Tag: Miles Davis

Innovation 7 – Miles on Fire as Engineering

On By cjx07sterIn Engineering, Innovation, MusicLeave a comment

It was April 1988.  I was working at Costec in Sydney at the time, a company then designing and making custom simulators for the power industry focussed on the idea of it’s two founders. Each one different, using currently available technology, fit for purpose – to train operators, and difficult to create, hours of work, based on a simple idea.  Wonderful time that was.

My first inkling that there was that kind of special thing was when I went to a concert at the time, It was Miles Davis playing in Sydney.  One of two concerts I think.  I had heard some of his music before, but not much.  I had even bought some sheet music of his and tried to play it. Didn’t understand it.

At that concert, I did experience Miles Davis, and got to know him through his music and ways around the stage. The way he kind of orchestrated on the fly, getting through his ideas in such an innovative way, each time he played a number. Here was one of the most intense people I ever saw or met. Someone who seemed to have an idea, and then do his best to express it through the entire composition, components of which were his trumpet playing, others were his sidemen. Music has a quality that is free of language.  Music speaks straight into the mind of the listeners, his kind of music devoid of lyrics and words, it goes straight in, if you let it. I did.

So it has taken  about 25 years for me to figure out what it was I heard.  What I heard was the physical expression of a burning idea through music. I am sure that non of it that I heard would be repeatable, without the man at the centre of it.  Since it was not just about the music, it was also his attitude, stance, control, and direction of that idea, his total focus on it, in order to have his musicians play it the way he saw it.  There I saw a match and its consequent fire of an idea, a physical thing.  It is here now, and tomorrow it will be there as well, but it may be modified, discarded for a better one, developed. I could be better tomorrow, it could be irrelevant, but for sure, there is a strong will about that idea that has to get out.

Since that time, I have come to understand about innovation in a similar abstraction.

Take an idea and then think about how you would tell someone about that idea musically.  Would it be noise, a lone trumpet song, and orchestra playing, a symphonic movement, which one, first or last ? How solid is the idea.  If someone kicks it, will it last, will it just blow away in the wind ? How permanent is the idea or its expression.  How quick does it have to be made ? How long does it have to last ? What color is it ? How much of that color is in fashion ? When will it go out of fashion ?……

Would you care ?

Innovations are true to the idea, its clarity and purpose. They reflect the idea so that others can see it.  The innovation itself has a timeframe, a purpose and a reason. So engineering too, it full of innovation and surprise, resulting in physical things others can see and appreciate, for what they are worth, their repeatability, and value, and for how long they are around.

Coltrane – Cotton Club – Ni Hao – Miles Away

On By cjx07sterIn TravelLeave a comment

Two men walk into a bar, it’s Shanghai, the cotton club, few years back.  The songs could have been like My O

ne and Only Love, or Soul Eyes.  Apart from the live house band, the place was full, but quiet and attentive,

listening….a lone trumpeter on stage, playing the harmon like Miles did, I went there with Tom, it was summer time, and hot, humid in the Shanghai days, down Hua Hai Lu. W

e got drinks, Tom knew the owner, which was good, and we got a table at the back, thats all that was left.  A soul black lady got up on stage, and sang soul/blues like the trumpeter, only really black cool, loved it. The drinks arrived, we sat back and commented on the way Shanghai had got cool, and was probably one of the really great happening places around at the time, the tallest building in the world competition was on, and Shanghai was in it to win with the tall building up in their river clouds floating up there. Cool with music and people and the girls were getting much better at the english language.  Coltrane for lovers was the mood, and Miles was the groove, Shanghai style… like imagine a bunch of expat musicians, who like Shanghai who come from countries distant to stay and form a band for a club in Shanghai.  Ni Hao Shanghai..Gan Bei !.

Immediate the lights went out, the sound of the airconditioners stopped, and we were all in a silent surprise, with no music flowing over, we were like dragged back to the new new world where blackouts really did happen occasionally… and this one.. well .. here we were sitting in the dark… one by one candles came out, more drinks, and the place took on a different flavor, like somehow candles everywhere make it shift left in the mind, and music seems more amplified already.. the guitar became acoustic, the singer, the trumpeter, more amplified by the dark and candles and lack of power.. now that is the way to drink scotch… but then the groove was good and the temperature rose,, eventually it just got too hot in there and no air.. just dark and music and the oxygen consumed by candles, untill such time as we left.  I mean it was great, but two men walked out of a bar and said.  How about a beer mate !. Ni Hao !