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Archive for April, 2010

Day 78. The Shins and The Decemberists.

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

A bit of music from the aughts tonight… I must say that my discovery of newer music (particularly pop and rock) in the decade took a pretty big hit. I wasn’t working at a record store anymore, I WAS buried neck deep constantly in graduate school, and though the first half of the decade was bad, as CDs disappeared and Celia and Mira showed up, my music shopping became more and more restricted to iTunes and eMusic. Plus – I just wasn’t hearing too much that I found interesting (getting older and set in my ways??? Hell no! But… yeah). There are exceptions of course, and two of those groups were ‘The Decemberists’ (from just south of us) and ‘The Shins’.

‘The Crane Wife’ is a pretty great album. And while I generally stay away from 70s prog-rock, the best parts of that genre found their way into ‘The Crane Wife’. The 12 minute second track (‘The Island’) has moments of ELP keyboard rockin’ that sound simply amazing. And the first three tracks are perfection. And though she doesn’t understand the words, I get a kick that it is one of Celia’s favorite songs (though she will take Kylie over the Decemberists any day). Though I do really like this album (and their first few as well), I was surprised that I didn’t jump and buy their latest once it came out. I actually was turned off a little bit by the uber-NPR promotion of ‘the next great’ concept album by the baroque rockers. It’s over-seriousness was a little too much for me. At some point though I really should pick it up. I imagine I’ll love it if it does pick up where ‘The Crane Wife’ leaves off.

The Shins on the other hand have really held my interest, and when ‘Wincing The Night Away’ came out, I DID get it the same day. And though there was a wave of fan disappointment over ‘the new sound’, it caught my ear right away. And part of what I really like about The Shins is that there is progression among all three of their albums. The mostly acoustic sound on the first one was a winning formula, but by the second one things have changed a bit. Still quite melodic, but also more electric and pop-y on one hand (‘Girl Inform Me’ is one of the best songs of the aughts in my opinion) and even more acoustic songwriter on the other (‘New Slang’ which, in spite of its cheesy usage in ‘Garden State’ really IS a great song). Then ‘Wincing The Night Away’ starts with synthesizers and vocals with effects… quite the surprise, but a wonderful one. I was sold on it about halfway through the first song, and thought the album was definitely a great step forward. It’s been about 3 years since its release, and I can’t wait for the next one.

Day 77. Isaac Stern.

Saturday, April 24th, 2010

Started to dig into the historical recordings I rediscovered a few weeks back finally, starting with the 6 discs of early concerto recordings with Isaac Stern on Columbia. Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven (the standards) with Bernstein, Sibelius and Ravel’s ‘Tzigane’ thrown in as well. These are all older mono recordings, and the violin tends to stand out quite a bit from the rest of the orchestra. Usually this would bother me, but it is part of the recording style from the period. And in this case it works out nicely… I have good recordings of all these pieces, but none of them are from a young Isaac Stern. The tone of his violin is a bit gritty, but it is hard to tell how much of that is the recording technology of the day or if it is extra sticky rosin on his bow. The Sibelius and the Ravel recordings stand out for me. ‘Tzigane’ is ALL about technique, and it is on brilliant display here. The piece feels fresh in this recording (not quite a show piece yet… still a very challenging work for the performer). And the Sibelius (with some of its darker tones, especially in the third movement) sounds great on the older recording. Plus – violinists just don’t play like this anymore… lots of fun.

In other news about the project, I just filled up the 250 GB drive that I started off with, and picked up a new TB drive to become the main drive. It was yesterday, when both drive were plugged in and I started to make the new backup (the backup is now the main drive) that I noticed something a little startling. The data transfer was SSSSSSSLLLLLOOOWWWW. Really slow. Just remembered that the old PowerBook must have USB 1 ports, and compared to the old Firewire drive data transfer is much worse. I plugged the two drives into my current laptop (with USB 2) for the initial transfer. This took about two hours (compared to the 7 days I estimate the PowerBook would have taken). I imagine these are the two drives I will end up with for some time now, and that the next component to go will be the old PowerBook. I’m actually amazed the thing is still ticking (going on 8 years now with a broken monitor and the original 1 GB of RAM in it!).

Day 76. Saint-Saëns and the Beastie Boys.

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

There were two albums that I bought as a kid that made my parents concerned. The first was ‘License to Ill’ by the Beastie Boys (followed by ‘Appetite for Destruction’ about a year later). I find it ironic that , 25 years after the first Beastie Boys album came out (and lewdness laws were created due to behavior at their concerts), that I think it would be hard to find a group of more artistic and politically involved individuals. They’ve created some ground-breaking work, and in many ways came of age along with MTV (certainly using the music video as an artistic vehicle with as much importance as the songs themselves). I remember listening to that record with my friend George as a kid (and George also introducing me to what was probably influencing the Beasite Boys as well… thanks George! I still remember hearing NWA on a tape deck outside your house!).

They were also part of one of my favorite music SNL memories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tondtut3dOc

I remember seeing this with my friend Colin, and both of our jaws just dropping. What a rad moment (no matter how staged it may have been).

But the only Beastie Boys I have on CD is ‘The Sounds Of Science’, the two disc compilation they put out in 1999. It’s a good set, and my Beastie Boys vinyl is still in fine condition in case I was to hear all of ‘Paul’s Boutique’. But it is some of the extras on this disc that are just great. Their version of ‘Benny And The Jets’ with Biz Markie is one of the most brilliant and funny covers I’ve ever heard (violating the law that ‘a cover shouldn’t imitate the style of the original’ – but doing it in a brilliant fashion, even including the sound of a crowd cheering in the background).

The other discs ripped tonight were the complete Saint-Saëns symphonies with Jean Martinon. The third (‘The Organ’) has some great moments and deserves to be his best knows symphonic work, but my favorite is his second in A minor. The orchestral forces are small compared to the large romantic orchestral forces of the 3rd Symphony and the piano concertos, but along with that comes a nostalgia for the music written for smaller orchestras. Parts of the piece sound more like something Mozart would have done, and points even have some contrapuntal writing that is surprisingly clear and simple. But there are some striking dissonances in the piece and some very effective drama, all while clocking in at around 22 minutes. For a romantic symphony, it is almost a miniature, but taken out of its historical context I think it has some real strengths over his other symphonic works. The opening arpeggios let you know right away that this is a classical work, and the main theme (treated fugally) is lots of fun. But after Beethoven (and Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schuman and Brahms) the 7 minute LONG movement feels brief and succinct. Not that I have anything against long and developed… just that for some reason the proportions and material of this symphony have always captured my attention in a strange way. And playing it now (after not hearing it for MANY years) I’m glad to see that my impression of it is still intact.

Day 75. Dowland.

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

Today I imported the Complete Downland set on L’oiseau-Lyre. This is a 12 disc set with more ‘Lachrimae’ and Lute music then you can shake a stick at. Every known version of the ‘Lachrimae’ is on here, and there is something about it that reminds me of Chubby Checker doing multiple versions of ‘The Twist’ (then ‘Let’s Twist Again’ then ‘The Twist (1986)’ etc. etc. etc.). Downland may have beaten Pachelbel to the title of ‘First One Hit Wonder’ by a century or so in my book. And, like most one hit wonders, there is so much more when you dive in beyond that first piece. Pachelbel’s body of works are pretty great, and Dowland certainly does not disappoint either. I mentioned some time ago that the girls have pretty much fallen asleep to Arvo Pärt’s ‘Fur Alina’ since they were newborns, but with Mira I also would mix in Dowland’s Lute Music during her night time bottle (along with some late Beethoven quartets and Bach’s ‘Art of the Fugue’). She really liked Dowland though, and his body of lute music is fairly large (across 5 of these discs!) so I had a good amount of repertoire to become familiar with while also becoming familiar with the new baby girl. After some time, Celia also took to Dowland and asked to have a Dowland disc burned for her to play at night, and while I still get my nightly ‘Fur Alina’ from Mira’s sound monitor, ‘Can She Excuse’ and the ‘Queen’s Galliard’ stream out of Celia’s.
I learned from my friend Don (who studied guitar as an undergraduate) that Downland’s lute works are quite popular with college guitar students since the English lute was a much more standardized instrument then the continental companion. Six strings, tuned like the modern guitar with one exception (the G string was on F-sharp). When I learned this I remember thinking ‘Ooooh! I bet I could play those!’ before realizing that it is this exact thought that all those undergraduates think too. Having long ago put the guitar down (except for the occasional jazz strumming and playing) I thought this might be a good way to get back into some playing. I thought this a year ago… and I DO still think I will get to it. But it is a bit saddening how hard it can be to just get going again sometimes. Time is short, and while I have the best intentions, when it comes down to it I just might not be a guitarist anymore. I’d rather spend the time with the kids, or relaxing with Tamiko, etc. I’m sure I’ll get back into it eventually, and when I do a decent classical guitar and Dowland will surely be a good place to start.

Today I imported the Complete Downland set on L’oiseau-Lyre. This is a 12 disc set with more ‘Lachrimae’ and Lute music then you can shake a stick at. Every known version of the ‘Lachrimae’ is on here, and there is something about it that reminds me of Chubby Checker doing multiple versions of ‘The Twist’ (then ‘Let’s Twist Again’ then ‘The Twist (1986)’ etc. etc. etc.). Downland may have beaten Pachelbel to the title of ‘First One Hit Wonder’ by a century or so in my book. And, like most one hit wonders, there is so much more when you dive in beyond that first piece. Pachelbel’s body of works are pretty great, and Dowland certainly does not disappoint either. I mentioned some time ago that the girls have pretty much fallen asleep to Arvo Pärt’s ‘Fur Alina’ since they were newborns, but with Mira I also would mix in Dowland’s Lute Music during her night time bottle (along with some late Beethoven quartets and Bach’s ‘Art of the Fugue’). She really liked Dowland though, and his body of lute music is fairly large (across 5 of these discs!) so I had a good amount of repertoire to become familiar with while also becoming familiar with the new baby girl. After some time, Celia also took to Dowland and asked to have a Dowland disc burned for her to play at night, and while I still get my nightly ‘Fur Alina’ from Mira’s sound monitor, ‘Can She Excuse’ and the ‘Queen’s Galliard’ stream out of Celia’s.I learned from my friend Don (who studied guitar as an undergraduate) that Downland’s lute works are quite popular with college guitar students since the English lute was a much more standardized instrument then the continental companion. Six strings, tuned like the modern guitar with one exception (the G string was on F-sharp). When I learned this I remember thinking ‘Ooooh! I bet I could play those!’ before realizing that it is this exact thought that all those undergraduates think too. Having long ago put the guitar down (except for the occasional jazz strumming and playing) I thought this might be a good way to get back into some playing. I thought this a year ago… and I DO still think I will get to it. But it is a bit saddening how hard it can be to just get going again sometimes. Time is short, and while I have the best intentions, when it comes down to it I just might not be a guitarist anymore. I’d rather spend the time with the kids, or relaxing with Tamiko, etc. I’m sure I’ll get back into it eventually, and when I do a decent classical guitar and Dowland will surely be a good place to start.

Day 74. Pink Floyd.

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

So – quite a week. Hopefully can get BACK into the DAC routine, and also starting a new exercise one. Spring is here, and the dark months are behind us for now (in terms of both actual sunlight and some of Tamiko’s professional drama that seems to finally be wrapping up).

There is also darkness ahead here in Tacoma though… Roger Waters will be bringing ‘The Wall’ here this fall, so I went and dug out a few Pink Floyd discs for tonight. And being a teenager from Roseville in the 90s, I certainly remember hearing LOTS of Pink Floyd. Whole album sides on 93 Rock, my friend Josh singing out ‘Mother do you think they’re going…. to break… my balls???’, laser shows at the Crest and I could keep going. But – I think my biggest Pink Floyd memory / association comes through Tamiko. And not because Tamiko was the biggest Pink Floyd fan… her boyfriend Matt (who she dated before me) was. Matt and I had our lockers next to each other. Both the same year at Roseville High, and met during band camp the week before school started. He started dating Tamiko a few weeks into our freshman year, and I started dating a good friend of his around the same time. Matt was HEAVILY into Pink Floyd. Matt and Tamiko broke up during a band trip at the end of our freshman year, my breakup a few weeks after that, and it was Tamiko and I that were there for each other. Though I haven’t talked to Matt for a long time, we actually remained friends through high school (as did he and Tamiko to an extent).

So – 20 years after all this, almost half of that working in a record store where some form of Pink Floyd would come up every few weeks, what do I think about when I hear Pink Floyd? I still think about Matt. The laser shows, ‘Meddle’ blasting in the back room of Tower and classic album sides are certainly there, but they have faded with time as well… but I still think about this 14 year old kid who’s locker was next to mine, and who’s girlfriend I started dating (and eventually married) a few weeks after they broke up.

Day 73. Beethoven and Bach.

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Though I just finished with the complete Bach box set, something that isn’t represented in that collection at all is the lute-harpsichord. Like it sounds, the instrument (pictured above) is basically a cross between the two instruments – a keyboard instrument with gut strings and the body of a HUGE lute. There is a good amount of research that suggests that Bach actually composed quite a bit on and for this instrument that basically disappeared by the late 1700s, and that his ‘Lute Suites’ were actually for this instrument (and not the more commonly found baroque lute). About a year ago I discovered a recording on eMusic of the lute suites performed on a replica lute-harpsichord and downloaded it, and was immediately struck by how different the instrument was from the harpsichord. It is a beautiful sound, more resonant then a lute (and able to sustain notes that would otherwise be deadened on a lute when a change of fret was needed) and less harsh then a harpsichord. The lute pieces on this recording (in Naxos with Elizabeth Farr) are beautiful. There are a handful of other recordings out there with the instrument (including a recording of the Goldberg Variations) that I hope to find someday soon.

This was also a recording I played quite a bit to help Mira sleep when she was still a newborn. She also liked Dowland quite a bit, as well as late Beethoven quartets. So as the little girl needed a little cuddle tonight (she’s is getting over a nasty croup cough) I put the late Beethoven quartets on (the A minor, op. 132) that I have on my computer (The Lindsays recording) and just held her for a bit. She’s so much bigger now… both her and Celia amaze me daily. And I’m glad that when they aren’t feeling well, that their daddy can still hold them for a bit with some Beethoven or Bach on in the background, and some imbedded memory helps remind them that everything is ok.

Last night Tamiko had a bit of hamster in her head as well… a video that Mira really like with Elmo and Ricky Gervais was running through her head, and the annoying parts of the song had Tamiko’s head spinning. I told her about how the late Beethoven quartets used to put Mira to sleep sometimes, ran downstairs to get my iPod and put them on… sure enough, Tamiko was out in about 5 minutes and I listened to the rest of the C-sharp minor quartet while holding her.

I’m so lucky.

Day 72. John Lennon, George Harrison and The Beatles.

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Yesterday was the 40th Anniversary of Paul McCartney publicly acknowledging that The Beatles had, indeed, broken up. The exact point where that happened is probably just about anybody’s guess, but April 10th, 1970 was at least a moment where the pop world could start coming to terms with the official breakup. I wouldn’t ever be alice in a world with The Beatles playing together, and I remember the news of John Lennon being shot when I was 5. I also remember the REALLY sad ‘Free As A Bird’ that was released with the first Beatles Anthology album (the virtual Beatles reunion that reeked of Jeff Lynne production standards… ugh, that was horrible). And of course – last year’s remasters (stunning) and the Guitar Hero version of the Beatles. The virtual Beatles all playing ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’ together especially made me chuckle. I remember joking to my friend Colin ‘so – to win do you have to break the band up by the time you are learning the licks for Abbey Road?’.

Tonight’s rips are mostly in honor of what mostly happened near the end and after The Beatles’ official career. Among the re-issues and re-masters of the past few years, the ‘cleaning-up’ (or rather the ‘de-Spectoring’) of ‘Let It Be’ has been a high point for me. ‘Let It Be… Naked’ is a beautiful disc. And while the Phil Spector production of the original is just that (and can be appreciated in all that Phil Spector crazy), hearing some of these songs in more of a ‘Get Back’ form is amazing. I even like ‘The Long And Winding Road’ now (a song that basically just bugged me before). One of my favorite George songs also stands out… ‘I Me Mine’ is a great song on both versions, but the ‘Naked’ version feels cleaner to me. Which leads to ‘All Things Must Pass’.

George Harrison’s first solo album out of the gates. After years of only being allowed 3 songs per Beatles album (a number written into their contracts) and with the Beatles often not taking his song writing very seriously (hence ‘Only A Northern Song’), George had lots of material stored up… and this 3 LP release showed it. George’s songs tended to be the most beautiful ones in my opinion, and this album shows that ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ are not songwriting luck. ‘My Sweet Lord’ is a stunning song, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was written around the same time as ‘Here Comes The Sun’. During my masters degree I took a class on music theory and rock music and we read a great article about ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and how the song brightens in timbre (like a sunrise) as the song goes on, and ‘My Sweet Lord’ seems to have a similar feeling to it. At the same time there seems to be an argument in the song, bringing Eastern philosophy and religion into closer contact with Western philosophy and religion (certainly something the Beatles did in the mid-60s, though this is something that seemed to stay much more visible with George throughout his life).

The Lennon compilations also seem to take the trajectory that he and Yoko were on by the end of The Beatles and extends it. The Phil Spector sound (if not his actual production) are all over the earlier tracks. John, always the 50s rocker (in comparison to Paul’s tin-pan alley influences, George’s blues / folk influences and Ringo’s, well, Ringo-ness) also comes through. There is plenty of homage in John Lennon’s work (his recording of ‘Stand By Me’ being one of the most perfect covers in rock history in my opinion), and there is an amazing amount personal expression that had already been a long part of his songwriting (‘Glass Onion’ and ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’ being two obvious examples of this). ‘Beautiful Boy’, ‘Watching The Wheels’, ‘Dear Yoko’, ‘Oh Yoko’ and ‘Cold Turkey’ all show his inner love and inner demons as well. Through his music, John may have been the most intimately known of the Beatles. His politics were very public. His relationships were very public. And his problems were very public. Perhaps this is part of the reason his shooting is something that sticks out in my mind. Not because at 5 years old I knew anything about this, but because when he was killed, such a sizable portion of the public felt like they were losing someone that they actually knew, that even a 5 year old kid could see that someone that his family seemed to know had just died.

I actually only have one Paul McCartney album (which I actually forgot had until just this moment – so I didn’t rip it yet) and don’t have any of Ringo’s. With Paul, his solo work (and even a good chunk of his Beatles stuff post ’67) just doesn’t interest me. This isn’t an absolute distaste… ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’ is one of the best rockers around, but come the musical revolution I think it would be hard not to take the guy who wrote, performed and continued to perform ‘O-bla-di O-bla-da’ and not make him stand against the wall. And as for Ringo, inspire of the fact that Ringo has long been my favorite Beatle, I think he strikes me most as performer. If there was a Beatle that probably suffered most from the cessation of touring after ‘Revolver’, I think it was probably Ringo. His constant tours with his ‘All-Star Band’ are something that I still hope to catch sometime. But every time I’ve heard a Ringo Starr studio track, it seems like what would make them special is missing. ore then anyone else in the group, I get the sense that Ringo’s ego fed off surrounding himself by great musicians, and he just kept doing it all the way into the present.

Heading back to the early 60’s now, the last set of discs I ripped tonight were the Beatles BBC Sessions discs (and for me, this is it on the Beatles front – I never picked up the Anthologies, preferring to respect the idea that what was released was released for a reason, and digging up alternate and un-perfect versions of songs by a group that crafted the modern recording studio would just be un-fun). The BBC Sessions, on the other hand, are the Beatles in the early days, having what sounds like lots of fun. They are on one hand very much rising stars at this point, but at the same time they have already reached a level at stardom at this point that would give them repeated appearances on the BBC (complete with listeners sending in requests for songs). Some of the dialog between the show’s host and The Beatles is kept intact as well, and it is these bits of dialog that I find most entertaining. These cheeky Liverpool youth are having fun, and when they play you get the sense that they are having a good time playing to an audience that isn’t drowning out the music. While the first few albums are pretty close to playing live, actually hearing the Beatles play live is fun. They have a great energy, and they show that they are great performers live. The only other example of this that I can really think of are the films that were shot on the rooftop of Abbey Road for ‘Get Back’ (which became ‘Let It Be’). Again you see them playing as a group and get to hear what they are doing (since the screaming crowds didn’t know to show up) and you can see that these four guys had a very natural musical gift.

Like a few other artists that I have already written about, there isn’t a time in my life that I can remember without also knowing that I knew about The Beatles. My earliest form of ear training was dad asking if I could tell whether it was John or Paul singing a song. So it is an interesting bit of reflection to realize that, 40 years after the ‘official’ break-up, that at 35 I wasn’t alive at all for The Beatles. But that is part of the magic of recordings, isn’t it? Once they are down (in any form), they really do become a time-capsule of sorts. At this moment I’m listening to ‘Watching The Wheels’, listening to John talk about life after The Beatles and how he comes to terms with the change of fame. It feels so immediate on the one hand, but on the other I am listening to a ghost’s memory.

Day 71. Bach box boxed.

Friday, April 9th, 2010

17 days. 155 discs. over 45 GB of disk space. The complete works of J.S. Bach is done. The box set is now packed away. Let’s see what box set Mira requests next.

Day 70. Rachmaninov.

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Tonight’s sets saw a huge amount of Rachmaninov – two box sets featuring performances by Vladimir Ashkenazy (symphonies and symphonic pieces in one, concertos with solo and piano duo pieces on the other) along with a single disc of his two piano trios. The late romanticism of Rachmaninov now is a bit of soft-spot for me though it hasn’t always been. I think it is important to keep in mind that many of his most important works were composed while Webern is experimenting with glistening orchestral clarity and Stravinsky was was writing his most daring ballets. Rachmaninov’s music was something I was snobbish about when I first started to take composing seriously… I saw it as derivative and schmaltzy. My opinion changed while I was at Cal and got to play the ‘Symphonic Dances’. After the first rehearsal or two, I felt like my suspicions of Rachmaninov were mostly confirmed. But as we got closer to the concert, I became more and more fascinated by the piece. After moving to Seattle I started some work on a set of piano pieces. Though they owe more to Ravel then to anyone else, I spent quite a bit of time listening to more and more Rachmaninov as well. The disc of piano trios is probably my favorite disc out of the discs I ripped tonight. The voicings in some of the melodic writing as well as the harmonic presentation is spaced quite wide sometimes. Surely this had quite a bit to do with the composer’s large hands and his unique ability to spread chords out quite a bit. At times they sound almost bell-like (and a little like Arvo Pärt). Some of the writing for the violin and cello also resembles some of the wider spacing of Ravel’s trio. By the time I started graduate school, my opinion of him had changed completely, but as the years went on though I listened less and less to him. Should be fun to return to some of this over the next day or two.

Day 69. Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

‘Kind of Blue’ was the second jazz album I bought, and it is still one of my favorites. And both of the stints that John Coltrane had with Miles Davis produced some stunning work. The two contrasted each other in some very nice ways – the lyricism of Miles’ trumpet against the much more rapid and harmonic playing of Coltrane. The ‘Complete Columbia Recordings from 1955 to 1961’ captures this second time the two men played together (and also sees Cannonball Adderley, Red Garland, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelley and others during this time span). It leaves the cool jazz of the Prestige years behind and forges ahead with hard-bop, then into the modal experiments of ‘Kind of Blue’, wrapping up with a beautiful recording of ‘Someday My Prince WIll Come’. There are also a few live recordings on the box set, and the energy of Coltrane live (and his endurance) certainly drove Miles Davis creatively, though it also drove him mad. In a book of jazz anecdotes that I have, someone asked Coltrane (with Miles sitting next to him) how his solos get to be so long, and Coltrane stets to the point of saying that he just doesn’t know how to stop them. Miles leans forewarned and sees ‘you take the fucking horn out of your mouth!’. Strangely enough, after hearing this quote I began to hear that this is exactly what Miles Davis would do at times.

I can’t possibly write about how brilliant these recordings are. And there is something very special about the relationship you hear between Davis and Coltrane, undeniably two of the greatest jazz artists of the 20th century. The partnership basically ends with Miles Davis kicking Coltrane out of the band a second time, reportedly for drug use. Some stories I’ve heard had Miles doing this in hopes of getting Coltrane to kick his habits. And others talk about the deep regret Miles Davis had after Coltrane’s departure. While I can’t find the actual quote, one that was told to me by a friend sticks in my mind. While hearing Roland Kirk play 4 horns at the same time and make beautiful contrapuntal melodies, someone supposedly leans over to Miles and says ‘man – could you imagine having someone that can play like that?’ and Miles replies ‘I did once… I did’.