Greatest living musician

Elvis

Originally posted by badmoon
Been thinking about this.

Sonny Rollins

I'd have to go with Cecil Taylor on this one. As impressive as Rollins' work was in the 50's and early 60's, I'd have to give Taylor the nod based on his entire body of work.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
I'd have to go with Cecil Taylor on this one. As impressive as Rollins' work was in the 50's and early 60's, I'd have to give Taylor the nod based on his entire body of work.

For pop, I'd say Carlos Santana has as impressive a life's work as anyone.

Miles Davis
First album Bebop, last album hip-hop
Never rested or looked back

Originally posted by StTito
Miles Davis
First album Bebop, last album hip-hop
Never rested or looked back

***BREAKING NEWS***

Miles Davis is still alive!!

In all seriousness, I even surprised myself with my own choice. I thought of these criteria first: mass appeal, influence on others in the music industry, musicianship, sustained popularity over time. The name: Paul McCartney. There is not a musician you can name, that hasn't played some version of a beatles tune, appeal across the world and in many genres. Not a vertuoso on bass, but competant and creative. Great song writing, great vocals, great repetoire, of course some failures along the way, but his pluses out weigh his minuses. Maybe its because I just saw him on the grammys.

Tom Waits.

Originally posted by badmoon
***BREAKING NEWS***

Miles Davis is still alive!!

No, he died over 17 years ago

Roy Clark. Great on so very many instruments. You should see him play Flight Of The Bumblebee on a fiddle.

Originally posted by badmoon
Outstanding importance or significance.

AND

talent and skill.

These two (four?) criteria are completely unrelated.

I think talent and skill are completely unimportant and irrelevant when it comes to being significant and being an influence on your audience. Just ask Jim Osterberg, John Cummings or Lou Reed among so many others - all of which are arguably quite short on raw talent.

So you have to pick one or the other. Either we praise someone for wirtuosic skill or we praise them for how they've affected the musical landscape in our culture. The two are rarely, if ever, related unless your name is Mozart.

Also, your question is flawed (or rather unfocussed) because you have to clarify what you mean by 'living'. Are we talking about people still alive and still recording incredible material, or are we takling about wash-ups like Paul McCartney and Keith Richards?

Anyways, I could rant for hours............................

Originally posted by darvlay
These two (four?) criteria are completely unrelated.

I think talent and skill are completely unimportant and irrelevant when it comes to being significant and being an influence on your audience. Just ask Jim Osterberg, John Cummings or Lou Reed among so many others - all of which are arguably quite short on raw talent.

So you have to pick one or th ...[text shortened]... McCartney and Keith Richards?

Anyways, I could rant for hours............................

Washed ups, .. do you know that the rolling stones just made more money on their last tour than any other tour by anyone ever. In the Billions

Originally posted by darvlay
These two (four?) criteria are completely unrelated.

I think talent and skill are completely unimportant and irrelevant when it comes to being significant and being an influence on your audience. Just ask Jim Osterberg, John Cummings or Lou Reed among so many others - all of which are arguably quite short on raw talent.

So you have to pick one or th ...[text shortened]... McCartney and Keith Richards?

Anyways, I could rant for hours............................

That sure could be said for Kurt Cobain, in a Rolling Stones issue a few years ago, they rated the best guitarists, and they put his name higher than Andre Segovia. Of course they are both dead but I thought that was totally over the top, Segovia founded a whole SCHOOL of guitar style and so did Cobain but not anything like the quality of Segovia. Segovia had more talent in his little finger than Cobain had in his whole persona.

When I named Sunny Rollins it was due to his remarkable achievements as well as continuing to play at a high level.

This topic is an interesting list of candidates. I can see Sonny Rollins because he has a strong tradition of playing with the greats of jazz, he does continue to perform at a high level, no pun intended. He also has acclaim world wide. I'm just not sure a Jazz or legit classical player can sustain enough popularity to overtake the influence rock idols have on culture.
Like Sonhouse mentioned, Kurt Colbain couldn't touch one page of what Segovia transcribed. On the other hand, more kids probably started playing guitar in five years in the early 90's because of Nirvana than Segovia influenced in his whole life time.
That's because of the accessibility of the simple tune, no technique, look dad, I'm playing Teen Spirit buy me a new amp. Nothing says that art or culture has to be complex.
I'm blown away by the amount of talent that shows up on the internet, people that have facility out the wazoo, incredible players on all instruments. With the information available it doesn't surprise me. They always say, the best players, you've never heard from them. It's some delta blues artist sitting in a deli with a bottle neck slide in Louisiana somewhere. Or a Flaminco spanish kid sitting on a wall outside a cafe in Madrid. Some sax player trying to make the college jazz band just on the other side of a corn field in Indiana.
I have a deeper respect for those that are able to make a living at their art and continue to strive for excellence.

Originally posted by gregsflat
This topic is an interesting list of candidates. I can see Sonny Rollins because he has a strong tradition of playing with the greats of jazz, he does continue to perform at a high level, no pun intended. He also has acclaim world wide. I'm just not sure a Jazz or legit classical player can sustain enough popularity to overtake the influence rock idols h ...[text shortened]... hose that are able to make a living at their art and continue to strive for excellence.

Could you offer some commentary comparing these three musicians performing the same piece? Kind of shows my difficulty with this thread.

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