John Coltrane, Miles Davis, or Charles Mingus? - Music

Norman Bates

Gender: Male
Age: 51
Location: Paris, France

Of these, Mingus; overall though...

The Shape Of Jazz To Come by Ornette Coleman

Ornette ffs

AAL2014

And Mingus takes the lead. I love this thread, very insightful and engaging. I'm currently on a jazz kick because of it. Thanks, friends.
_________________
Attention all planets of the solar federation: We have assumed control.

Kool Keith Sweat

I listen to Mingus the most, spinning Black Saint, The Clown, and Pithecanthropus Erectus the most. As has been mentioned, Mingus' compositional skill is among the best in jazz and the best among these three. I listen to John Coltrane the next most, particularly Love Supreme, Meditations, and Ascension. Coltrane is the best player and improviser among these three; I've heard from various accounts, and often personally from the players, that Coltrane (along with Ayler) is the primary inspiration for other innovators like Evan Parker, Steve Lacy, Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, etc. Davis is nice; his discog is diverse, well composed, and well played, but there's something that doesn't strike me like the other two. I listen to In A Silent Way, Live Evil, and Bitches Brew the most.

My favorite jazz performer is definitely Evan Parker. The first five jazz albums from my overall (which is at least half "jazz" Wink

) are Anatomie des clefs, Black Saint, Spiritual Unity, Spirits Rejoice, and Solo Violin Improvisations.

Last edited by Kool Keith Sweat on 09/13/2017 17:04; edited 1 time in total

baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

I've only scratched the surface of each of their discographies. So comparing each of their best records to my knowledge (instead of overall career), I'd go with Coltrane for A Love Supreme. It's definitely my favorite jazz album.
_________________
Add me on RYM

craola
crayon master

Location: pdx

Kool Keith Sweat wrote:

I listen to Mingus the most, spinning Black Saint, The Clown, and Pithecanthropus Erectus the most. As has been mentioned, Mingus' compositional skill is among the best in jazz and the best among these three. I listen to John Coltrane the next most, particularly Love Supreme, Meditations, and Ascension. Coltrane is the best player and improviser among these three; I've heard from various accounts, and often personally from the players, that Coltrane (along with Ayler) is the primary inspiration for other innovators like Evan Parker, Steve Lacy, Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, etc. Davis is nice; his discog is diverse, well composed, and well played, but there's something that doesn't strike me like the other two. I listen to In A Silent Way, Live Evil, and Bitches Brew the most.

My favorite jazz performer is definitely Evan Parker. The first five jazz albums from my overall (which is at least half "jazz" Wink

) are Anatomie des clefs, Black Saint, Spiritual Unity, Spirits Rejoice, and Solo Violin Improvisations.

1. evan parker... i don't believe i've ever listened to his work. where to start??
B. you'd class solo violin improvisations as jazz??
III. i agree about davis, though i'm not sure what mange means in this context.
_________________
follow me on the bandcamp.

DJTommy

Mercury wrote:

Journey In Satchidananda by Alice Coltrane

I've been meaning to check this out for some time. I probably should and will. I love Pharoah's Karma and I've been wanting to hear some of Alice's work too.

SleepDealer

Location: Isca Dumnoniorum

I have recently acquired several albums by all three but don't feel I have an instinctive answer to the question yet. Abstaining.
_________________
http://distranscontinuum.blogspot.co.uk/

Fischman
RockMonster, JazzMeister, Bluesboy,ClassicalMaster

Gender: Male
Location: Land of Enchantment

I decided to pull my five faves from each and see how they stack up

1. A Love Supreme - Coltrane
2. In a Silent Way -Davis
3. Blue Train - Coltrane
4. Jack Johnson - Davis
5. Ascension - Coltrane
6. Agharta - Davis
7. Pithecanthropus Erectus - Mingus
8. 'On the Corner - Davis
9. My Favorite Things - Coltrane
10. Mingus Ah Um - Mingus
11. 'Round About Midnight - Davis
12. the Black Saint and the Sinner Lady - Mingus
13. Dynasty - Mingus
14. Giant Steps - Coltrane
15. Let My Children Hear Music - Mingus

Kool Keith Sweat

craola wrote:

1. evan parker... i don't believe i've ever listened to his work. where to start??
B. you'd class solo violin improvisations as jazz??
III. i agree about davis, though i'm not sure what mange means in this context.

1. If you like Talk Talk, you would probably like Spring Heel Jack's '00s recordings; particularly The Sweetness of the Water, which he features on. I have a feeling you would like the atmosphere and use of space on Ericle of Dolphi and in Evan Parker's Electroacoustic Ensemble series on ECM, particularly, Memory/Vision. For anyone though, as a general starting point, I would suggest Atlanta, a live-recorded trio with Barry Guy and Paul Lytton - who are very familiar with improvising with each other - that showcases a decent range of each player's talent. An essential aspect of Evan Parker's body of work is his solo work, and Atlanta features a blistering, complex, non-stop, technical, 20 minute solo which is really characteristic of his solo work; if you enjoy that, then you could move on to Six of One et al. If you find that the trio format is very comfortable, and looking for a similar feel, Topography of the Lungs is a nice next step. If you want more communication between players, then you could shrink it down to a duo format, like From Trombone and Saxophone, Chirps, or Clapham Duos, Leaps in Leicester et al. depending on what instrument or player you want to hear him communicate with. If you want something a little more hey day free jazzy with more voices in the quartet/quintet range then there's Saxophone Special as a nice next step. And if somehow there's too much space for you on Atlanta, then he's on Machine Gun. Long story short, I think that if someone starts with Atlanta, thinks about what they liked, and thinks about what they want more of, then it's a good diving board for other stuff.

B. It's been awhile since I read or thought about these things, but I tend to be fine with Andrew Kania's classification of music in to "classical" (score-based), "jazz" (performance-based), and "rock" (recording-based). Of course, the lines are still blurred between these kinds (what are Grateful Dead? Duke Ellington's scored works?), but it's about as neat and tidy as I have found. I don't want to argue it thoroughly, but hopefully it's not ridiculous to assume that improvisation is performance-dependent, and thus I lump it in to "jazz." Realistically though, a listener coming from a jazz background is more likely to understand free or non-idiomatic improvisation than a listener coming from literally any other musical background. And free or non-idiomatic improvisation historically comes from the jazz culture. IDK, there's a lot of things going on, but I don't think it's farfetched to call it jazz unless you're a snooty neoclassicist. If you want to read more about Kania's classification, he has a handful of papers on the metaphysics of music.

III. autocorrected

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Tap wrote:

this guy

Interesting.