@Buddha

Don't like the singing voices of Leonard Cohen or Tom Waits.

@LiterateHiker so who's your favs?
I started appreciating Jack white too.

Love Tom Waits but I can see why some don’t

@Buddha

Audra McDonald, Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Kenny Rankin, Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga (sometimes), jazz singer Patricia Barber, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett and more.

@LiterateHiker nice selection... have you ever followed Post modern jukebox or the hot sardines ?

@Geoffrey51 well, some of his songs are as bit rough.

@Buddha

No. A little background:

My father was a professional jazz trumpet player in Detroit from age 14 (he lied about his age to get into the Musician's Union) until he died of cancer at 51.

As a teen, I sat in with Dad's band with my flute when they practiced at our house.

At the University of Michigan, I played jazz flute in Jazz Workshop through the Afro American Studies Dept. I had the only white face. In 20 years, I was the only white student with the guts to play in Jazz Workshop, the professor said later. It was a lot of fun.

On flute, I play jazz, classical and some blues music. With sensitive hearing, I cannot stand screaming guitars.

Also don't like the trumpet playing of jazz great Miles Davis, whose atonal (ouch) music veered off into outer space. I want music to resolve and return to the melody once in awhile. It's more relaxing.

Everyone has different taste.

@LiterateHiker that is really an interesting story.
I wish I was a musician, but never could get passed the mechanics. I needed to develop my ear and it never happened. I have a daughter that still does fill in for a symphony orchestra on violin.

@LiterateHiker In what way is Kind of Blue atonal? Or Porgy and Bess? Or Sketches of Spain? Or Birth of the Cool, or In a Silent Way? Or 'Round Midnight? or.....?

@LiterateHiker What a clever way to NOT ANSWER THE QUESTION.

I did not ask you what atonality is.

I know what atonality is. WHAT I ASKED YOU IS, IN WHAT WAY ARE THE EXAMPLES I MENTIONED ATONAL? IN WHAT WAY IS MILES DAVIS' MUSIC ATONAL.

In the examples I cited:

Two are modal. Two are mildly chromatic and involve "making the changes" in order to successfully improvise, one is an album of Gershwin tunes, and one is based on an important Spanish concerto by Rodrigo that isn't atonal unless you have shit in your ears. Three can also be considered brilliant examples of "third stream" in that they are in equal measure rigidly orchestrated and improvised.

The correct answer to the question is, "NONE. NONE ARE ATONAL."

In fact, Miles never made a single record that embraced atonality. You'd know this if you'd ever listened to anything he recorded. He made some records, like Live at the Plugged Nickel and A Tribute to Jack Johnson, which embraced aspects of free jazz, but free jazz isn't atonal inasmuch as its hyperchromatic. Strict atonality would be best defined by the music of the composers I've mentioned below.

The dictionary definition more accurately describes the music of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and Stockhausen--composers who used serialism and 12-tone techniques to thwart tonality. Some late Stravinsky meets the criteria for atonality as well.

But Miles? Nope. Analyzing any of his records from his time replacing Dizzy Gillespie in Charlie Parker's band to Doo Bop, his final recording, will reveal NOT ONE example of atonality.

Leonard Cohen could really sing and write music. Pure genius.

@FUNandFAITHFUL

Don't like Leonard Cohen's or Tom Waits' singing, either.

@LiterateHiker Prince was another great songwriter who could really sing. He wrote a lot of songs for other artists. I think Michael Jackson wrote a lot of his songs, but I could be mistaken.

@UrsiMajor

When I was younger, I enjoyed the movie "Purple Rain" by Prince.

@LiterateHiker Kurt Cobain was a great songwriter who could really sing. Pretty sure he wrote everything Courtney Love sang for Hole before he died.

I love Cohen,,gravelly voice ,Randy Bachman Of the Guess who and Bachman Turner OverDrive ,Listen to his Radio show weekly when i am drivng at the time great song writer also

JimG

Exactly.

ME TOO!

Who wouldnt?

@1of5 Probably not. Bennett singing brilliant. Dylan writing brilliant. Composite. Pleasant on the ear but miss the point via phrasing, intonation and attitude.

I mean you have to have a certain anarchic tendency to deliver a line such as “threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you” and so on.

@Geoffrey51 I think you're seriously underestimating Mr. Bennett here. I'm sure the only reason he hasn't done a Dylan cover is out of courtesy, not to show Dylan up. He's a nice guy, you know.

I operate under the assumption that any cover of a Dylan song is better than Dylan's version, btw.

@1of5 this is an agree to disagree situation

@1of5 ...and I certainly don’t underestimate Tony Bennett

@1of5 I knew it was around somewhere.

Bob does Tony!

@Geoffrey51 like I'm gonna watch Bob sing anything.

I'll see your Dylan and raise you a Shatner.

@Geoffrey51 NO

@Geoffrey51, @1of5 It might be interesting .

@Besalbub No what?

@Geoffrey51 Bob singing once upon a time or William Shatner singing anything .

Nashvile Skyline is a great album. Lay Lady Lay is iconic, and I love the duet with Jonny Cash on Girl From The North Country.

@Ms_McSteven Actually that’s a god point. I’d forgotten that. That is certainly an improved cover!

I thing the Grateful Dead version of When I Paint My Masterpiece is really worth listening to.

@Cordon

Hilarious! I love the huffing, wheezing harmonica Rich Hall played. Great parody.

"His voice was so shrill it set of my car alarm."

"Makeup on his face looked like pancake batter."

"Huffing and a puffin' on harmonica like he was losing a lung."

Yet, you don't see anybody looking to Rich Hall for inspiration or as an exemplary example of his craft.

People do that with Dylan.

We're talking about Dylan, and the only reason anybody remembers Rich Hall at all is because somebody posted this video.

@MattChanning1

Calm down. I am a musician.

Bob Dylan's shrill, nasal, whiny singing and harmonica hurt my ears.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

@LiterateHiker Never ever tell somebody to calm down. It's condescending and dismissive. You have no way of knowing what my state actually is.

I am also a musician. That doesn't necessarily make an opinion worth much in and of itself.

And if the only thing one can say about an opinion is that it's theirs and that they're entitled to it, then it's an opinion without merit.

@MattChanning1

I think you'll be surprised, Rich is a very good comedian. I suggest you watch his "Hell no I ain't happy" routine which was done live at the Apollo, in '09- highly entertaining. I doubt that he'll go down in history only because somebody posted a video.

I'm not a musician, so I am unable to comment on the Dylan phenomenon. It does seem that the Dylan worship is strong in the US. Personally I find the fascination with him a little strange. I enjoy the lyrics to Masters of War immensely, but I find his voice to be a little too shrill. I think Rich aptly pointed that out. Then again, I did enjoy the work of the Travelling Wilburys.

"We're talking about Dylan", yes, and in thirty, fourty, fifty years he will be another memory and very few people will actually remember him for anything he did. He's no Shakespeare...

It's all ephemeral...