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RE: anti-looper bigots / Miles & Teo



Hey, Bill,
I'm no academic in this realm by any stretch, but how do you figure in people like Martin Denny who seemed to ( perhaps, haphazardly) play any instrument they found from any part of the world? And, I think, maybe a few years earlier than the mentioned masters.
 
JD
 
> Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 04:39:12 -0700
> From: looppool@cruzio.com
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Subject: Re: anti-looper bigots / Miles & Teo
>
> > earlier in this thread I wrote:
> > "In a way, by introducing tape loops on 'In a Silent Way' (neglected as
> > the predecessor and I feel, the superior record to the more famous
> > "Bitches Brew") he was doing the same thing to the percussionists.
> > By introducing a static loop that held down the groove, in essence, the
> > percussionists and drummers were free to explore more. "
> To this, Andy Butler replied:
>
> "Rev's link does not confirm the methodology for recording
> that this suggests."
>
> No, but go read the liner notes of the remastered special edition of "In
> A Silent Way"
> or just listen carefully to the recordings
> themselves................it's very evident
> what is looped and what isn't.
>
> What I should have said is that the net effect of hearing the record
> made in this way has
> a direct line of inspiration to the percussive approaches of, say, the
> early Weather Report and their
> great percussion/drumming rhythm sections.
>
>
> *******
> Also, you took me to task (by saying I"d had my 2nd espresso of the day)
> for talking about the expansion of timbres in percussion that came from
> that time period.
>
> I've studied percussion and the introduction of new percussion
> sounds/textures/cultures in
> modern popular music (and I"ll add jazz and jazz fusion to that list)
> since the early 70's
> and I did a lot of research into the history of percussive sounds in
> American music
> in particular back to the 19th century and you can clearly see
> that there was an explosion of new percussion textures in jazz, jazz
> fusion and popular music
> that starts right at this time.
>
> Before this time, so called ethnic influence in jazz had been limited
> to very small amounts of traditional West African
> music (and usually played on Afro Cuban and NOT African instruments),
> Afro-Caribbean musics
> (and almost entirely Afro Cuban and Afro Brazilian and NOT the other
> strong rhythmic style from the
> Caribbean ---Afro Haitian, Antillean, Jamaican, etc.) and a very tiny
> amount of Indian and Japanese
> influences.
>
> Around the time following 'In A Silent Way/Bitches Brew' there was a
> virtual explosion of new percussive timbres.
> This was way before successful companies like Latin Percussion had
> gigantic catalogues filled with
> percussion from around the world.
>
> Mind you, it's not that those instruments didn't exist (or the cultures
> that they came from weren't vibrant in their own countries)
> it's just they were impossible to find physically to purchase and play,
> at least in American (maybe the UK was different, but if it
> was, it's certainly not born out from the popular music that came from
> there at the time). I know because I fanatically searched it out
> in every city I visited in the US at that time.
>
> I studied Malinkan rhythms from a fantastic drummer who had learned his
> percussion in a state penitentiary and a student of his of all weird
> things.
> We played for a good two years before we even saw a Djembe. There
> were none on the West Coast of the US.
> Now every third hippy on the mall has one and they are available for
> purchase all over the planet. I remember seeing borrowing a Sufi
> woman's Tar
> and then after I had to return it, I didn't see another one for five
> more years, when I finally bought one.
>
> In the late 70's I put together a double Ghanaian Gonkokui Bell and a
> Brazillian double Agogo bell using a kluged
> stand that used two triangle holders, a hell of a lot of gaffing tape
> and a cymbal stand to play four bell Senegales bell
> parts for dance classes because there WERE NO percussion stands/
> percussion trays/ cowbell footpedal beaters for sale.
>
> In those days, a metal Afuche and a Flexitone were incredibly exotic
> percussion instruments.
> One by one, I marked when I'd first hear a new sound or a new drum on a
> recording or in a performance.
>
> Things exploded percussively at the beginning of the fusion movement
> (which as long as we are talking about it,
> has to go to Tony Williams Lifetime 'Emergency' as the first record of
> the movement --- a record that Miles most
> definitely heard).
>
> So, 2nd espresso or no, I stand by my statement that timbre and
> texture ramped up considerably around this time
> and I think these records had a large part in that.
>
> I also think that "In a Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew" though not
> first in this movement, were, nonetheless
> vastly more influential on the subsequent history of the movement than
> the first records.
>
> I think the trance like qualities of both of those records had a huge
> influence on records to come that
> the rawer and far less groove oriented drumming of Tony Williams had,
> say, in "Emergency".
>
> Show me a single popular recording that sounded like "In a Silent Way"
> that precedes it.
> I say popular! There may have been more obscure predecessors but
> millions of people heard these records
> and certainly tens of thousands of musicians.
>
> Miles didn't invent anything really. Modalism existed before him,
> Trance music existed, Fusion Existed , blah, blah, blah.
>
> Somebody once said that artists are the antennae of a culture. They
> pick up change coming long before the rest of the population
> does and they broadcast it.
>
> Miles was certainly an antennae and he most certainly was a popularizer.
> He had an enormous influence on modern music and the sound of modern
> jazz and I think it's okay
> to credit him thusly. You don't have to take a single thing away from
> all the musicians you mentioned who also contributed
> to say that.
>
>
>


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