Does Miles Davis belong in Prog?

Great post! LOL! And I've watched as several brilliant bands have been turned away for not having enough rock in their musical foundation (Five-Storey Ensemble--which came out of Rational Diet; Mediæval Bæbes--who came out of Miranda Sex Garden; The Amazing--who came out of Sweden with Reine Fiske; to name a few, etc.)

Great post indeed.

Well, you have to be sure that people see (hear) very well that strong link between Canterbury scene and jazz-rock. However, nobody will post the topic like "are Canterbury bands really belong to Prog 'cause there's a lot of jazz in their music?" Why is it so? The reason is quite simple and it's racism.

Of course, nothing like a nazi thing, or KKK, or these organized "white nationalists" and so on, but there is, say, a kind of "unconscious racism", that is deeply in the minds of white petty bourgeoisie which is actually the biggest consumer of prog and it is a fact. And I don't have the OP in mind, I am writing this in general.

 

That's why these white jazz-rock musicians and (or) jazz-rock albums who came from e.g. Canterbury scene were / are regarded as 100% prog aswell, and on the other side THE progenitor of jazz-rock "would be out of prog" - sadly, far more because of the colour of his skin than because of Kind Of Blue. 

All that reminds me when I read an interview with Miles Davis, where he said that he is harassed several times by the cops when he drove his Ferrari cabriolet; the cops didn't recognized him, so they repeatedly stopped him and asked "where he stole the car"; in those cops' minds, "Ferrari car belongs to the whites only".

So the Miles' jazz-rock shows in the psychedelic halls of whites in late 60s were a real revolution.

Of course, it should not be forgotten that back then there were the black racists also (as same as the jazz purists) who were wondered "why Miles is playing that white sh*t".

However, Miles stated once, "we were a real rock band back then, a very loud band, and it was a great fun".

I just use the term fusion the way jazz folk use it, as shorthand for jazz rock.

Cheers, have a good night.

 you very clever sod!  Hugs

Maybe Harmonium (but mind, I am not a huge fan and may not be familiar enough with their work to comment).  

Even Renaissance have the very Brubeck-influenced Trip to the fair (one of their best songs too, strangely enough).  Day of the Dreamer has touches of jazz too in terms of the syncopated beats used in the interlude.  The variations on live performances of Things I don't Understand as also the extended sessions on Ashes Are Burning also incorporate elements of jazz.

I don't, however, hear anywhere near the kind of astral vision in any thing by Miles comparable to the clarity that Floyd had achieved by the 70s, as evidenced for all time in the prophetic DSOM sessions movie, with the planets and all at the beginning, which I watch every afternoon,to get my day going, you know? As Mr. Smith, my "better red then dead" existentialism and jazz improvisation teacher explained to the neophytes, Miles D had gone to a lot of  super double secret acid parties, but was still a mere astral tramp on the plane, rather then a crystal visionary, which seems about right. Perhaps his real iconographic fire came from his extraordinary ability to be expressive over ridiculously complex chord changes, with an alien like sense of time and color. Most of his later work was less about the crucible of practice and study, then about the cauldron, where like a master chemist, he gathered the elements and mixed them, soloing with his creepy sounding trumpet on top, wherever the jam might lead. (And somehow making sure someone had remembered to press the record button!!!) Thus Bitches Brew and so on, until he bought Marcus Miller a new Mercedes Benz, but that was a whole different mothership of its own. 

 but with a big dose of sparkle that only jazz has to offer.

  

(...) What seems to me to be an essential part of prog rock, and rock music in general, is the lyrical content.  Lyrics, when mixed with music, opens doors to the subconscious mind (...)

In Progressive rock music lyrics are far less important than in Rock,

and the voice is often just one of the band's instruments actually.

That's the same with vocally jazz-rock, where e.g. Steely Dan has great lyrics, though.

(...) Simply put, Miles Davis was never, and never considered  himself to be prog rock, although everyone on down was influenced deeply by his stunning musical escapades. (...)

It does not change anything. There are some artists who did not perceived themselfs

as the prog artists, but the prog audience accepted them as prog and that's it.

On the other hand, there are artists who called themselves "prog" but then were unanimously rejected by the teams here. This sometimes happens even with musicaly educated artists,

so how it's possible that their opinion is not valid then?

I said already that the *prog* is what "we" ( I mean, a majority of the all proggers around the globe) 

accept as such, of course in the harmony with our mind-sets as you pointed out. 

We accept some music as prog - from song to song, from album to album,

from one band to another,

from one country to another, from 1960s to 2010s, and beyond.

 

Thanks for drinking your energy drinks and reading my first post.

 

Thanks also and now, after your "first post", you need to swallow a sedative (made on a natural basis only, of course) 

because you have not given us any irrefutable argument why Miles Davis is supposed to fly out of here,

from the genre and from our prog heads

Edited by Svetonio - December 15 2014 at 21:11