Miles or the Diz man?

Is there any question, really?

Yeah diz wins right?

Diz for me.

Who wants to pick, really? But if I must:

Miles

You are dead to me.

Dunno who you are, but you'd be best going back to your little Taylor acoustic there, picker boy

I'm also a saxophonist, and I've gotten the chance to work or learn from some of the best in the field (josh redman, joe lovano, Mark Vinci and more) on my horn. Miles is good, but Diz is king. Go listen to Diz playing at Newport and come back and we can talk.

Miles is the man, especially with the 2nd quintet (Shorter, Carter, Hancock, Williams)

Ok ok, no need for the name-dropping, I was just kidding

I haven't studied with anyone famous, but I try to make a living as a trumpet player

And I still think that although Diz could play circles around Miles (hell, *I* could play circles around Miles), nobody has the feel, vision, and ability to bring all the right factors together to make the most amazingly groundbreaking music of the modern era as Miles.

Sorry for the name dropping, you were the one making me out to be a hippy dippy guitar picker:D . Just trying to show I do have something resembling a real opinion on the matter. Miles is a great player, but personal preference is Diz. I'll agree miles broke ground with a lot of his stuff, but you can say the same for diz really.

Stick around a while. Hopefully you'll get to know my quirky sense of humor

I usually just post over in the electric guitar forum, but I saw a post about diz and had to chime in.

to answer the original question...

Ferguson

but really, I like Diz better. Miles is excellent, to be sure, but I don't really care for his music, especially the newer stuff

Ok, gramps

You are dead to me.

I'm already undead so {censored} you!

to answer the original question... Ferguson

Good, but I'd personally put Paul Cacia or Wayne Bergeron ahead of him.

I never really "felt" Dizzy the way I do Miles, or Clifford. Could Dizzy play circles around Miles? Maybe. Playing a blistering uptempo burner, sure, I'd want to hear Diz everytime. But who would you rather heard playing a ballad? Miles, hands down.

I consider the musician as a whole. Technique. Artistry. Soul (even classical musicians have "soul"). Innovation. You could argue the "Dizzy/Miles" debate on the first 3 until you're blue in the face. Innovation? Dizzy played "Tunisia", "Salt Peanuts", "Manteca", etc. all his life, and he introduced "Afro-Cuban" flavors. In his later years, Diz' music wasn't far removed from what he played with Bird. Miles and his music were in a state of constant motion, from "Birth of the Cool" to "Cooking/Working/Steaming", to "Kind of Blue", to Gil Evans, to the Hancock-Shorter-Carter-Williams band, to "In A Silent Way/Bitches Brew", to "Live-Evil/Fillmore", to "Tutu/Amandla", etc. It's hard to dispute Miles place as the prime innovator in the genre over the last half of the 20th century.

Personal Diz story:

I saw Diz play a concert on his 61st b-day (he had a very young Jon Faddis in his band). I waited backstage to meet him and have him sign an album (as in "vinyl"). There was a small crowd of people waiting at the door to his dressing room. I was shy and just hung back. A woman came over to me, carrying a piece of Diz's birthday cake and said "Hi, are you waiting to see my husband? Would you like a piece of cake?" Lorraine wasn't taking "no" for an answer, so I had the cake and waited to spend a couple of star-struck minutes with Diz.

MarkZ, I agree with you that Miles was the balladeer par excellance and very deserving to be considered one of the best ever. Your time-line of his career is spot on but what most people fail to realize is that Miles grew technically, almost exponentially, once he stepped out of Bird's shadow and this continued up until his electric period where he pretty much abandoned the concept of the jazz frontline.

His virtuosity peaked with the 2d quintet as it went beyond hard bop and amost was free jazz.

As his relationships with other musicians became more competitive, Miles disingenuously made wedge issues over the very same directions he himself was taking with others. Whether this was clever self promotion or just pure unbridled ego, it was harmful for the music. That Diz was a better ambassador for the music he established with Parker and Monk, there's no contest there.

Personally, I think Miles took what Diz did and kicked it up significantly. That's not to say that he should, could or would play like Diz exactly because that would be pointless, rather he became his own man and still was a great leader of his groups.

True and true.

And I'm guessing Miles wouldn't have offered me any cake. He would probably have said "Get this mother@#$%er the hell away from my dressing room."

now-now, let's not get carried away and say that Miles was a complete SOB,

and he might have offered you a piece of cake in the same situation, who knows?

The guy was a super-star that became increasingly hard boiled and disaffected with his stardom.

BTW, great story man, meeting Diz is something that didn't work out for me and it's somewhat regretable to me. He was up there in working musician's years and his health was seriously becoming an issue. A good friend of mine was playing sax/winds for him in the mid to late 80s for several years. Sayyd enjoyed having that gig so much.

He told me a great story about how he and Diz were listening to Stan Getz in the studio and obviously those 2 weren't strangers to one another. They had recorded many times years before and I feel the standout of that effort is what they did for Verve (For Musicians Only) along with Sonny Stitt in the frontline. Sayyd told me that the expression on Diz's face was one of sheer joy and wonder as they were both blown away with Getz' sound. Determined to impress Sayyd with his personal boldness and to talk to and kid an old friend, Diz soon afterwards questioned Stan if he had any special reed or setup to get his sound!! Stan was delighted to hear Diz being himself and he graciously accepted his old friend's cunning flattery.

Diz was a real character, one of a kind.

You think so? I always thought that his technique was pretty damn good when he was still playing with Bird, and he neglected it more and more as he was leading his own bands. Not to say he didn't have good technique, but if he cracked a note or was a little out of time, he didn't give a {censored}. And he was cracking lots of notes and playing with an (intentionally?) weak tone a lot as the days went by. Dunno, that's just what I hear. His early stuff with Bird, when he was "attending" Julliard, his chops were damn solid. No blistering high notes like Diz, but solid.

Ok, I just listened to 'Star Eyes' recorded in '51 with Bird and then 2 versions of 'Two Bass Hit' studio and live at Newport in '58 and the self entitled 'Miles' from the same year and there's a lot of stuff that I can go to in between '51 to '58...it's incredible that this is the same player to my ears. To paraphrase Miles' own words when he was playing with Parker he said something to the effect in an interview that "I was hanging on for dear life when I took a solo and a lot of the times played simple harmonies."

I really like his warm, fat tone with Parker as it reminds me a lot of Howard McGhee. When he got to the point where he's playing 'Dr. Jekyll' on Milestones with the first quintet his tone and phrasing changed dramatically; he became his own man.

Thanks for the examples, now I can hear exactly what you're saying. And you are correct, sir

BTW, Lambros, I just noticed (yet again) that you're in Bklyn. I'm playing tomorrow night at the Red Lion on Bleecker St (late set) if you're down...

You're welcome 'bro and I'm glad that the examples and what I said made sense.

Thanks for the examples, now I can hear exactly what you're saying. And you are correct, sir