How many different styles of jazz

[dave9199]

I've heard different numbers. Can anyone give an accurate number & the name of each style?

[Chuck Nessa]

0

[bluemonk]

I've heard different numbers. Can anyone give an accurate number & the name of each style?

I don't know about "pioneer," but he was involved with the development of these styles:

1. Bebop: everybody knows he used to skip class at Julliard to play with Dizzy and Bird

2. Cool jazz: not really sure if this was movement, but it was an alternative or counter active to the bebop movement

3. Progressive big band: he collaborated with Gil Evans on numerous occasions and Evans helped Miles produce a very interesting big band sound

4. Modal jazz: think of "King Of Blue," all the songs were based on a couple of scales and were simple in structure, but were very complex from an improvisational standpoint

5. Jazz rock/fusion: Miles was involved with some of the first blending of jazz and rock music, but of course there were several before him that were doing it, Miles just brought it to the attention of the jazz world

6. Funk/acid jazz: this was during his "On The Corner" up until the day he died, this style not as aggressive as his jazz-rock work, but still was hard hitting

Am I leaving anything else out?

Edited May 17, 2008 by bluemonk

[Shawn]

I'm leaning more towards Chuck's opinion here. I think Miles helped "popularize" more than "pioneer".

[Chuck Nessa]

King of Blue is a fav.

[montg]

somewhat of a coincidence: I was listening to Tristano the other day playing Digression (1949?)which sounds kind of free to me...made me think that virtually all of the subsequent 'styles' of jazz were more or less already in germinal form by 1950. Hard for me to think of Miles (or anyone from that generation) as pioneers since the seeds had already been planted.

[Spontooneous]

He pioneered 3.14159265 styles, at 4:17 p.m. on Oct. 25, 1948.

[DukeCity]

He pioneered 3.14159265 styles...

mmmmmmm......pi!

[John L]

I'm leaning more towards Chuck's opinion here. I think Miles helped "popularize" more than "pioneer".

I think that Miles deserves a lot more credit than that. He did more than popularize. He created some definitive masterpieces in a number of emerging styles, and therefore contributed significantly to their emergence and development. If we don't want to call that "pioneered," fine. But it strikes me as a lot more than "popularized." Maybe Charles Lloyd popularized. But Miles Davis created.

[Brad]

I'm generally with Chuck on this one: Did he create bop? No but he did play with one of the greatest bop bands ever. He certainly didn't create hard bop but was involved and headed some great groups. He was an influence but a pioneer is someone like Bird or Diz. I don't put him in quite that category.

[BruceH]

I'm generally with Chuck on this one: Did he create bop? No but he did play with one of the greatest bop bands ever. He certainly didn't create hard bop but was involved and headed some great groups. He was an influence but a pioneer is someone like Bird or Diz. I don't put him in quite that category.

I tend to agree.

He watered a lot of seeds.

[BillF]

Under "Miles and cool jazz", I suppose you'd think first of Birth of the Cool, but there was also his direct influence on West coast jazz, through Chet Baker's debt to him and his recorded participation in the Lighthouse sessions.

[kenny weir]

I've heard different numbers. Can anyone give an accurate number & the name of each style?

I don't know about "pioneer," but he was involved with the development of these styles:

1. Bebop: everybody knows he used to skip class at Julliard to play with Dizzy and Bird

2. Cool jazz: not really sure if this was movement, but it was an alternative or counter active to the bebop movement

3. Progressive big band: he collaborated with Gil Evans on numerous occasions and Evans helped Miles produce a very interesting big band sound

4. Modal jazz: think of "King Of Blue," all the songs were based on a couple of scales and were simple in structure, but were very complex from an improvisational standpoint

5. Jazz rock/fusion: Miles was involved with some of the first blending of jazz and rock music, but of course there were several before him that were doing it, Miles just brought it to the attention of the jazz world

6. Funk/acid jazz: this was during his "On The Corner" up until the day he died, this style not as aggressive as his jazz-rock work, but still was hard hitting

Am I leaving anything else out?

Pioneer OR populariser? I don't care, really, but I'd add hard bop to the above list. Just saying, while we're talking pigeonholes and all.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

6. Funk/acid jazz: this was during his "On The Corner" up until the day he died, this style not as aggressive as his jazz-rock work, but still was hard hitting

First I've heard of this. You mean, Miles actually pioneered in 1972 a music that had been developed by James Brown and, on the jazz side, Freddie McCoy in the mid-sixties. Wow! That takes some doing!

MG

[sidewinder]

6. Funk/acid jazz: this was during his "On The Corner" up until the day he died, this style not as aggressive as his jazz-rock work, but still was hard hitting

First I've heard of this. You mean, Miles actually pioneered in 1972 a music that had been developed by James Brown and, on the jazz side, Freddie McCoy in the mid-sixties. Wow! That takes some doing!

MG

But neither of these guys dabbled in Indo-jazz fusion and Stockhausian repetitive grooves though, which Miles (with Buckmaster and Teo) did integrate into the mix.

Edited May 17, 2008 by sidewinder

[JSngry]

The, for lack of a better term, "Plugged Nickel Band Style" had to wait about 20 years after the fact to become "mainstream", but it did. Same to a lesser extent for the "time, no changes" approach of the Second Quartet's studio albums.

As far as "innovator" v "popularizer", I don't really agree with either. I think of Miles more as a "crystallizer" somebody who who could pick up on various things already in the air and put them through his uniquely focused prism and come out with a fully formed "genre" where before there were just pieces waiting to come together.

[JSngry]

6. Funk/acid jazz: this was during his "On The Corner" up until the day he died, this style not as aggressive as his jazz-rock work, but still was hard hitting

First I've heard of this. You mean, Miles actually pioneered in 1972 a music that had been developed by James Brown and, on the jazz side, Freddie McCoy in the mid-sixties. Wow! That takes some doing!

MG

But neither of these guys dabbled in Indo-jazz fusion and Stockhausian repetitive grooves though, which Miles (with Buckmaster and Teo) did integrate into the mix.

Acid-jazz, I don't know about, I think I'm in line w/MG on that one, but later things like Drum 'N Bass, Jungle, & Broken Beat can, in substantial measure, be traced backwards to On The Corner & Get Up With It, the two albums which, on the whole, I still think ultimately represent Miles' most personal and/or truly innovative musics.

[Shawn]

As far as "innovator" v "popularizer", I don't really agree with either. I think of Miles more as a "crystallizer" somebody who who could pick up on various things already in the air and put them through his uniquely focused prism and come out with a fully formed "genre" where before there were just pieces waiting to come together.

Tell him what he's won Johnny!

Yep, "popularizer" didn't quite cover what I was getting at, it's part of the picture, but I think you just nailed it on ze ole noodle.

[JSngry]

Don't you give me no damn Turtle Wax...

[Niko]

As far as "innovator" v "popularizer", I don't really agree with either. I think of Miles more as a "crystallizer" somebody who who could pick up on various things already in the air and put them through his uniquely focused prism and come out with a fully formed "genre" where before there were just pieces waiting to come together.

impressed...

[sidewinder]

Yep, 'crystallizer' or 'catalyst' would be a very apt description - and a shrewd talent spotter/utiliser. Great and visionary artist, without a doubt though.

Edited May 17, 2008 by sidewinder

[dave9199]

Who else has been a catalyst in several styles?

[BillF]

Who else has been a catalyst in several styles?

Louis Armstrong

Duke Ellington

Coleman Hawkins

Gil Evans

[JSngry]

Basie.

[dave9199]

None of those people are pioneers, but catalysts? Who's a pioneer & why? I thought JSngry's post on drum & bass traced back to On The Corner pretty interesting, but he's not called a pioneer of it? Or is he? What constitutes it? (Insert another word if pioneer isn't liked)