I’m not talking airline miles I am talking about Miles Davis.  This might go into a jazz category if I get the inspiration to write another post about the original American art form.

This post came about because a Miles Davis tune came up on my Pandora shuffle.  The song was Jean Pierre and the album was We Want Miles.

I can’t say I love jazz because I don’t play it all the time.  In fact I only listen to Pandora’s jazz station on Saturdays.   They play mostly piano-based songs where it’s easy to find the melody.  More about finding the melody later.

I got into jazz because I was in band.  I wasn’t a band geek because I wasn’t that good on my alto saxophone.  Concert bands don’t play fun or cool songs.  Stage or jazz bands had the cool kids that played the fun music with trumpet, saxophone, and trombone solos.  Those guys got to stand up and show off.
That kind of music got me interested in brass jazz like Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller.  Tommy Dorsey led me into the vocal jazz style of Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.  Those guys led me to Broadway interpretations.  I found Miles through his version of Porgy and Bess.

Porgy and Bess was a cool version of the musical.  That’s not my opinion; it’s a jazz style Miles started in the late 50’s.  The melodies were thinly hidden.  Later jazz lost a lot of popularity due to long solos and weird time signatures.  Songs that you could hum or scat (boo boop be doo) were being replaced by pieces to be analyzed or explained by intellectuals with old records and expensive turntables or reel to reel tape players.

I’m not gonna lie; I wanted to be one of those intellectuals. Partly for the equipment and partly for being able to talk about something very few people in my circle of friends and possible girls could call BS if I strayed too far from the facts.