| I'll probably get fried for this, and this might be moved to the "Steel Cage", but....
I don't think that Clifford and Lee would have brought all that much CHANGE to the music. They were GREAT jazz players--two of the best that ever lived. But would they have radically changed the music the way Miles (especially), Coltrane, Ornette, Parker, Mingus, Ellington, etc.? I don't think so. Their playing would have developed, but (having never met them) I don't see/hear that "searching" quality in their playing/writing that I do in the cats mentioned above. Clifford and Lee were very innovative be-boppers and hard-boppers respectively, but in my humble opinion, I don't think it would have ever gone past that. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING!!!!! I think sometimes people fall into the trap that if someone isn't playing on the "cutting edge" of the music, they aren't considered to be "great." But we tend to forget that a tasty solo is just as nice.
So, let me have it.
--Kevin |