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Live in Aalen: Thomas Maier
Poster: Hans Kumpf
Background: Ryan Stone, Jon Tyson

... If there was a real superstar in jazz towards the end of the last century, it was certainly Miles Davis. Not that he was a flawless and virtuoso trumpeter. His innovative actions and even more so his aura and airs stood out. In the concert hall, at the festival or in the recording studio - neither the audience nor his fellow players could escape his magical charisma. (...)

When he came at short notice to the Ludwigsburg "Tonstudio Bauer" precisely six months and one day before his passing - on the eve of the concert in Aalen - (...) this studio guest performance of the extravagant "Black Prince" (...) turned out to be an indelible experience: At midnight Miles Davis was driven up in a Rolls-Royce, dressed in expensive fur and leaning on a cane, he covered the few meters to the digital recording site - and first relaxed for five minutes on a couch. Then he elicited the first notes from his trumpet: "Cool" vibratoless phrases, very short in each case, with mute in restrained brilliance. Brittle the intonation, often unclean the embouchure and the entries.

But this remains, after all, the very individual characteristic of Miles Davis, who from bebop alongside Charlie Parker, through cool jazz and hardbop, to electronified rock jazz, was stylistically influential in the development of African-American music. (...) What remained fascinating with Miles Davis - also here - was his feeling, his very own lyrical way of expression. He never blew his horn in an upbeat and jubilant manner; the tristesse and the lamentations remained with him even into modern times, up to fusion and hip-hop.

With magic or with authority, Miles Davis made his fellow players "instruments" to create a certain atmosphere. Thus, since 1981, when the then dead man started to make a successful comeback, his bands really "breathed" like a single musical body. An organic cohesion, a musical unity. (...) The importance of Miles Davis may also be judged by how many leading musicians of today "went to school" in his groups. Just mention the pianists Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, the guitarists John McLaughlin and John Scofield, the drummers Jack DeJohnette and Billy Cobham as well as the saxophonists Bill Evans and Wayne Shorter.
(...)

Excerpt from the article "20 years ago trumpeter Miles Davis died" for the Jazz Pages of September 28, 2011 by Hans Kumpf.

 

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The Man with the Horn: Miles Davis
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