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because they wanted… it was such a strange place to hit it that they wanted a note that sounded weird, too. And they got used to using notes that were extensions on the chords, instead of just having 1, 3, 5, 7; you might have 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, with different alterations- flat 9, sharp 9, sharp 11, flat 13, sharp 13, that sort of thing… I think this often overlooked kind of the rhythmic developments. Miles Davis probably carrying this theme of innovation to its ultimate level… I can’t imagine anyone ever coming close to what he’s done- nobody… I mean, I can’t think of anybody known for playing in two styles, let alone four, and mastering them. He played bebop with Charlie Parker, he played cool jazz, he played fusion, and modal jazz. And he did all these, like, just laid it out like “this is how it’s done” and then would moved on to something else. I think a lot of the influences that players pick up are peripheral- you know, they just get from everybody that ever played jazz; like, oh how you phrase this and that, and which notes are part of the language jazz and all that stuff. But I think the things that really shape music are these qualities like innovation- rhythmic innovation or harmonic innovation. And I think it’s more not exactly those innovations, what technically they did different, but the fact that they are innovative. You talk to modern jazz players, and there is an awareness that new things need to be created. There’s a certain “go back to tradition” thing that happens occasionally- you know people will take the innovations so far that it needs to settle, it needs to marinate a little bit. So they’ll chill out and maybe just do small things for a while, and kind of let people get used to those new sounds; but then they’ll take the old sounds and then add some of these new touches. I mean, you can hear things now like someone playing in a Dixieland kind of style, but then they’ll put a rap artist to it or something, and have a scratch happening; and just add these new elements of the language gradually that… you know, at first everyone’s like “rap, ooh that’s awful”. But there’s a lot of jazz musicians who, maybe not rap, but maybe some of the scratch things from the disc jockeys and things like that will be added and sound very hip, because it’s part of our awareness now- we know those sounds, and you know, we’re comfortable with them. So it kind of, adds to making something sound contemporary. I think innovation is the biggest influence… The fact that they did something new, not particularly what they did, because you kind of get that from everyone you listen to in jazz. It’s the fact that they were doing something new.

SW: Over the years, how do you think our American society has been effected by jazz? And in the same light, how do you think events in our society might have influenced music or the music industry?

CM: Well, um… now that’s a big question. Jazz was actually popular music at one time- and that was the swing era. That was the 1930’s and ‘40s. As seems to be the trend, though, usually the watered down versions of the real art music are what becomes popular. In the case of rock and roll, you know it was not necessarily the black R&B singers that received popularity, but Elvis Presley who was copying what they did. And not necessarily “I’m going to steal this and do this and make it big”, but more like, he started doing those sounds and it was a lot easier for the public to latch onto because he was what they expected in a star. And these black R&B musicians who invented the language, muddy waters and things like that, didn’t really get credit until much later. So in jazz, the equivalent to that is say,