What's the deal with 60's jazz liner notes?

that's where threads about 60's jazz liner notes lead me. buying magazines on ebay. the internet wins again!

agree about Loaded. couple real clinkers on High Time along with some classics. Fred Sonic taking the wheel...back to jazz notes

"Like A Rolling Stone by Ralph J Gleason"

wonder if this was about the magazine? RJG was mentor to J Wenner back in the day

it was probably about dylan.

it's actually a manifesto:

http://www.jannswenner.com/press/like_a_rolling_stone.aspx

stockhausen's open letter just says "cosine this^^^"

so, anyway, jazz liners get going in the 40s and really get going by the mid-50's.

The first 33 1/3 LPs were released in 1948, and stereo LPs took off in 1958. During those years, hi-fi equipment and LPs were fairly expensive compared to other music listening options, so prestige and cultural appeal were important aspects of their marketing. Liner notes like these let the buyer know he was not getting just any old jazz record but some seriously high-brow product, flattering his taste and helping him rationalize his investment in gear.

not all jazz liner notes etc

Brad C's argument is why I went hunting for john lewis in the first place: suddenly from the late 40s there's this layer of music consciously pushing across into classical terrain -- kenton and progressive jazz, birth of the cool, MJQ, schuller's third stream, brubeck -- so i was pleased to get that so tidily confirmed, that the musicians' aspirations as composers and performers jigsawed so effectively into the marketing demands of a new (and somewhat pricey) format

the moe asch dimension is a bit different though -- i guess i've always thought of his roster more as a crankish hyper-documentary approach (at least after it became folkways, maybe less so when it was still on 78):

https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/600x600.jpg?w=600

ellington also begins composing long-form works in the early 50s that wouldn't be broken up on 33 the way they would have been on 78

(obviously his artistic aspirations predated this: black brown and beige was 1943, i think, but after its initial performance he only played it piecemeal for a long time, and didn't record it in full until 1958)

The liner notes for In A Silent Way are . . . deeply odd, as if the guy was whacked off his head on weed while writing them, which of course he probably was. I'll try and transcribe a little bit of it when I get home from work later.

Actually, here they are. In all honesty, not as weird as I remembered. But there's still something a bit strange about them which I can't quite put my finger on. It's like a mix of over-literal self-indulgence and stating the obvious.

"Miles the dresser, Miles the boxer, Miles the bon vivant, Miles the pioneer. I use the word "pioneer" because Miles has been ever searching for new sonorities, new ways of performing his music. In essence, new directions. I would chance to say that Miles is the most written about artist in the field of jazz, and I hate the word "jazz." I prefer using the phrase "field of music." Attendance in clubs has always been overwhelming. People come from all over to hear the one and only Miles Davis. A creative force is always at work within him. His albums are pointed to new directions for all who are interested in music. His has incorporated the best of jazz, so-called contemporary rock sounds and rhythms, a flair for the long thematic line reminiscent of the 16th-century composer, and the technique of the 20th century composer using polyrhythms (many rhythms at once) and polytonalities (different chords played together). He has come up with something new in music. The form is free, and from this freedom a masterful outgrowth of composition has emerged. People will follow him ten years hence.

"In my opinion, the rock groups are picking up on the early Miles Davis, trying to imitate but never quite making it. The rock groups, I am sure, dig Miles, but, here again, it will probably be years before they really understand his creativity, his compositions, his mastery of musicianship. He has inspired countless musicians to create, to be creative and to rise from obscurity to take a place in the musical foreground. "That's right," says Miles Davis. "

People will follow him ten years hence

there's some fawning hyperbole there, but mostly accurate imo

These sentences really capture the filler quality of 60's liner notes though - they could be on the back of an Al Hirt album sold at the A&P as easily as In A Silent Way.

"People come from all over to hear the one and only ____. A creative force is always at work within him. His albums are pointed to new directions for all who are interested in music."

Speaks to the taste-flattering and gear investment rationalization that Brad C mentions upthread.

aside from style, sample upthread reminds me of 60s/70s rock reviews i've read recently, where what stuck out was the self-conscious connoisseur orientation. that tends to bring a lot of particular jargon, habitual terms of judgment, etc. with it, which might have an outsized influence on how liner note writing 'seems'. not just taste flattering, but trying to model a certain kind of rationality re taste, its expertise about a body of music and records, etc.

so he says he hates the word jazz -- when did miles start saying this publicly? (i shd know this but i don't)

(if he'd been saying it for a while it's not that interesting, of course)

wait who hates the word "jazz"? I tht that was the writer

the writer says he does here -- miles said he did elsewhere (but i can't recall when or where he began saying so) (it might have been years before, tho round about "in a silent way" would make sense, when he started feeling hemmed in the assumptions of critics and fans and record company and etc)

if it was already public knowledge that miles hated the word, then this isn't an especially interesting element in the liner notes, but if it *wasn't* already widely known then the writer was either channeling miles (presumably after talking to him) or taking a (fairly surprising) flyer all on his own

1982 (altho I doubt this is the first instance of this): https://youtu.be/IHeYG9SNaS0?t=112

it's only mildly interesting but i wondered if this was a way-station between miles having stuff written about him he didn't like (or have control over) and getting columbia to stop wth it altogether -- a way-station where the liner notes were semi-based round an actual (unacknowledged) interview with him

Haha, was about to google "miles the bon vivant" but it's already here.

Miles the dresser, Miles the boxer, Miles the bon vivant, Miles the pioneer. I use the word "pioneer" because Miles has been ever searching for new sonorities, new ways of performing his music.

Here's a question, though: were jazz DJs talking this way during this same time? I grew up in Minneapolis with Leigh Kamman's "The Jazz Image" and he was definitely a "Miles the boxer, Miles the bon vivant" jazz DJ.

kamman is an interesting figure -- similar to leonard feather, from what i understand, in his distaste for "the new thing" or avant-whatever.

his ex-stepson (i think?) helps run a legacy project here in the cities that is digitizing all of kamman's taped radio interviews and uploading them to youtube. i went digging around on that channel, hoping to find a "miles the bon vivant"-style formulation, but ended up listening to max roach tell a story about the "concrete jungle" sessions, during which duke ellington was constantly speaking about himself in a self-deprecating manner (in roach's view, to ease the anxiety of him and mingus, since they were obviously huge admirers), and at one point described himself as "the poor man's bud powell."

also, kamman wrote liner notes. from '56:
https://img.discogs.com/GNpe53vS7M3Gtzy3kxJnRzuQpR4=/fit-in/600x601/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4111684-1357433691-2112.jpeg.jpg

lol did people really call Stan Getz "THE SOUND"

yeah, "because of a certain intangible tone he produces" -- didn't you read the liner notes?

If you didn't live in a major market or know trustworthy hipsters, figuring out which LPs to buy would have been tough. No Internet, few jazz record reviews in mainstream media, little or no LP-oriented radio programming, Down Beat not the easiest magazine to find ... I imagine much of the audience for 50s-60s jazz LPs did most of their research by reading a lot of liner notes while shopping.

jazz fans kinda like sports fans. in good and bad ways.

https://scontent.fbos1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17457504_10212826040105147_591277351005596691_n.jpg?oh=df07558e8267e936e2636f85b7bc6bb2&oe=595C6322

What the

I got to figure for some mainstream listeners, Playboy was actually a way to find out about records and musicians as they did the yearly "all star team" and quite a few reviews and articles about jazz musicians.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PTygdWfv7K8/UCgcNmHCj6I/AAAAAAAAD_0/LmgEN9MFWco/s1600/utterback.jpg

Holy shit xxp

I thought the term Directions In Music came from Miles dislike of the term Jazz. & that's late 60s/early 70s.
I thought it stemmed from the word Jazz being devalued from an early point like the 'King of Jazz' being a white popularising copy of something more original. Think that term dated back to the 20s or 30s, so wonder if Miles was ever happy calling the music Jazz.
I would think he must talk about it in the Autobiography but I haven't read that in years.

This thread is AWESOME!!

Mingus and Miles aren't looking too happy in the 1967 Playboy All-Star Band, I can't imagine why.

I wonder what they thought about that Columbia ad over at Motown?

In the context we're talking about, Motown would have been regarded as teenybopper malarky, right?

There's a lot to parse in that Playboy caricature. The Supremes showing up suggests maybe Motown wasn't just teen music, but then there's Al Hirt next to Miles, like Captain Kangaroo showing up at Woodstock. The Supremes presence might just be because there weren't any more jazz vocal groups, and they were trying to keep long-standing categories covered.

Still, I'd think that the hi-fi enthusiasts who were getting guidance from liner notes wouldn't have perceived Motown as possessing the prestige they were trying to cultivate.

that Playboy pic is hilarious. Don't think Miles would be cool w/getting first seat while Al Hirt gets 2nd and fucking LOUIS ARMSTRONG gets third

They call 'em jazz mags for a reason!

it comes out of a horn and who knows where it goes

miles thought that al hirt was a very good trumpet player. he always had compliments for people you wouldn't think he'd have compliments for. and the other way around.

http://www.forghieri.net/jazz/blind/Davis_4.html

it's not that, it's that he idolized Louis

susan sontag's "one culture and the new sensibility (collected in "against interpretation") was published in 1965 -- this is the essay where she stepped out as a supremes fan, so they had highbrow imprimatur if not the hi-fi stamp of prestige

(and this was a widely discussed declaration of fan-dom: tom wolfe had poked fun at it)

Michael Henderson who went onto being Miles bassist in the early 70s was on some Motown material. Not sure what, so would assume that Miles became interested in using him because of taht.

part of me feels like jazz is still trying to recover from the publication of Le Jazz Hot in 1934 by Hugues Panassie. he was obsessed with "authenticity" as so many writers have been since. i wonder if he ever hung out with robert crumb.

Henderson isn't on any Motown recordings (at least, I'm pretty sure), but Miles heard him in Stevie Wonder's touring band:

Before working with Davis, Henderson had been touring with Stevie Wonder, whom he met at the Regal Theater in Chicago while warming up for a gig. Davis saw the young Henderson performing at the Copacabana in New York City in early 1970 and reportedly said to Wonder simply "I’m taking your fucking bassist."[3]

xp

still picking away at this mildly interesting scab: when miles first publicly expressed dislike for the word jazz

from his december 1969 rolling stone interview with don demichael:
"But I don't like the word rock and roll and all that shit. Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. It's a white folks word. I never heard that shit until I read it in a magazine"

obviously this is several months after "in a silent way" came out (it was released june 1969) -- so frank glenn, the liner notes writer, couldn't have read them in rolling stone

had he said something like this in an earlier interview? (obviously not impossible, tho iirc the RS interview was conceived as a deliberate game-change and direction-shifter) (happy to be corrected on this, i'm working entirely from memory away from my books in a funny little edinburgh guest house w/children's drawings of HAGGISES as hotel art)

(who had interviewed him previously? down beat presumably, and ebony... any other suggestions? rolling stone was establishing a new approach to interviews, encouraging its interviewees to be more politically impolitic than more established publications, tho in practice the new journalism was already out there with the cusswords and the imagined internal monologues)

stevolende suggested he'd maybe always thought of the word like this: quite possibly, but there's plainly an evolution in the politics of his public statements -- for example he became (justiably) a good deal more dgaf testy after the nypd attacked him outside birdland (which was 1959)

xp Coltrane comes in as second tenor in a poll published a couple of months after his death ... it was a strange time.

By 1968 (maybe earlier) it had become the Playboy Jazz and Pop Poll. Winners that year included Ravi Shankar and the Beatles alongside the ever-popular Mancini and Fountain.

i just call it "that so-called jazz music".

miles thought that al hirt was a very good trumpet player.

Boy, maybe, but that whole entry reads like the definition of 'backhanded compliment.'

i love this essay. from 1920. Concerning Jazz by Henry F. Gilbert. he concludes by saying that so-called serious music in America won't be any good until it takes a cue from Jazz and gets away from Europa. which is not at all what you might think he's gonna conclude.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7hjlAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA439&lpg=PA439&dq=that+so+called+jazz+music&source=bl&ots=5aiKlu1bvW&sig=rIcAjC16FoFcYgLp616gziYkHxE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwitn4qo6P7SAhUS9WMKHVLBDh0Q6AEIQTAI#v=onepage&q=that%20so%20called%20jazz%20music&f=false

> the feeling of reportage

were some of these guys actually "reporters" and not "critics" because they sure refer to "critics" as some outside group... in basically every one of these things

I think they just mean other critics

That nine-year old girl was Ken Tynan's daughter, iirc. At least, it was in his profile of Miles that I first read the line.

Unrelated, but this got a laugh out of me yesterday, from an LP by vibraphonist Gary Burton

...a collection of nine of the loveliest tunes ever written as interpreted by one of the foremost singers of our time. Singer? Where's the singer? Listen, he's right there, front and center...

WHAT, you say??

Gary Burton is a singer. It just happens that his voice is the vibraphone

Touché, 60s jazz album liner notes. Touché.