Kaplan is right to point out that Kind of Blue had a negative influence on the music as well as a positive one. Starting in the late 50's and 60's, the focus of jazz and other art forms became innovation, and this has had tragic consequences on the music that exist to this day. Charlie Parker, who is probably the greatest artist of any kind that ever came out of the United States, was more focused on beauty than innovation or expression. The road that began with Ornette, Coltrane, and others in the 60's led later to self indulgent noodling and endless fusions. This solipsistic change of focus in the arts from THE music to MY music is one of the worst things that happened culturally in the twentieth century. Music is greater than you or me, it is something to be humbled by. Bach knew this and Charlie Parker knew this. (By the way, I do not agree with Kaplan that Parker "ran out of steam" at the end of his career.)

Kind of Blue should be listened to and enjoyed as should early Ornette and Coltrane, but why do musicians need to go down those musical paths and ignore the American songbook and the jazz language?

I agree with your general idea, but I don't think the responsibility lies with Kind of Blue. I always thought that it would be an interesting thesis for a paper to go back and trace the roots of the concept of "progress" and how it changed the role and archetype of artists in our society. My guess is it has roots in enlightenment thinking.

Its expression in the arts goes back at least as far the Romantic period in music and the French Impressionists in the visual arts.

But even "traditional" musical cultures in Africa and India give some value to individual innovation.

I also think you're wrong about Bird. He and Dizzy were widely hailed as innovators. As was Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington before him.

Good grief.

To claim that Bill Evans and Miles Davis were only interested in "innovation" and not "beauty" is really one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever heard.

And Charlie Parker is known as one of the great innovators of all time in jazz, it's what he's known for. I personally find less beauty in his work than Miles or Evans, but I know that's just a matter of taste, both have plenty of it for those who like them.

And this: "Starting in the late 50's and 60's, the focus of jazz and other art forms became innovation"

Starting in the 1950s? So not with the impressionists in France? Or earlier?

Most really memorable artists are great innovators, and there are reasons for that, anyone just following tradition is usually not being very creative.

The Impressionists, by the way, were ridiculed back then (before the 1950s, that is) for being "too interested in only innovation".

Sounds like you just like Charlie Parker, which is great. I'm not a fan of Ornette Coleman either. That's a better way to say it though, IMO, than "all music became awful after this particular date". It's absurd, sorry.

By the way jazz itself was focused on innovation right from the start. Guys playing legit gigs (as they came to be called by jazz musicians) -- that is, performances where every note they'd play was composed and written in advance-- would stay around afterwards and play around with the stuff they had been playing, have fun with it, yes, innovate. They'd improvise with the structure of the piece, the melody, and that's how the whole art form was born.

Beauty, "musicality" as musicians tend to call it, is of central importance, but it and innovation aren't separate things. Doing one doesn't exlude the other.

Oh and the people listening to those guys back then said the same thing that people had said about the impressionists. "That's not music, music is what's written down, this is just playing around, innovating for its own sake"

I think Kaplan had it right when he said Charlie Parker not only invented bebop, but perfected it. Same is true for whatever Kind of Blue is. Its new and different sounding than what came before it, and what came after it trying to be whatever it was, was not as good.

This happens in other areas of music too, where the inventor is not only the inventor, but the best, who cannot be imitated. Not to change the subject, or invite a different discussion altogether, but for example, if you like heavy metal, and think led zeppelin "invented" heavy metal, you probably also think that no other band's metal was as good as led zeppelin's.

Kind of blue exudes that same sense that any great album in any great genre does- the sense of great musicians getting together, all being on the same wavelength, and making something that is great, but fleeting, never to be recaptured again, with everything that comes after it paling in comparison.

Not to mention everything inluential is always influential for good and ill. I really love Miles Davis's fusion records; but I hate almost everything else given that tag. Its own offshoot, lite jazz, holds a special place in hell for me unmatched by any other genre of music.

I really do like your argument against innovation-for-it's-own-sake (or innovation as some sort of sine qua non of art), but I think that is a distinction made for and by critics, and thus, their fault.

I think you were replying to the first post, not mine?

Yeah I can agree with that. I mean most really interesting artists will actually bristle, themselves, at all of these attempt to categorize forms like that, but yeah, Parker was Parker and his kind of music reached a sort of peak with him, and then that's why people want to explore something new when they come along. Miles played with Parker after all, and on and on.

I think what's more important is to recognize individual, or group, contributions as unique. There was nothing like this particular moment with these musicians-- before or after. Enough said.

I really do like your argument against innovation-for-it's-own-sake (or innovation as some sort of sine qua non of art), but I think that is a distinction made for and by critics, and thus, their fault.

It goes deeper than that and is part of our artistic culture. Even the way we are taught jazz history is based on this Romantic concept of the great artist as the wild haired innovator working alone. This "great man" version of history is the way Ken Burns presents it in his documentary.

Every conservatory students dreams of being a great innovator, sometimes to a detrimental degree. To paraphrase Duke Ellington's advice to a young musician, don't worry about being new, worry about being good.

Agree with the general sentiment here, but I would have to say, Charile Parker pretty much defined noodling. Have you guys actually listened to him? Literally, he goes off the beaten path for long periods of time, playing mostly quick, random phrases, and not keeping with the chord changes or a general melodic pattern. If that isn't nooding, then nothing is.

I agree that innovation for innoviation's sake is no real innovation at all. But when comparing a noodler, to a non-noodler, don't use Charlie Parker as the example of the non-noodler.

Innovation and fusions (fusing different musical traditions together) should happen naturally, they shouldn't be forced. Before the 60's, there was more of an emphasis on craftmanship in jazz. Since the 60's, I feel that "learning the craft" has taken a back seat to creating something new, but not necessarily better. J.S. Bach, the master of masters, represents this craft-over-innovation idea. He didn't really come up with any new forms or styles, he just mastered everything that he touched. He spent his career doing the same thing over and over again, but better and better. Charlie Parker was the same sort of musician. He mastered the forms and styles that came before him, never seeing the need to reinvent the wheel. Warne Marsh is another example. After Bach, many composers began writing in a new style, partly because they didn't bother to learn counterpoint (it's hard!), and the same thing happened with some musicians after Parker: they didn't learn the jazz language but instead jumped right into the deep end of the pool. Pianist Barry Harris has said that there are leaders and followers. Harris would be a follower of Bud Powell and Charlie Parker. Miles Davis was a leader. The problem today is that too many musicians try to be leaders. What's wrong with being a follower?

I too would like to know the roots of the concept of progress. You can see that in the Romantic period composers kept "progressing" until they eventually ended with the twelve tone school, which is a dead end if there ever was one.

That was a reply to todij

Firstinlastout: Not sure this is even worth replying to. Charlie Parker was NOT a noodler. Just about every solo that he ever put on record consists of one beautifully crafted melody after another, effortlessy fitting perfectly into the harmony. "Random" is not a word that describes the music of Charlie Parker.

This must be the most absurd piece of commentary I've ever read on Kind of Blue, or Bird. I'm all about beauty in music because that's what attracted me to it, but to suggest that Bird was not interested in innovation... come on.

Find me any great musician (or artist) who wasn't also an innovator - they don't exist. I'm not saying that it's an inherent contradiction to have good music that isn't innovative - I'm saying that for whatever psychological reason, great composers are interested in innovation just as they are interested in beauty. I mean, Bach wrote beautiful music - if composers weren't interested in innovation, why didn't they just write in Bach's style?

Why you think that pursuit of innovation is a twentieth century phenomenon is beyond me. It may not have been quite as apparent back when European high art was religious, but it was still there (Palestrina, Victoria, et al. were constantly pushing the boundaries of what the Church found acceptable). Besides, if you're going to assign a time period to "innovation" the twentieth century seems an odd choice, seeing as most Western thought of that period was driven by disillusionment with the so-called "innovation" many blamed for both world wars.

My guess is that you just don't know what you're talking about and you fail to hear the jazz language in anything you don't like, even though it's there. Look closer - jazz musicians are often curious and musically eclectic, so just because it's not I Can't Give You Anything but Love doesn't mean it's not an heir to Bird or Miles.