A Paris show illuminates the life and music of the great jazz musician.
Celebrating Miles Davis
By: Joel Dreyfuss|
PARIS—Jazz has always had more respect as an art form in Europe than in its home country, where appreciation too often gets tangled in the politics of race. We Want Miles: Jazz Face to Face With Its Legend is an extensive exhibition on the life and work of legendary Miles Davis at the Cité de la Musique in Paris. It offers the kind of loving attention that few jazz musicians, dead or alive, ever get in America. The exhibit, which opened on Oct. 16, closes on Jan. 17.
Spread over nearly 9,000 square feet on two floors of the music museum, the show covers the full span of Davis’ artistic life, from rare photographs of him in childhood with his family and at age 16 in a St. Louis dance band, to soundtracks of his final recordings in the 1980s and several of the instruments he played.
Davis’ role as a seminal player, creator and innovator in jazz are well-covered in this multimedia exhibit, which includes displays of instruments he played, scores from some of his most famous recordings, video and audio recordings, news clippings and reviews from both sides of the Atlantic. The Davis estate collaborated with the Cité de la Musique by making many of these items available.
The display of musical scores is a refreshing break from the tendency among jazz chroniclers like Ken Burns to disregard the intellectual process involved in jazz and instead focus on personalities and pathology, like drug addiction. The scores, some by arranger Gil Evans, who collaborated on some of Miles’ most famous recordings (Birth of the Blues, Sketches of Spain) and others by Wayne Shorter, who played in the 1960s quintet with Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter, are not particularly revealing. They are often sketchy, but serve as a reminder of the discipline and vast pool of formal knowledge that informs jazz.
Read the Full Essay @ The Root.com
Joel Dreyfuss is managing editor of The Root.
By: Joel Dreyfuss|
PARIS—Jazz has always had more respect as an art form in Europe than in its home country, where appreciation too often gets tangled in the politics of race. We Want Miles: Jazz Face to Face With Its Legend is an extensive exhibition on the life and work of legendary Miles Davis at the Cité de la Musique in Paris. It offers the kind of loving attention that few jazz musicians, dead or alive, ever get in America. The exhibit, which opened on Oct. 16, closes on Jan. 17.
Spread over nearly 9,000 square feet on two floors of the music museum, the show covers the full span of Davis’ artistic life, from rare photographs of him in childhood with his family and at age 16 in a St. Louis dance band, to soundtracks of his final recordings in the 1980s and several of the instruments he played.
Davis’ role as a seminal player, creator and innovator in jazz are well-covered in this multimedia exhibit, which includes displays of instruments he played, scores from some of his most famous recordings, video and audio recordings, news clippings and reviews from both sides of the Atlantic. The Davis estate collaborated with the Cité de la Musique by making many of these items available.
The display of musical scores is a refreshing break from the tendency among jazz chroniclers like Ken Burns to disregard the intellectual process involved in jazz and instead focus on personalities and pathology, like drug addiction. The scores, some by arranger Gil Evans, who collaborated on some of Miles’ most famous recordings (Birth of the Blues, Sketches of Spain) and others by Wayne Shorter, who played in the 1960s quintet with Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter, are not particularly revealing. They are often sketchy, but serve as a reminder of the discipline and vast pool of formal knowledge that informs jazz.
Read the Full Essay @ The Root.com
Joel Dreyfuss is managing editor of The Root.
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