Great albums with no good songs

moshkito wrote: As for calling it "fusion" or anything else, I really don't care.

Depends what you mean by "care". I don't care about genres as such, and there's NO music I'm not willing to give a listen or a chance. But I care about making myself understood. Sometimes I use "Fusion", "Prog", "Folk" or... "Rococo". In the right context with the right people, it provides an association or whatever so taht "everyone" can have an idea what I'm talking about. But it's not like I care about these labels in the way that I care about the music and the arts.

I don't disagree it's a spectacular line up*

-but as I haven't enjoyed (at all) what I've heard, I'm indifferent to Tommy Bolin - and great as Leland Sklar undoublty is, I have other favorite bassists. They are both skilled of course. So many musicians are. I prefer loads of other highly skilled guys over both of them.

*I know you added a "one off", but that's really quite common as well.

Hi,

If we take the WHEN the album was made, and how much jazz Miles had already done (lists over 15/20 albums by that time), and what the whole thing was about ... the freedom to be able to do what the player felt at that moment, is one of the most prized moments in ALL OF MUSIC, and sometimes it might not exactly sound perfect, but them Debussy (for example) was booed badly ... and his material is pretty ... even if some might think it was a bit over the top, towards the SONG mentality, which at the time was not exactly taken very seriously. The album stands up, because the idea of "song" was taken out of the equation ... and him not just trying to copy himself, or fall into the trickery that many solo performers tend to do ... this being a lot more visible many years later, is so many "prog" rock bands ... when after a while, can you say? .... right ... I'm leaving, this is high school stuff! 

I think ... I THINK ... that one of the most difficult things for many music fans, is to look at music through its history, rather than the more simplistic "favorites" which disregard music history altogether, in general! Jazz, in 1970 had some freedom and there was a lot of improvisation and free form, but a lot of it was still taken into the context of one piece of music, a sort of format, though not strictly defined. Miles, at that point, decided to just give it a go ... how long could he make it ... and I don't think that many folks, in any kind of music, can do that. In India, he would be considered a "master" for his ability to go for 15 to 20 minutes and not repeat himself. But here, sadly, many folks dislike the "show" when someone simply goes all out ... though I don't think that 99.9% of all the lead guitarists can make it past the 5/10 minute mark, without repeating their chords on a different note, for example. Miles, I think, was extremely aware of that possibility and I think that he wanted to see how far he could take it, without boring himself.

AND, just so you know, jazz per se is not exactly my favorite stuff, although I tend to love a lot of the folks from the ECM group, but I think many of them "transcend" the ability to define a piece of music as this or that ... and then you have things like Keith Jarrett doing LP side long pieces, even of some of them, sometimes, seem to be somewhat mechanic (repeating on a different note/scale/chord) ... but the freedom that others undertook and played, was exception, which is vastly different from what is  "American Jazz" ... but there were folks in ECM that could very well solo for a long time, because their music learning and talent was not based on what was "known" already as a sort of "commercial" style of music, since the new/unknown stuff was not as well defined yet, but became more so with ECM and some other jazz inclined labels.

To me, his freedom in that piece and other albums, make so many guitarist in prog and progressive music sound positively boring ... and while I do not dislike Steve Howe (for example), now you know why I do not discuss lead guitarists ... lest a say something that will get folks upset. In fact the smoothest and best guitarist I ever saw and heard was a guy that was a technician for the LA based PBS station, and he had quit the music scene, because no one wanted him ... he was black, had the  best singing voice you ever heard, and he could play and then some ... and no guitarist I have ever seen ever came close to that beauty ... there used to be some video clips of him, as the station once did a 30 minute special on him, but it has been removed, forgotten and dumped ... and I got to see him with another great Chic Street Man.

I look at all music, not just rock, or jazz, for example.