Music Monday ~ Miles and Miles of Miles

Over the weekend, on our TV music channel, I heard Miles Davis' full version of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, featured on the Davis album Sketches of Spain - volume was immediately turned up! I decided it's time to give an old post of mine a re-airing. There was some nice commentary conversation with the 2009 post, so...what the heck...I've copied the old comments too.

Husband introduced me to Sketches of Spain way back when he stayed with me in England in 2004. I loved it then and have loved it ever since. It was my introduction to jazz, but I also love all versions of the piece, classical, standard - any. There's also a 2010 post about Rodrigo and his composition: HERE.

Miles Davis's musicianship, trumpet playing and composing is part of jazz history - he is almost universally revered, yet is said to have had a difficult and strange personality. His music, then, must have been exceptionally brilliant to overcome that drawback.

Sketches of Spain has entranced me from the first time I heard it. I can hardly call myself a jazz fan, yet I can appreciate some pieces, especially those with a semi-classical base.

Miles Davis was born on 26 May 1926 in Alton, Illinois, at 5 am according to Astrodatabank. Some sources have his birthday as 25 May, but Astrodatabank gives 26th and 5am an AA rating - I'm going with that.

Here's an excerpt from an on-line biography. My comments on related astrology follow.

For the last two decades of Davis's career he became more of a jazz curiosity than a musician to be taken seriously. A good part of his fame owed less to his considerable musicianship than to his strange personality. Davis gained a poor reputation in performance for turning his back on audiences, for expressing racial hostility toward whites, for dressing poorly early in his career and wildly later—all of which contributed to his mysterious image.

Davis was a complex man with strengths and weaknesses that would ultimately destroy him. Himself the victim of a policeman's clubbing (reportedly, racially inspired), he had the fairness and courage in the late 1950s to challenge black jazzmen's expectations by filling a piano vacancy with a white player, Bill Evans (1929–1980); but then, by all accounts, Davis often racially taunted him. A physical fitness enthusiast (with his own private gym), he nevertheless took vast amounts of drugs (sometimes, but not always, for pain). Oftentimes unfriendly, he was also capable of acts of generosity toward struggling musicians, both black and white.

Davis was married three times—to dancer Frances Taylor, singer Betty Mabry, and actress Cicely Tyson. All three marriages ended in divorce. He had, in all, three sons, a daughter, and seven grandchildren. He died on September 28, 1991, in Santa Monica, California, of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and a stroke.

Gemini Sun in Davis's natal chart links closely to very little - it lay within a few degrees of the ascendant, but in 12th house, which astrologers consider to be an area of withdrawal. I think this might account in part for his strange personality - turning his back on the audience, for instance, might be a reflection of this.

There's a Grand Trine in emotional, creative and sensitive Water signs in his chart. It links Moon/Saturn in Scorpio to Uranus in Pisces and Pluto in Cancer. While Water signs are generally emotionally driven, and a Grand Trine is a helpful circuit between signs of the same element, the inclusion of Saturn, Uranus and Pluto in this particular Watery circuit bring in a touch of negativity and some bloody-mindedness.

The other main configuration in this chart is a Grand Cross (shown right), involving Moon/Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune - made up of square aspects and oppositions - all challenging in different ways, often resulting in a few difficult personality traits. Davis had many challenges to overcome in his life - racial prejudice, addiction and ill health being high on the list. The planets involved in this Grand Cross relate to communication (Mercury) publication and expansion (Jupiter), creativity and addiction (Neptune) and Inner self (Moon)/rigidity and discipline (Saturn). One integrated opposition: Mercury and Moon/Saturn is especially notable here, involving, as it does, Mercury the communications planet opposed by Moon/Saturn a kind of inner self policed by Saturn push-pulling with a need to communicate.


On the positive side, his art - his musicianship - is underlined by Venus, planet of the arts, in go-getting Aries forming a helpful trine to Neptune, planet of creativity in Leo. In addition to his talent in music, I ought to mention that Miles Davis was quite an accomplished painter, it was something he enjoyed in his later years.








More about Miles and his music at Jazz Profiles from NPR

Comments from 2009

Ron Southern (an old friend of this blog, who very sadly died of cancer some years ago) said...
I can dig it. As usual, you have good taste in celebrities. As for his strange personality, I guess it'd be a circle jerk to figure out if it was the personality or the heroin that came into conflict with the world first. I like his music, but don't feel inclined to sign any blank checks!


Wisewebwoman
said...
Ah, the tortured genius. I love his talent, T. But in the way of all such gifted people, never quite fitting in to the cookie cutter mold.
Xo
WWW

Ron Southern said...
I wonder, though, who would ever admit to fitting the cookie cutter mold? Almost everyone I meet considers him/her self to be quite unique, no matter what. Someone must be mistaken!

Nick Dagan Best said...
Thanks for that! For anyone interested, I posted an astrology blog about Miles a few years ago [updated link added] a biographical study combined with the charts of Marilyn Monroe and Allen Ginsberg, who were born the same week as Miles.

Twilight said...

Ron Southern ~~~ Well, I suppose his personality led him to the drug use, and I haven't studies his life story closely enough to discover whether he was difficult before he started taking drugs - but he certainly had a lot to put up with in the USA of his youth. It'd be enough to make anybody difficult, and only the very strong could survive without assistance I guess.

But, as you say, it's likely his addiction played a big part of the strangeness people saw in him.


WWW ~~~ His gift lifted him above the crowd, yet he still had to live with that dreadful ugly racial prejudice. Musicians are some of those who came through it, helped by their talent - but not unscathed.


Ron S ~~~ We're all unique - astrologically and physically, so you're right in one way. I guess it comes down to the way in which we are unique that governs whether our uniqueness is appreciated by the world - or just by our families and friends. :-)


Nick Dagan Best ~~ Hello!
Thanks for the visit and for the link to your post. I took a quick look just now, and will certainly be back to study it more closely, as there's so much there to take in. Some of it will no doubt go over my head, as profections haven't been in my repertoire up to now. I love to learn though.
:-)

Adele Aldridge
said...
Thanks for the post about one of my favorite musicians. Besides enjoying Miles Davis's music I find his face mesmerizing. No way I can totally explain that.

Twilight said...
Hi there! He did have a beautiful face, I can understand your attraction. His eyes are central to his beauty and seem to draw the viewer in, yet push them away at the same time - in some photographs anyway.

Ron Southern said...
I don't suppose it's knowable in most cases whether things like that are causative or merely symptoms. We all have our predispositions, not all of which are well known to others.

anyjazz (my husband) said...
Miles Davis has been the signpost for many jazz converts. Even for those who are stuck in the CW or Disco or Classical mode, Davis has been the converting catalyst. I have met many who have said without reservation that they “don’t like jazz.” Miles Davis changes their minds.

There is something primal and penetrating and indelible about many of the Miles Davis recordings, especially the collaborations with Gil Evans. Even the most convinced of the jazz-haters hear something that attracts them to the music Davis created.

Listening to a musician play jazz is like watching a painter paint. You are there, watching creativity, watching art being born.

Twilight said...
I can (kind of) see why that's the case, having previously been someone who viewed jazz with a very jaundiced eye - I mean ear.

Miles Davis seems to have something some other jazz musicians lack - maybe he reaches beyond the simple need to improvise, which I still find a wee bit annoying, to be honest.

I'll never be a true jazz fan, I love melody and lyrics too much. But from the work of Davis and Ben Webster, and one or two others I can at least enjoy a taste of it - now and then.

Nick Dagan Best said...
Twilight,
Miles didn't start using drugs until about May 1949, when he turned 23. Before that, he was a clean-cut, middle class kid, the son of a dentist, who moved to NYC from East St. Louis, ostensibly to study music at Julliard, but ultimately to meet up and play with Charlie Parker, a habitual junkie.

Miles went through a few years exposure to the drug life without being tempted, but finally began after getting depressed following a trip to Europe, where he had had a whirlwind romance with Juliette Greco.

He finally kicked heroin in late 1953-early 1954, but was known to use cocaine in the years that followed, particularly during the 1970s, when his health prevented him from playing as much as he used to.

Twilight said...
Many thanks for the additional information.

On balance, I think Miles Davis was naturally inclined to be a bit socially obtuse (or more aptly, the way Americans put it "ornery").
That's supposed to be unusual for Sun Gemini types, even with Sun in 12th house (which sometimes relates to a writer's need for solitude and withdrawal). His Moon/Saturn combination probably had a lot to answer for, in my opinion.
Drug use was bound to play some part in how he was perceived by the public too, but if he'd been a warm gregarious type to start with he'd either have not got into drugs in any serious way, or if he had, then they wouldn't have suddenly changed his personality so radically.

I'm guessing there though, because I have no experience of drugs or drug users - I might be barking up the wrong tree entirely. :-)

Music Monday ~ Aranjuez, Rodrigo, Miles & The Miners

This Monday, another classical piece popularised by use in movies, or performance by artists from differing musical genres: Concierto de Aranjuez by Spanish 20th century composer Joaquin Rodrigo. This was originally a composition for classical guitar and orchestra, written in 1939. The Adagio is best known, easily recognizable, and used in several movies, television shows, and commercials. Many will have heard the Adagio from Concierto de Aranjuez without knowing its title or composer. I never tire of listening to this piece. I have a home-compiled cd containing 7 or 8 different versions, one after the other - I love 'em all!


Joaquín Rodrigo was born in Sagunto, Valencia, Spain on St. Cecilia's day (St. Cecilia is patron saint of music): 22 November, in 1901. His only daughter, born 27 January (so was I) is named Cecilia too, almost certainly after the saint. At age three Rodrigo lost his sight almost completely, the result of an epidemic of diphtheria. He confirmed that this event undoubtedly led him into music as a profession.

Rodrigo's natal chart (below)doesn't initially shout "composer!" to me. I wonder, had it not been for the diptheria and subsequent blindness, whether he'd have been more likely to follow some other career path? Outside circumstances ought always to be taken into consideration in tandem with astrological indications.

His Sun and Mercury in Scorpio indicate a passionate nature, but the stellium (cluster) in Capricorn linking Jupiter, Saturn and Venus lends a stern air of no-nonsense to the chart, with Saturn's limitations modifying Jupiter's urge for excess. Mars and Neptune were in opposition from the last degree of Sagittarius and first degree of Cancer, which again reflects some kind of challenge to creativity. I don't usually mention Chiron, but here it could be of of note that Chiron, asteroid known as "The Wounded Healer" is opposing Neptune along with Mars, making this opposition even more significant, bearing in mind Rodrigo's early illness and blindness.

Moon would be in Aries, whatever his time of birth. With both Sun and Moon signs ruled by Mars Rodrigo was equipped, temperamentally, to deal with all challenges his life brought to him. He appears to have done so, with great success.


12 noon chart shown as time of birth is unknown.



The Concierto de Aranjuez was inspired by the gardens at Palacio Real de Aranjuez, the spring resort palace and gardens originally built by Philip II in the last half of the 16th century. The work attempts to transport the listener to another place and time through the evocation of the sounds of nature. (Wikipedia)

Link to a classical version played by John Williams. Among the many musicians who have interpreted this piece, possibly the most surprising was jazz legend Miles Davis in collaboration with arranger Gil Evans. (Link to this at YouTube) It forms part of the famous 1960 album Sketches of Spain. Miles Davis said: "That melody is so strong that the softer you play it, the stronger it gets, and the stronger you play it, the weaker it gets."


Other versions include those by famous violinists, clarinettists, The Modern Jazz Quartet and other jazz combos, classical guitarists, and easy listening orchestras. Lyrics have been added - Egyptian born Greek singer Demis Roussos used the music for his song Follow Me. In 1967, the French singer Richard Anthony brought out a single named Aranjuez Mon Amour, with lyrics by Guy Bontempelli. Il Divo sing a version too. The Shadows released their take in 1979" Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto.

In the film School of Rock, it can be heard when the children are playing in music class. In Brassed Off it was played by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band. In that film, the concerto is sometimes referred to as "Orangejuice". Plain-spoken Yorkshire folk would be inclined to do that. It's one way to get their tongues around unfamiliar words.

Away from popular music, some Jewish cantors, specifically of Sephardic tendency, have adopted the main melody from the Adagio for the Kaddish, one of the most important parts of the Jewish liturgy. This can be seen especially in Sephardic congregations of Latin America (Mexico and Argentina), as well as in Israel. The phrasing of the Kaddish verses corresponds almost perfectly to the phrasing of the Adagio, resulting in a surprising religious effect and tone color.

Of all the beautiful renditions of Aranjuez available on video, from classical through middle-of-the-road to jazz-inspired, I've picked the one that made me weep as I listened and watched the images. Reading comments afterwards, it appears that I wasn't the only one. It's the "Orange Juice" version by Yorkshire's Grimethorpe Colliery Band, featured in Brassed Off, with images of Yorkshire and from the British miners' strikes in 1984/5. Dark days. Many in Britain will never forget them. A way of life for a generation of brave men was lost then, as the Conservatives' economic policies closed coal mines around the country in favor of nuclear power. Our strong support for the miners meant exactly nothing to demon Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. I still cringe at the thought of her - to this day! Nowadays coal mines are not the way ahead, but for decades we depended on what those men risked their lives to provide.

I believe Rodrigo would be pleased that this music can still help to evoke strong emotion.

MUSICAL MONDAY ~ Miles Davis

On this day, 28 September, in 1991 Miles Davis died. Davis's musicianship, trumpet playing and composing is part of jazz history - he is almost universally revered, yet is said to have had a difficult and strange personality. His music, then, must have been exceptionally brilliant to overcome that drawback.

I first became aware of Miles Davis through my husband, the jazz fan. Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, featured on the Davis album "Sketches of Spain" has entranced me from the first time I heard it. I can hardly call myself a jazz fan, yet I can appreciate some pieces, especially those with a semi-classical base.

Miles Davis was born on 26 May 1926 in Alton, Illinois, at 5 am according to Astrodatabank. Some sources have his birthday as 25 May, but Astrodatabank gives 26th and 5am an AA rating - I'm going with that.

Here's an excerpt from an on-line biography. My comments on related astrology follow.

For the last two decades of Davis's career he became more of a jazz curiosity than a musician to be taken seriously. A good part of his fame owed less to his considerable musicianship than to his strange personality. Davis gained a poor reputation in performance for turning his back on audiences, for expressing racial hostility toward whites, for dressing poorly early in his career and wildly later—all of which contributed to his mysterious image.

Davis was a complex man with strengths and weaknesses that would ultimately destroy him. Himself the victim of a policeman's clubbing (reportedly, racially inspired), he had the fairness and courage in the late 1950s to challenge black jazzmen's expectations by filling a piano vacancy with a white player, Bill Evans (1929–1980); but then, by all accounts, Davis often racially taunted him. A physical fitness enthusiast (with his own private gym), he nevertheless took vast amounts of drugs (sometimes, but not always, for pain). Oftentimes unfriendly, he was also capable of acts of generosity toward struggling musicians, both black and white.

Davis was married three times—to dancer Frances Taylor, singer Betty Mabry, and actress Cicely Tyson. All three marriages ended in divorce. He had, in all, three sons, a daughter, and seven grandchildren. He died on September 28, 1991, in Santa Monica, California, of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and a stroke.

The Gemini Sun in Davis's natal chart links closely to very little - it lay within a few degrees of the ascendant, but in 12th house, which astrologers consider to be an area of withdrawal. I think this might account in part for his strange personality - turning his back on the audience, for instance, might be a reflection of this.

There's a Grand Trine in emotional, creative and sensitive Water signs in his chart. It links Moon/Saturn in Scorpio to Uranus in Pisces and Pluto in Cancer. While Water signs are generally emotionally driven, and a Grand Trine is a helpful circuit between signs of the same element, the inclusion of Saturn, Uranus and Pluto in this particular Watery circuit bring in a touch of negativity and some bloody-mindedness.

The other main configuration in this chart is a Grand Cross (shown right), involving Moon/Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune - made up of square aspects and oppositions - all challenging in different ways, often resulting in a few difficult personality traits. Davis had many challenges to overcome in his life - racial prejudice, addiction and ill health being high on the list. The planets involved in this Grand Cross relate to communication (Mercury) publication and expansion (Jupiter), creativity and addiction (Neptune) and Inner self (Moon)/rigidity and discipline (Saturn). One integrated opposition: Mercury and Moon/Saturn is especially notable here, involving, as it does, Mercury the communications planet opposed by Moon/Saturn a kind of inner self policed by Saturn push-pulling with a need to communicate.


On the positive side, his art - his musicianship - is underlined by Venus, planet of the arts, in go-getting Aries forming a helpful trine to Neptune, planet of creativity in Leo. In addition to his talent in music, I ought to mention that Miles Davis was quite an accomplished painter, it was something he enjoyed in his later years.








More about Miles and his music at "Miles Styles" by Michael S Smith.