Did Miles Davis have the most successful band alumni?

[dlew919]

I mean from bandleaders who use session guys, or essentially session guys. I seems to me that there are more Davis alum who go onto successful solo careers than other great bandleaders. Zappa has Steve Vai, and I suppose beef heart. And a couple of others. Springsteen? An exceptionally stable band. Prince? Wendy and Lisa do very well. Otherwise?

As I can tell, the alum from Miles include

John McLaughlin, Michael Becker, Marcus miller, chick corea, Herbie Hancock, Mike Stern, Joe Zawinul, Wayne shorter, cannonball adderley, John Coltrane….

List not complete, nor in any particular order.

Why do you think this is? Why was miles' alum so creatively successful?

No wrong answers.

 

[erratick]

Miles is probably winning this except for perhaps school bands.

He was active and prolific for a long time. He changed bands and musical styles many times. People wanted to play with him, and he was able to recruit from an insanely high calibre playing pool.

So time, turnover and talent. That would be how you get tons of very successful proteges.

 

[Mjark]

He certainly had a ton of great talent in this bands. No doubt about that.

 

[Jakedog]

Miles is probably tops overall. Though I think Don Kelley probably has one of the most impressive lists of lead guitarists.

Brent Mason
Redd Volkaert
Johnny Hiland
Guthrie Trapp
Kenny Vaughn
JD Simo
Daniel Donato
Joe Fick
Luke McQueary

And probably some I forgot.

 

[Chiogtr4x]

I think it was a combination of great musical talent/genius; the ability to pickup up style and ideas from his mentors, then peers,

but also forge his own
path- blow up what came before; create something new.

It sounds like he was gruff, maybe hard personality to work with, but also he gave his musicians incredible freedom to do what they wanted with their parts, and solos...

Kind of like:
" Dont ask me what I want here, or what to play in this spot. It's your space- YOU figure it out!" ( but you better be GOOD, Ha!)

And that must have been very attractive, to be in that environment.

I do know ( coming very late to listen to Jazz in any depth, around 2001?)
that just listening to Miles Davis 'Kind of Blue' then 'Milestones' after, made me:
1) explore a whole lot more of Miles previous recordings ( my personal preference) and later recordings; go Miles crazy!

2) explore the music of all the musicians that played on those two Miles records- in particular John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and Paul Chambers.

And doing this just opened the floodgates ( over the next 3 years) of me 'buying out' the JAZZ CD sections of Borders and Tower Records. So much great music.
- playing 'Jazz catch-up!'

It's All Mile's and Ken Burn's/'Jazz' fault!

 

[andy__d]

John Mayall, perhaps? (Eric Clapton & Jack Bruce from Cream, Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood from Fleetwood Mac, and Mick Taylor from the Stones, amongst others?)

 

[BigDaddyLH]

Miles wanted to play with the best musicians and the best musicians wanted to play with Miles. He also went through transformations -- he started as a young bebopper (Donna Lee)! The transformations meant new ensembles of musicians.

 

[Old Plank]

A few more from Miles' bands come to mind, Tony Williams, George Coleman, Kenny Garrett ...

Wynton has had a quite a few successful alumni, especially out of Lincoln Center ...
Dizzy and Duke I'm sure had plenty as well. Miles himself came out of playing with Bird and Diz, as a youngster in NYC. Talk about being thrown into the fire!

Currently been listening to Miles' 'Four and More' in the car, a more upbeat companion to the live 'My Funny Valentine' album (both from 2/12/64 at Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Ctr) which has a line-up that bridges later to the 2nd Quintet - Coleman, Williams, Hancock, Carter. Great material that spans quite a time period, and an excellent sound recording.

It amazes me that Miles' old sidemen Hancock, and Carter, are both still out there playing, great! Saw both of them, separately, at Newport right before the thing-not-mentioned. Carter in a duo with guitarist Russell Malone, who sadly passed away just recently; and Herbie with bassist Christian McBride and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta.

 

[Mr. St. Paul]

You can take the Miles Davis family tree and go back even further, to the Earl Hines Orchestra of 1942. It had several young players who went on to redefine jazz over the next 20 years:
Charlie Parker (Miles, of course, first came to prominence when he played with Charlie Parker...)
Dizzy Gillespie
Budd Johnson
Gene Ammons
Wardell Gray
Bennie Green
Benny Harris
Shadow Wilson

The vocalist was Billy Eckstine. When he left, he was replaced by Sarah Vaughan.

Hines eventually fired Parker due to his showing up late and nodding off on stage. When the World War 2 draft started decimating his roster, he dissolved the band and formed a 'draft-proof' all-woman orchestra.

 

[BigDaddyLH]

Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers are synonymous. I scraped this off the wiki page:

• Dale Barlow
• Mickey Bass
• Art Blakey
• Terence Blanchard
• Joanne Brackeen
• Randy Brecker
• Cameron Brown
• Donald Brown
• Bobby Broom
• Donald Byrd
• George Cables
• Buck Clarke
• Chick Corea
• Steve Davis
• Walter Davis, Jr.
• Spanky DeBrest
• Sam Dockery
• Kenny Dorham
• Robin Eubanks
• Charles Fambrough
• Curtis Fuller
• Carlos Garnett
• Kenny Garrett
• John Gilmore
• Benny Golson
• Benny Green
• Johnny Griffin
• Bill Hardman
• Donald Harrison
• Billy Harper
• Philip Harper
• John Hicks
• Freddie Hubbard
• Dennis Irwin
• Javon Jackson
• Keith Jarrett
• Carter Jefferson
• Geoffrey Keezer
• Frank Lacy
• Brian Lynch
• Chuck Mangione [I did not know this -- BDLH]
• Wynton Marsalis
• Branford Marsalis
• Jackie McLean
• Jymie Merritt
• Mulgrew Miller
• Hank Mobley
• Lee Morgan
• Johnny O'Neal
• Essiet Okon Essiet
• Billy Pierce
• Lonnie Plaxico
• Valery Ponomarev
• Wallace Roney
• Gregory Charles Royal
• David Schnitter
• Woody Shaw
• Clarence Seay
• Wayne Shorter
• Horace Silver
• Victor Sproles
• Bobby Timmons
• Jean Toussaint
• McCoy Tyner
• Cedar Walton
• Peter Washington
• Doug Watkins
• Bobby Watson
• James Williams
• Reggie Workman

 

[Ron R]

Zappa has Steve Vai, and I suppose beef heart. And a couple of others.

A couple? George Duke, Lowell George, Chester Thompson, Jean Luc Ponty, Dale and Terry Bozzio, Aynsley Dunbar, Chad Wackerman, Adrian Belew, the Brecker brothers, Vinnie Colaiuta, Warren Cuccurullo (of course, I'll introduce you to Warren), Eddie Jobson, Bruce Hampton... More than just a couple.

You guys have all forgotten George Benson on your Miles list, too.

 

[Vocalion]

For non-jazz bandleaders, I would also throw John Mayall, Alexis Korner, and (to a lesser extent) Graham Bond into the conversation.

 

[Mike Eskimo]

Beatles


John with that Imagine thing

Paul had some solo hits

George had by far one of the most successful double / triple albums in history and it was also the best post Beatles record .

Ringo had it don’t come easy and photograph and Sixteen.

Those three Ringo tunes right there probably sold more than all the jazz records you could put together from the above list

So yeah . Beatles alum.

Most successful

 

[Ron R]

Beatles


John with that Imagine thing

Paul had some solo hits

George had by far one of the most successful double / triple albums in history and it was also the best post Beatles record .

Ringo had it don’t come easy and photograph and Sixteen.

Those three Ringo tunes right there probably sold more than all the jazz records you could put together from the above list

So yeah . Beatles alum.

Most successful

Somewhere, Blowtorch has just gone into convulsions and he doesn't know why.

 

[acoustic rob]

Back when I was younger and dinosaurs roamed the earth, I read this recommendation for how to put together a good modern jazz collection:

Start with two Miles Davis albums from each of his great ensembles from the '50s and '60s.

Then buy two albums by every person who played with him on those albums.

Then buy two albums by every person who played on *those* albums.

 

[oldunc]

I think it's different with jazz, there isn't such a divide between solo acts and sidemen. Really successful bands, like Ellington or Goodman, would have long lists of prominent alumni.

 

[Telecaster88]

In the world of jazz alone I'd say Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers gives Miles a run for his money... Dozens of acclaimed musicians worked their way through that band's ranks.

 

[PhredE]

That's a really good question. Not sure if there's an answer, but he sure worked with some terrific players during his run.

 

[Skyhook]

John Mayall had a bunch of rather distinguished alumni i.m.o.

Eric Clapton
Peter Green
Coco Montoya
Mick Taylor
Jack Bruce
Mick Fleetwood
John McVie
Andy Fraser
Walter Trout

.... just to name a select few. There’s tons more!

 

[telepraise]

In the vein of forging new territory related to a genre: For jazz, I would have to mention Spyro Gyra- they took jazz to different energy levels and formats with incredible soloists and new compositions.

In the acoustic domain, David Grisman took bluegrass instruments to forge the whole new genre of Dawg. Again, amazing musicianship and ventured into music with Gypsy jazz and latin flavorings.