie Hancock Sextet played at the London House in Chicago. This series of shows was towards the beginning of Herbie's career when he was still figuring out full on show business. The most difficult part that he mentioned is that they were not playing conventional jazz. The music that they were playing was described as "far out" music. The best relation to this that I have posted so far may be Miles' Bitches Brew album. Herbie and some of the founding members of the later acclaimed V.S.O.P quintet formed the Herbie Sextet and played at the London House for a week or so. The first few days resulted in disappointed audiences and the manager of the club, Oscar, being angry at the waste of money that he had put into having the Sextet play. The problem that the sextet was having was that they were unable to connect with each other or the audience that they were playing for. Once the word got out about the sextet playing out ...

I found this video today of the Miles Davis Quintet performing my favorite version of Wayne Shorters tune Footprints. Herbie is keeping it open on the keys as well as sharing some of the space that Miles is leaving in his solo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0xkMxT6KGo

I realized today that being surrounded by something you are working on allows one the greatest ability to learn and become successful at that thing. I was talking to my friend Nat who recently graduated Berklee. He was telling me about some of his friends who he knew at Berklee and the things that they did when it came to music. These people would go wherever the music went in order to be completely submersed in the art. By doing this, they were able to constantly learn and pick up new approaches and ideas that they would have never thought of by just reading a book.

Essential Question: How does the musical atmosphere one is surrounded by affect their traits as a musician? I decided to ask this question because I have noticed something about the musicians from Miles' era and the musicians of now. Going back and studying the musicians of Miles, Mingus, and Herbie's era, I have decided that they all grew up in the perfect learning environment. I gathered this thought after seeing how many success stories came out of their era. Each musician had their own thing that was crafted from the materials that they had around them. If they wanted to expand on what they were accomplishing, then they looked elsewhere. Meaning they had to travel to a different area/different music scene to accomplish this. For example, Miles Davis traveled to France in his early career to expand his horizons as a musician. There he learnt a lot about the free mentality of people and musicians. He also learnt about what was possible with responsive, jazz loving audiences...

Herbie Hancock finished Leading up to this point in the book, I have learnt about Herbie's early life including his playing experiences with Donald Byrd to his joining Miles' famous great quintet from 1963 to 1968. Coming from a background of classical and soul music from growing up in Chicago, Herbie appears to have a very free flowing personality. I definitely got this vibe from a story that Herbie told about the first time he got the chance to join Miles' band. The story went that Herbie was in the middle of recording with a few musicians in his area. He was recording for a studio and was considering putting out an album. The manager of the studio got word that Miles was looking for Herbie and that he was about call him. Herbie did not believe it, but was told that if Miles asked if he was with anyone, he was to say no and agree to what ever Miles said. To no surprise, Miles called and invited Herbie to become part of Miles' first great quintet. Upon first meeting,...

Mingus is arguing about music with his two wives Donna and Lee-Marie. He is trying to validate him leaving her. This part of Mingus' life is a significant part as it shows his complete devotion to music. Mingus is picking his musicians over his love life at this point. In addition to all of this, Mingus had unfortunately become a very large pimp by the time he had hit the peak of his career. From this, he very clearly had no respect for women, therefor none for his lover Donna or Lee-Marie. Mingus also attempts to tell them that he had put a significantly larger amount of time into learning music than she had, resulting in them both rejecting the idea of him following music. The event that Mingus was being invited too was his own welcome back party! This event is very typical of Mingus as he was best known for his anger and being unpredictable. This happened all throughout his career with all of the musicians he was with. His personality was really shown through all of the music ...

Essential Question: How does pop culture impact ones music? This essential question was extremely prominent throughout reading both biographies so far. With both musicians being black and building their careers in the 50s and 60s, in New York, pop culture had a huge influence on their music. The influence of pop culture is extremely important to a musician as a musician must follow the norms of the pop culture of the time in order to be successful. When it came to the 50s and 60s, being sharply dressed and playing straight ahead jazz was pop culture. So, this is what they did. The two of them grew up listening to this music, later learning it. This formed their styles and made them who they became. Being black at the time, it was expected that one would play swing and straight ahead jazz. As pop culture changed over time, Miles decided to follow it and Mingus stayed with what was "hip" in the 50s and 60s. The biggest significance of Miles' career to me is how he follo...