the small groups

I have an especial fondness for the 2nd great quartet who were certainly moving apace in their prolific studio output, and live too where they concentrated more on standards than original compositions, such as this mesmerising rendering of Autumn Leaves from 1964:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX4i9CieZYk&feature=related

But I must admit my deep love of Miles begins with In a Silent Way and I regard Bitches Brew as one of the greatest things ever, though my all time favourite is the album On the Corner...

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Music changes; traditional process is largely a matter of paying dues and moving it on; the career of Miles Davis is a classic example of this, even in this latter days when he was enchanted by a new sort of standard. His extended beguiling explorations of Michael Jackson & Cindi Lauper notwithstanding, I think I'm one of the only Miles Davis fan who thinks Doo-Bop is a thing of rare beauty, though Easy Mo Bee's rapping is tenth rate even by the old-school standards of the time. One can only wonder how it might have been had Miles teamed up with the more dynamic forces such as the Jungle Brothers or De La Soul.

Individual and collective humanity is the key to what music is; it certainly determines what traditions are; we each each have that unique spark of passion for our respective cause which drives us to love what do love, do what we do, and to love what we do. We are all of us Traditional in the sense of paying our dues and doing things our own way, whatever the idioms we're working in. In that I doubt we have any sort of choice at all. I don't think The Tradition was any different - certainly not if the Fossil Record is anything to go by; the six texts of Child #38 imply a dynamic culture every bit as fluidly creative as Hip Hop, and the lyrical dexterity of Butter and Cheese and All or Stanley Market examplifies the idiosyncratic mastery of a vernacular art on a par with anything before or since. Popular Music changes; it moves on as people move on as societal conditions change and priorities with them. Music only truly dies when people die, and people are greater than music; without people there would be no music. Music is always the result of individual human passion, genius & idiosyncrasy - be it Miles Davis, Davie Stewart or Tommy Armstrong: each payed their dues back to their community, each was a master of his respective tradition, yet each was well & truly 'out there' albeit loved & respected for it, however so guardedly at times. The Folk Revival revels in the notion of collectivity, yet it would be nothing without the specific individuals whose passion & genius shaped our notions of it, from Cecil Sharp to Ewan MacColl, Martin Carthy, Hamish Henderson, Seamus Ennis, Peter Bellamy et al. all the way down to we happy few who routinely squabble (for the best of reasons? God, let's hope so!) on this forum. All human life is here; long may that continue!