VSOP: A Tribute to Miles(Qwest)

[CJ Shearn]

This just shipped out to me today from CDuniverse. Been one that was on my list for a while, and technically although it doesn't use the name it is a VSOP Quintet (with Wallace in place of Freddie) disc. Also have been trying to complete my collection of VSOP related discs (tho the very first still eludes me), not to mention load up on more Hancock/Carter/Williams what are some opinions of the "Tribute to Miles" disc vs. the other VSOP Quintet records?

[jazzbo]

I bought this when it came out, listened to it a few times, was not really impressed or moved, and haven't visited it in a looooonnnnnnnggggg time.

[CJ Shearn]

thanks for the opinion Lon. I guess I'll be able to better form an opinion when I receive it, but really the only VSOP disc that never really struck me is "Live Under the Sky", but even from another listen a few weeks ago, it is pretty good despite the instrument problems. Didn't you attend a VSOP gig in Phoenix where Freddie Hubbard showed up under the influence of something and they barely finished one tune?

[jazzbo]

I was pretty excited about the VSOP material when it was first released, and even saw the VSOP Quintet tour once (one disasterous concert experience, really!) BUT in the last five or ten years I listen to the recordings. . .and they do little for me I'm afraid.

[JSngry]

what are some opinions of the "Tribute to Miles" disc vs. the other VSOP Quintet records?

As far as owning it, it's for completists only. As far as listening to it, I checked it out once, and that could very well be it. Has been so far. Nothing, and I do mean nothing on here you haven't heard before and better elsewhere. Even though they "invented" this style, it just doesn't sound real here. Although the old VSOP bands always had a "retro" thing happening, and a little bit of "role playing" going on, there was still an element of freshness to the stuff overall. That's not the case here. Too much time passed, too many new directions, whatever. Here it sounds like they just don't have their hearts in it AT ALL and are whoring out by playing the style without meaning it even a little.

Not a bad record, to be sure, but certainly an abominable one. Save your money and buy some burgers and wait to defacate them. The results will certainly be more genuine and sincere than A Tribute to Miles(Qwest)

Edited January 5, 2004 by JSngry

[jazzbo]

You got the circumstances correct, but the place was Cleveland. . . . Freddie showed up twenty minutes after they decided to start, they launched into "Maiden

Voyage," a couple of mugs heckled Freddie, he walked off the stage and the other four quickly ended the tune and bowed out themselves.

Waited weeks to see a weak thirty minutes!

[rockefeller center]

Having not listened to it in the last eight years or so, I put it in the CD player this evening because of this thread. I like Shorter's solo on "So What," otherwise I find this disc tiring. Will try to trade it for burgers.

[bertrand]

The record is so-so, but the same group did a KILLER concert in June 1992 at Wolf Trap.

Go figure...

Bertrand.

[CJ Shearn]

ooh, I feel sorry I ordered it....... but since I'm sort of a completist with the VSOP thing I guess that's alright. The opinions contrast to some old rec.music.bluenote posts I read where some folks enjoyed it. Still will be curious to hear it tho. I'm not expecting the album to better anything done with Miles or anything totally new about it. I will say that the Directions in Music disc that came out about a year and a half or so ago, now that was bad. The performances were pretty dull, except for that mind bending Brecker "Naima" solo, I have a boot of a performance from 9/20/01 that just smokes the official release, there is incredible tension in the music, especially Herbie's solos, maybe the intensity was partly due to the fact it happened a week after 9/11, but nonetheless it's burning shit.

[PHILLYQ]

CJ Shearn,

If you had posted something last week about this, I saw two cd sets of the(I believe) very first VSOP performance on Ebay. It was originally issued as a double-album in vinyl back around 1977 or so, with two sides with the Shorter/Hubbard/Carter/Williams group, and the rest devoted to the sextet with Henderson/B. Williams/Priester/Maupin/Hart and his funk band. That set holds a sentimental value for me, as I was at that concert. I bid on both sets, and lost one to a bid of $52.66, then won one for $25.00! It is available as an import, so if you have some $ and an import connection(This sounds like a drug deal!) you can get a hold of it. Check Ebay if not, or in addition. As I recall(I haven't heard the music in a long time), the Quintet stuff is smokin' and Tony Williams stands out particularly, but Hubbard is not far behind him.

[CJ Shearn]

thanks PhillyQ. I might have to set up a new ebay account, hasn't been active for a long time--rarely used and they request a paying a charge to reactivate. I also don't have the $$ to burn on something like that right now. gemm.com doesn't seem to have any in stock. I might have to try cdjapan.co.jp to see if it's around there but I don't believe so last I saw. as far as VSOP goes I have:

The Quintet (shitty sounding domestic)

Tempest in the Colosseum (French import)

Live Under the Sky (French import)

and on it's way, the much maligned (from opinions here) "Tribute to Miles".

[Aggie87]

Gotta put in a plug for my former favorite place to shop in person, zweitausendeins. They have the VSOP 2 disc set (this one) currently for €9.99. Probably cost-prohibitive to ship it to the US, unless you're planning to order a large number of discs from them, but worth a mention anyway.

[CJ Shearn]

thanks Aggie87 Anyone know how to navigate that site if you don't speak German? I managed to see the listing but couldn't understand what it said.

[Kari S]

Dude, you gotta change your avatar, man...

Edited January 6, 2004 by Kari S

[JohnS]

Sorry, I didn't care for it either, a couple of plays were enough. Same went for Eddie Henderson's recent Miles tribute.

[Aggie87]

thanks Aggie87 Anyone know how to navigate that site if you don't speak German? I managed to see the listing but couldn't understand what it said.

Here is the english language version of their website - Zweitausendeins in English. If you're on the German version, there's a button on the left you can click to change it into English.

Warning - shipping to the U.S. appears to cost either €22 (pkgs less than 2 kilograms) or €29 (more than 2 kg). If you end up buying a number of discs there, you can spread the shipping across your purchases, and the prices become much more reasonable. But it's prohibitive for just one or two discs.

[CJ Shearn]

Thanks for the link Aggie, will check it out in a bit. Wow, there seems to be a unanimous decision that the "A Tribute to Miles" is really bad.............. I should have made this thread before I ordered (it'll be here tommorrow) I did d/l All Blues from it a long time ago and liked it, so that sort of led me on to the disc, in addition to my want to complete a VSOP collection. I'll make a better judgement after hearing the whole thing when it arrives, but as their are many educated well thought out opinions here that very often resonate with my own regarding albums, the record could very well sound flat to me too.

This thread seems to be an interesting window into why many tributes don't come off (that Endless Miles thing was a nice webcast but probably didn't come off as a CD, dunno, never bought it) maybe because we as fans of particular artists, have such a reverence for their original versions of tunes, and the magic possesed within that those same artists, or other artists covering the same tunes years later doesn't work. With all that said, the live DVD of Chick Corea's "Remembering Bud Powell" was a pretty nice tribute that came off well.

[mikeweil]

As Jim Sangrey said, it's not bad, but all that tribute sh.. is a pain in the neck and probably done for monetary reasons in the first place ... nothing there that beats the original. Had this disc, but didn't move me enough to keep it, but not bad ... they played in Frankfurt at the time with Dave Holland for Carter but I didn't go after hearing the disc and reading the admission fees.

[JSngry]

Well hey. The first VSOP had the "they've been playing fusion, how has it affected their jazz playing?" allure, as well as the "you know, a lot of this stuff never really got played live" thing happening. Plus, it was "Freddie 'fronting' Miles' band, how's THAT going to be?" All of which, I think, were legitimate issues for players and listeners alike.

But by the time this last thing rolled around, all those dynamics had played out and been resolved for all concerned. Now it was like "Miles died, let's get Wallace Roney and do the album/tour TRIBUTE thing" which is not even remotely the same dynamic. I've got a promo "interview" CD that was put out in conjunction w/the actual album, and it's the biggest bunch of nothing you'll ever hear - cliched soundbites clearly made to create a consumer-ready "image" of Miles and this music. Ho-fucking-hum....

It's not "bad", really, it's not. It just reeks with the stench of whoredom, and although that's a fact of life in the music biz, this is music I'd rather not have tainted by that kind of reality.

But good luck on that one.

Edited January 6, 2004 by JSngry

[CJ Shearn]

Jim, interesting point you make about by the time "Tribute" was released, all the questions that existed about where or not those guys could return to straight ahead, how would Freddie work etc....... were answered and the buzz about those cats playing that style again greatly hushed, for what reasons say, were Tony Williams' quintet not criticized? that quintet was in the style of Miles' mid 60's straight ahead, he had Wallace on trumpet filling a Miles-esque role, a very individual voice in Bill Pierce, an excellent player in Mulgrew Miller, who's is a big part of "Tokyo Live" (a great album) his playing is in the mode of Herbie and also McCoy on this disc but still hip. To my knowledge no one had complained it was a retread like how critics complained about Wynton's early playing for example. Tony was a hell of a writer as the record shows, too. Was part of the appeal of Williams' playing in this style during the period of the mid 80's-early 90's, regarded as somewhat more "genuine" because he was a founder rather than a follower, or because he was generally finding interesting things to say compositionally rather than derivative? (e.g. Wynton's "Waterfalls" off Bu's Keystone 3)

Edited January 6, 2004 by CJ Shearn

[JSngry]

You got me there.

For me, Tony's thing was an actual band working on some new music (agreed about Tony's maturation as a writer, btw) over time, a very "organic" process.

And Roney, well, I hate him becasue he's married to Geri Allen , but besides that, his status as "heir apparent" to Miles based on the Montreaus thing, something he might not have asked for, but something he certainly didn't take any noticable steps to dispel, certainly didn't work to his favor in these Tribute band. I mean, nobody could replace Miles, but at least Freddie had a character of his own, which he brought to the VSOP muisc. Roney just seemed to be "role-playing" (even if it might have been a role which he came by naturally), as did everybody else involved.

I think a lot of people expected more from those guys than role-playing. I know I did.

[CJ Shearn]

I agree with you about Freddie, Jim. To all that VSOP music Freddie really brought a quality that is really very distinctive, whereas it's very easy for someone to kind of tip a cap to Miles via the use of the harmon, minimalism in phrasing, etc, whereas someone in the general public could say "sounds like Miles!" whereas it is much more difficult for a non jazz fan to say "oh yeah, Freddie Hubbard". I'd agree.

I've been thinking about Roney lately, b/c I have a friend who got the "Miles and Quincy: Live at Montreux" CD for x-mas and thought it was one of the most amazing things he's ever heard. I've heard some soundclips of it and find it to be quite sad b/c Miles really was at the end at that point, and my friend felt Miles was really "on" where more than likely he was hearing Wallace, and I think in that instance he definitely was a huge role-player. He had said he was unable to tell who's who, which I could understand, since many people do not critically listen and analyze the goings on at the same time. I explained to him that the stronger playing was more than likely Wallace because, at that point Miles had gone back to sticking with the middle registers of the horn after that incredibly stratospheric playing of the 60's-early 70's, and that Miles had said the material was just to hard. I also explained that Wallace's phrasing points more to mid 60's Miles and that he does have his own way of expressing ideas. Here I definitely realize how some consider Wallace to be a "clone" (not what I believe personally), but I've noticed recently (like on the Herbie Future2Future DVD) he has more of his own thing going on.

In the Jazz in American Music class I TA'ed last semester, we used Wallace as an example of someone who was playing hard bop/post bop oriented jazz and carrying the flame of men like Davis, b/c it was important to explain that these styles are still being played today, especially since before the start of the semester many of these students had no idea of what jazz really was. Anyway, to get back to the original point, I understand how role playing can be dissapointing, especially when giants are capable of so much more. I think, based on what I've heard from Wallace lately (mainly the aforementioned Herbie DVD) his playing has definitely evolved into something able to step out of the shadows, maybe not entirely, but certainly enough to avoid cries of "hack". Another player who I feel has done this recently is Joey DeFrancesco.

[mikeweil]

We're now talking about three bands:

1. V.S.O.P. with Freddie Hubbard.

I found that very interesting, because these guys were a pool of players popping up on about every other Blue Note LP, and often were playing more progressive stuff than with Miles - remember Tony's notion he wanted to play with Cecil Taylor?

Compared to some of the adventurous stuff these guys did on some Blue Notes, I found VSOP leaned a little too much towards the Miles quintet. Legitimate, of course, but not adventurous enough for my ears.

2. That Tribute band with Roney - As far as I can see our thoughts concur on that one.

3. The Tony Williams quintet with Roney and Pierce - I conceive their style to be influenced by Miles' quintet, but basically they're rhythmically more in the pocket. Someone called them Tony Williams and the Jazz Messengers ... Too bad Tony couldn't pursue the new path he had been set for ... a new electric band. I ALWAYS liked his writing very much, and with the new band it was like hand in glove.

I saw Roney with Herbie's Future to Future band - he could have played more, played some Prince of darkness attitude in a way, from the side of the stage. Refused to solo in the encore - Herbie's 2nd keyboarder took the opportunity and played a GREAT solo, even Herbie applauded. Must be very very difficult to step out of Miles' big shadow ... What's Roney doing right now?

[CJ Shearn]

Don't know what Wallace is up to now Mike. Was that encore "Chameleon"? that's what it is on the DVD, Darrell Diaz solos on what was Herbie's Arp Soloist spot on the original, and then of course IMO, (haven't heard too many versions of "Chameleon" by Herbie) he nails a solo on acoustic that *nearly* comes close to the original in the heat factor, and that is very hard to do. When I was listening to disc 1 of Tokyo Live the other night, I was thinking the JM parallel too, although the music was pretty advanced compared to that Blakey groove. Didn't Tony actually release a rock album in the 90's called "The Mask"? Before he died he was discussing starting a rock band.

[CJ Shearn]

alright, I got the album and listened to it. It's not that bad; something that would make a nice occasional listen (as I like to listen to different versions of tunres and compare/contrast) and also something to throw on unsuspecting listeners (such as my suitemate at school who isn't a jazz fan per se but tolerate) to see if they recognize the difference betweren these renditions and the originals. I'm glad to have the original recordings because had I grabbed it when it came out (I wasn't as critical them as now) I woulda thought it was excellent and not take into account these guys were kind of in a safety zone with the material here. That said, I do enjoy that tune "Elegy", quite a bit of Shorter's playing, and Herbie's "All Blues" solo cracks me up cuz you always when that trill is coming in a climax of a solo But, I pretty much agree now with everything said here.