Customer Reviews

Bop for Miles

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Listening to this, Mark Murphy's tribute to Miles Davis, reminds me of watching a chess grand master at play.

Recorded live in Vienna in 1990 (by and large) but not released until 2004, this is a compilation of songs either written by Miles during the '50's and early '60's ("All Blues" and "Milestones"), standards played by Miles during the '50's (e.g., "My Ship Has Sailed", "Summertime" and "On Green Dolphin Street"), or songs created in or linked to the bop era (e.g., Art Farmer's "Farmer's Market" with Annie Ross' lyrics, and "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", Mingus' tribute to Lester Young, with Joni Mitchell's much-later-added lyrics). The first ten cuts, all done live, are sung in one enormous medley. The set ends with an "encore-like" "Miles", Murphy's touching studio tribute to Miles done as a voice-piano duet with Peter Mihelich.

What an exhibition of grand mastery this is!

Consider "All Blues" and "Bye, Bye Blackbird", for example. In each, Murphy swoops through three octaves of scatting--yet never strains or cracks. The man knows the limits of his voice, and knows how to make them sound limitless.

Or consider "Summertime" and "Autumn Leaves". Here, Murphy changes up the lyrical rhythms, and in the process, changes the melodies--but never at the expense of the chord structure of the songs. The man knows how to improvise while respecting the original structure of the songs, and turn them into something completely new.

Or consider "On Green Dolphin Street". Here, Murphy, after doing the same type of "change-up" on the first chorus, sings three parts simultaneously on the second chorus. A singer cannot harmonize with himself while singing live, but Murphy comes as close as a singer can come to doing that.

Or consider "Farmer's Market." It's one thing to sound like a tenor saxophone while scatting through three octaves. It's something else to sound like Sonny Rollins, which is whom Mark Murphy sounds like here.

One of the incomprehensible injustices in jazz is the out-of-print status of "Bop for Kerouac". Until some label decides to be a loss-leader and belly up to the bar, I think that this album serves as the best of mid-to-late career Mark Murphy, one of the greatest jazz singers who ever lived. Buy it for that reason, if for no other. RC

I feel duty bound to counter the previous review of 1 star on Amazon. I'm adding a 5 star review to point out that Mark Murphy fans, new and old, should obtain and enjoy this recording. From the first notes of the opener, "All Blues", you know you are in for a swinging treat. Mark is superb, and is accompanied by a wonderful European group highlighted by the boppish altoist Allen Praskin. The so called "self-indulgence" that is critized is nothing more than Mark's year of experience in interpreting the music he and we love. If you doubt me, listen to the live audience in the background giving feedback as to their delight in Mark's vocalisations.

The music is not all about Miles Davis. Mark gives tribute to Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus amoung others.

Mark Murphy, at one time the quintessential male jazz singer, has always been blessed with awesome technical gifts. From the time he hit the scene in the 1950's right up to now, he has been able to scat-sing like virtually no one else in the business. He has awesome range, has never been afraid to use it, and has always had a gift for choosing the best, and sometimes toughest, tunes to sing.

Murphy also used to have the gift of restraint, however, and it seems to have gone missing in virtually every album he has done since "Beauty and the Beast" in 1986. More and more he indulges in the kind of show-offy tricks that one expects from a young artist with no seasoning, but not from a supposed master.

"Bop for Miles" is a depressing exercise in wretched excess. His voice soars and dips, he engages in falsetto wails, mini-yodels, and other assorted tricks that the liner-note writer describes as "off-the-cuff Murphy-isms". Lost amid all the Murphyisms, unfortunately, are some of the best tunes jazz has ever known. The vocal tricks not only don't serve the material, they obscure it.

My early Mark Murphy discs are among the best in my fairly large jazz collection. Listening to him sing "Stolen Moments", or "Some Other Time" on the "Stolen Moments" album (1978) is an incredible experience of a sensitive, creative singer at the peak of his powers. To realize that the abysmal "Bop for Miles" is the creation of the same singer is incredibly depressing. Where once there was a singer, there now is a diva. Where once there were songs, now there is almost parody.

Mark Murphy forgot that the best singers just let the music come through them; they don't impose themselves on the music. Billie Holiday, Joe Williams, and Carmen McCrae all knew this. Murphy would do well to remember it.

This one goes to the used record store the next time I get into my car.