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Who Was The Better Composer
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Poll Question: Miles Davis or Wayne Shorter within the Davis Quintet.
Poll Choice Votes Poll Statistics
16 [66.67%]
8 [33.33%]
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Matt View Drop Down
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    Posted: 11 Feb 2012 at 1:56pm

What brought the idea for this thread around was particulary the two albums "Sorceror and "Nefertiti". Miles did not use one composition of his own. Wayne Shorter provided 50% + of the material on both with the other band members adding some as well. I was thinking more Bop than Fusion as Wayne's Blue Note albums are nothing to be sneezed at either. I agree that Miles Davis will be remembered far above Wayne Shorter but Wayne wrote some beauties before the seventies. "Speak No Evil", "Night Dreamer" are fab albums.

Miles wrote nearly all the Fusion material that came after starting with "Filles de Kilimanjaro" but still "Sanctuary" is real highlight off Bitches Brew being the only one from Wayne on the album.
 
I am not a Weather Report fan myself all that much but always liked Wayne's Bop whatever it is, Hard or Post.
 
I am stuck a little pre-seventies in Jazz you know. I only recently found out that Sonny Rollins was still cutting albums in the seventies. WinkBig smile
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Originally posted by Matt Matt wrote:

I went for Shorter too. More consistent and prolific. Sorceror was what made me ask the question because I like the album for the reason that Shorter did write a lot of it. Bitches Brew is too dragged out for me. When I do play it I always make sure I hear 'Sanctuary",  "Miles Runs The Voodoo Down" by Miles is my other fave of it. Yep Disc 2 for me Wink
I can't  believe I missed this thread, I really have a hard time understanding the debate on Davis vs Shorter, While I freely admit, Shorter is a great Composer, and possibly the real driving force of the Second Great Davis Quintet, it's certainly not as if Davis was a non factor composition wise, or playing wise either, we are talking about a man who was indeed so prolific, he participated in the development, and broke new ground, In Cool Jazz, Hard Bop, Modal Jazz, orchestrated jazz with Gil Evans, the second great quintet and all the electric period music, when I think about On the Corner, Get Up with it, Big Fun, and Dark Magus, this music hasn't been fully deciphered yet, and is heavily influencing Modern bands like elephant 9 and Jaga Jazzist and on and on and on, Simply Put, from 1945 on, just telling the story of Miles is like telling the story of Jazz itself. As far as Wayne is concerned, no slight intended, believe me, but even he hasn't done whole lot since 1975 that I think to much of, Weather Report burned out quick, and his own solo stuff after 1975 is average at best, some is drivel, Even Miles weaker 80's music eclipses anything Wayne did in the 80's or 90's for that matter, Shorter's quartet albums and Alegria were high quality, but not ground breaking in any way. Wayne is a great Saxophonist who has contributed many standards to the genre, In closing, I have always felt that the Davis 68-75 period of Music, will 100 years from now be looked at in higher regard than even Kind of Blue, I mean that music still sounds fresh and ahead of it's time, even in today's world in some respects, there really is no comparison between Shorter and Davis.

my humble opinion of course.
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Originally posted by Sean Trane Sean Trane wrote:

I'd vote Miles, but one has to know that Miles appropriated himself some of the tunes on his albums that were other's labour.... His writing and playing skills were not that fabulous.... Miles' main qualities were elsewhere... He was more of hap^pener, creating the moments and occasions for things to happen... therefore the man was more more an event artistes than a purely creational (hopefully, you guys will understand where I'm getting at because it's not that easy for me to make it clearEmbarrassed) .... he felt things out a lot more than most others.... but often, on the technical or virtuosity side, he was just a tad more than average
 
Miles had indeed questionable work ethics and rules a bit as a tyrant (a bit like Mingus did too)
 
But between Miles & Wayne, I'll go for Miles
  I Believe a clear line needs to be drawn between early Miles and later Miles, Clearly his trumpet work was not much better than average compared to Gillespie or Clifford Brown for instance, Though his tone and use of space, can not be overlooked, But later period Miles, from Seven Steps to Heaven on, he was no slouch, and it is quite startling hearing his technique improve throughout the Mid to late 60's on into the electric music, compared to the early 50's, he certainly was way above average, if not in the elite,
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Sean Trane View Drop Down
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I'd vote Miles, but one has to know that Miles appropriated himself some of the tunes on his albums that were other's labour.... His writing and playing skills were not that fabulous.... Miles' main qualities were elsewhere... He was more of hap^pener, creating the moments and occasions for things to happen... therefore the man was more more an event artistes than a purely creational (hopefully, you guys will understand where I'm getting at because it's not that easy for me to make it clearEmbarrassed) .... he felt things out a lot more than most others.... but often, on the technical or virtuosity side, he was just a tad more than average
 
Miles had indeed questionable work ethics and rules a bit as a tyrant (a bit like Mingus did too)
 
But between Miles & Wayne, I'll go for Miles
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicted musicians to crazy ones....

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Originally posted by MilesBeyond MilesBeyond wrote:

It was a tough choice, but I ended up going with Miles. Even though his stuff tends to be a bit light on the compositional side (i.e. he usually wrote "sketches" rather than actual jotting out music), this is the very reason why he got my vote. He pioneered a style of writing that I think freed up jazz and allowed instrumentalists to express themselves in unheard ways.

Of course, compositionally speaking I think they both pale in comparison to the likes of Monk and the big Duke himself, but they were nonetheless both quite good at what they did.


Yeah, nicely put!
I went for Miles too, as covers a wider range of styles he has the advantage there too
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It was a tough choice, but I ended up going with Miles. Even though his stuff tends to be a bit light on the compositional side (i.e. he usually wrote "sketches" rather than actual jotting out music), this is the very reason why he got my vote. He pioneered a style of writing that I think freed up jazz and allowed instrumentalists to express themselves in unheard ways.

Of course, compositionally speaking I think they both pale in comparison to the likes of Monk and the big Duke himself, but they were nonetheless both quite good at what they did.
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Miles was awesome. He made arranged jazz with real themes and melodies and stuff and it wasn't pop-jazz or light jazz. It was full jazz but with arrangements, incredible.
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Miles
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Originally posted by js js wrote:

Miles was great at concepts, new directions and fusing elements, but Shorter is the better writer in my opinion.
 
Me like.....
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Originally posted by js js wrote:

Miles was great at concepts, new directions and fusing elements, but Shorter is the better writer in my opinion.
 
Yeah, that's the way I see it too.
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Originally posted by js js wrote:

Miles was great at concepts, new directions and fusing elements, but Shorter is the better writer in my opinion.
 
I agree with this.
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Miles, because he wrote "Willie Nelson" AND "John McLaughlin". 
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Compositionally speaking, Shorter > Miles.

Miles was a master of putting the right people together and coming up with new ideas to further take jazz into different directions.  He was an innovator.
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Miles solely because of Go Ahead John on Big Fun.
 
Because of this, he is the greatest jazz composer of all time. Geek
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After some consideration, my vote goes to Miles as well
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Davis is miles ahead of Shorter.

Edited by Polo - 07 Apr 2011 at 3:03pm

That's Kenny G with Miles Davis on my avatar, by the way.
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MRTVD is genius Cool
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I went for Shorter too. More consistent and prolific. Sorceror was what made me ask the question because I like the album for the reason that Shorter did write a lot of it. Bitches Brew is too dragged out for me. When I do play it I always make sure I hear 'Sanctuary",  "Miles Runs The Voodoo Down" by Miles is my other fave of it. Yep Disc 2 for me Wink
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Gotta say Miles.
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I think Wayne Shorter offered a good song to a band of Art Blakey already in enrolled time as a personal opinion.

I like an enrollment album of (Shorter - Hubbard - Fuller) in particular.
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