Re: Great Books That Have Changed Ou

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

I have to say that reading Ashley Kahn's book
"The Making of Kind Of Blue"   really had a huge impact on me.

Some of it was just discovering that Ravel, Bill Evans and finally Miles 
had
been hearing the exact same thing that I've been hearing in my head for
many years (and that is a lot of suspended chords that don't necessarily 
resolve)
gave me a feeling of validation.

Because I was involved early on with Balinese, African, Caribbean, 
Middleastern
and Indian musics (filtered through my love of a lot of progressive pop 
musics, from
prog rock to fusion to art rock to arty new wave) ,  my entrance into 
the world of melody
was colored by a great love of scalar or modal playing.

though I learned modern Jazz theory (or some of it, at least) in 
College,  I mostly learned how
to spell chords and understand how harmony functioned but never went 
through the regimin
of either classical chordal theory or jazz chordal theory.

Essentially,  it was becoming a live looper that forced me into playing 
more and more melodic instruments
and I had a very simple and naive approach of using the African paradigm 
of lining up a whole lot
of synchronized and arranged ostinato lines, 
melodically.................I started with Bass so everything
was linear.

But from an early age,  the harmonies of Ravel,  Ralph Vaugh Williams, 
Aaron Copland, Debussy, Satie
as well as the modalism of the whole early ECM jazz scene really 
appealed to me.

At the same time I read Ashley Kahn's book (which to this day in my life 
was the best music reading experience I've ever had,
as I bought the new remastered version of Kind of Blue and guiltily 
listened and slowly read about it's making)  I also
saw a wonderful documentary on the live of Joni Mitchell, (I've always 
loved her music).

In it, she said that Wayne Shorter (tracking on her historic recording 
of Mingus with the dying Charles Mingus)  told her that
she should really consider resolving her famous altered tuning suspended 
chords with a major chord so that some resolution
should occur.    He was being critical of her tendency to use a 
suspended chord followed by a suspended chord.

She said that when she wrote those songs that her life was far from 
resolved emotionally and that she wanted to
reflect her life and feelings in her music.

When she said that I sighed a sigh of relief and thought,  "exactly"!!!!

For some reasons a lot of normal chord progressions just don't do 
anything for me emotionally.
I don't think I've ever written a tune using Ionian as an 
example.....................give me that raised four
or that flatted seventh at least, for some emotional complexity.

So,  yeah,  that was  long extended way of saying,     "The Making of 
Kind Of Blue"   by Ashley Kahn really influenced me
or perhaps validated me.

He has written another one on the making of "A Love Supreme" by 
Coltrane,  but much as I like that piece of music,  it is not as compelling
to me , theoretically,  as Miles's excursion in Kind of Blue.