Seth Godin on Miles Davis
I’ve learned a lot from Seth Godin, but when someone has something to say about jazz…
In Seth’s blog post today, he referenced Miles Davis recording Kind of Blue:
When Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue with his quartet, they spent a total of four days in the recording studio. They created one of the bestselling and most important jazz albums of all time in less than a week.
Fact check:
The album was recorded with a sextet, not a quartet.
The album was recorded in two days, not four. March 2 and April 22, 1959.
He goes on to say:
Of course, they’d been exploring for months. In clubs, in front of an audience, trading fours and taking risks.
Is that right? The band was certainly performing, but were they exploring? Were they taking risks?
This is an example of the band in live performance in the months leading up to the Kind of Blue sessions:
I don’t hear exploring and risk-taking. I hear confident swinging. These are working musicians delivering the goods!
Studio time is expensive. Studio time should be de-risked.
On facebook, Ron Carter recently shared an example of one of his recording plans:
This is an example of my recording plan. I NEVER go into the studio without knowing EXACTLY how things will work. Studio time is expensive, musicians must be paid, and the time to work everything out is before you arrive! This was the plan I did for my album Mr. Bow Tie.
That’s a sensible approach, but I don’t think Miles worked that way. On the Kind of Blue sessions, and with many of Miles’ sessions in general, the musicians were seeing the music for the first time. They were learning the music in the studio with tape running. No rehearsal, no extensive touring of the material before recording. Risky? Not really. He had confidence in the ability, sensibility and chemistry of the players he hired for the job. Hire the right cats, and it becomes less about organization and professionalism, and more about how might we capture something special? What might inspire a fresh approach?
Back to Seth:
You’ll need to find a place to noodle. A place to take risks and do things that might not work, where the stakes are real but the stakes aren’t so high that you forget why you’re doing this work in the first place.
But noodling isn’t taking risks or trying things that might not work. It’s a kind of aimless wandering around on the instrument. The opposite of risk taking. It’s falling into familiar grooves, muscle memory, and stock licks.
It’s more important to stop playing and think about what you’re trying to do.