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Inside Miles Davis’ Prince Obsession http://pitchfork.com/thep...aborators/
When Miles Davis began recording new music again in 1981, it wasn’t too long before he recognized the future in a young funk rocker out of Minneapolis named Prince Rogers Nelson. “His shit was the most exciting music I was hearing in 1982,” Davis wrote in his brilliant1990 autobiography. “Here was someone who was doing something different, so I decided to keep an eye on him.”
In fact, there are multiple pages in Miles: The Autobiography where Davis focused on his appreciation for the Purple One, comparing Prince's vocal delivery to Sonny Rollins’ saxophone-playing and musing on his funk pedigree like a learned aficionado. When the folks at Davis’ then-new label Warner Bros. informed him mid-decade that labelmate Prince considered him among his musical heroes, you can envision the smile beaming from the trumpet great’s face as he penned, “I was happy and honored that he looked at me in that way.” Miles saw himself in Prince—a man who always wanted to push his art in new and challenging directions despite what was considered proper within the confines of such superfluous terms as "jazz," "pop," or "R&B." For both men, it was all just varying layers of “social music,” as Davis termed his craft during a 1969 interview in Rolling Stone.
“He’s got that church thing up in what he does,” Davis continued in his autobiography. “He plays guitar and piano and plays them very well. But it’s the church thing that I hear in his music that makes him special, and that organ thing. It’s a black thing and not a white thing. Prince is like the church to gay guys. He’s the music of the people who go out after ten or eleven at night. He comes in on the beat and plays on top of the beat. I think when Prince makes love he hears drums instead of Ravel. So he’s not a white guy. His music is new, is rooted, reflects and comes out of 1988 and ‘89 and ‘90. For me, he can be the new Duke Ellington of our time if he just keeps at it.”
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When you can break down someone like this you've definitely been looking into them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BxRYIoKMJU | |
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Some excerpts from Miles' Autobiography:(these are just a few pages of some lengthy pages he devoted just for Prince, just buy and read the thing).
EXCERPT:
Prince wanted to put a song on Tutu, even wrote a song for it, but when we sent him the tape and he heard what was on there, he didn't think his tune fit. Prince has high musical standards, like me. So, he just pulled his song meant for the album until we can do something else at a later date. Prince also records for Warner Bros. and it was through people over there that I first found out that he loved my music and considered me one of his musical heroes. I was happy and honored that he looked at me in that way.
In 1987 I was really getting into the music of Prince and the music of Cameo and Larry Blackmon, and the Caribbean group called Kassav. I love the things they're doing. But I really love Prince, and after I heard him, I wanted to play with him sometime. Prince is from the school of James Brown, and I love James Brown because of all the great rhythms he plays. Prince reminds me of him and Cameo re-minds me of Sly Stone. But Prince got some Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix and Sly in him, also, even Little Richard. He's a mixture of all those guys and Duke Ellington.
He reminds me, in a way, of Charlie Chaplin, he and Michael Jackson, who I also love as a per-former. Prince does so many things, it's almost like he can do it all; write and sing and produce and play music, act in films, produce and direct them, and both him and Michael can really dance. but I like Prince a little better as an all-around musical force. Plus he plays his ass off as well as sings and writes. He's got that church thing up in what he does. He plays guitar and piano and plays them very well. But it's the church thing that I hear in his music that makes him special, and that organ thing. It's a black thing and not a white thing. Prince is like the church to gay guys. He's the music of the people who go out after ten or eleven at night. He comes in on the beat and plays on top of the beat. I think when Prince makes love he hears drums instead of Ravel. So he's not a white guy. His music is new, is rooted, reflects and comes out of 1988 and '89 and '90. For me, he can be the new Duke Ellington of our time if he just keeps at it.
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I'd read about the Rubber Band sessions but they were never supposed to have involved prince: http://www.thelastmiles.c...erband.php for example. Prince once said he had some unreleased Miles stuff in the vault but Alan Leeds later said that it was unlikely a session could have taken place without him knowing about it. I'm very confused: is this misinformation or new information?
A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ |
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http://prince.org/msg/7/423870?pr The wooh is on the one! | |
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I'd seen this but we don't learn much more. A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ |
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