petals

him play and it just kind of take to you a different place all together than where you were sitting, but he, uh…of all time, the greatest innovator; because not only did he make one innovation, he like continued throughout his life to be on the cutting edge, the avant-garde of jazz. It makes me think about… and maybe this is slightly off the subject, but…is that okay? There’s kind of an interesting thought about Miles’ innovations. He was very, uh… well, he played trumpet. Trumpet is not the easiest instrument to play jazz on, and that has to do with kind of a visual effect. The trumpet, you know, has three valves, and it’s not really idiomatic with how a scale looks. As opposed to a piano, you can look at the scale, it’s laid out in front of you- you can see it. On the trumpet, you got these really kind of random fingerings that really have no relation to, say, a major scale, or a chromatic scale, or anything like that- they’re just different. They’re designed mechanically to make different lengths of pipe and combinations and things like that that will make half steps and stuff like that, which, you know, you don’t play them 1-2-3, 1-2-3. You know, there’s not an order like a scale would have. I think it’s very significant that somebody who would have the strength to be not just a great jazz trumpet player- but the top jazz trumpet player of their generation- would be somebody that would terribly influence the music. Because they’ve had to overcome a great deal- they’re probably a lot stronger mentally and emotionally because of the challenge they have been faced with in presenting jazz on a non-idiomatic instrument. That somebody that could overcome that sort of challenge and yet be on par with the saxophone or a piano- and in these cases, even ahead of- is somebody that’s going to change jazz. There’s two great examples- Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis- the most influential jazz musicians, trumpet players. A lot of times, it’s not a piano player. Even though they can do a whole lot more stuff, they haven’t had that impotence that drove them- that kind of denied the means, and get there anywhere; that kind of drive that it takes. Although, you know, we’ve had people like Coltrane, who was very influential…

(Interview interrupted)

Okay… (sarcastically referring to Dr. Robert Wilson) That’s just like a U of H downtown professor to interrupt my brilliance… 
So, just thinking along those lines, John Coltrane was a good example of somebody who totally transcended his instrument and played beyond what saxophone had done before. And he was, in fact, right up there on the list as well as Charlie Parker- two saxophone players who were probably the next two most influential jazz musicians. And then when you get to piano- well, there were great piano players like Fats Waller… Duke Ellington, let’s not forget, but more for his compositional skills, I think, than for his piano playing. You kind of go down the list of the great jazz players, it takes a while to get to those whose instruments are a little easier to figure it out on. So, I feel good about the choice we both made about playing trumpet, because it’s going to take a lot to achieve what we’re going for on it. But, wow, we’ve got a whole lifetime to do it, so it’ll make it okay. Why, you hear about musicians who go through all the work then they just get burnt out on it and stuff like that…