Miles Davis, 1969-75

[Tom Storer]

I've been listening lately to a lot of Miles from this period, including many bootleg recordings. I love it--the live music more than the studio, generally, but in general I think it's an extremely creative period for Miles. It had its ups and downs, its good nights and bad nights, its strong bandmembers and its less strong, but the roaring energy and just the sound of it engage me utterly.

It's true that over these years he gradually jettisoned almost all the traditional jazz practices he had himself done so much to advance over the years. Syncopation, song form, chord changes, acoustic instruments, soloist interaction with the rhythm section--down the trap, for the most part. Without those things, is it jazz? Well, not traditional jazz, that's for sure. But I'd have a hard time finding another name for it. I sure thought it was jazz when I was 15 or 16 and listening to it for the first time, but of course I did--that's what it was being sold as.

But I'm not sure the question is a useful one. Centering discussion on the question of "is it jazz" just serves to change the subject to one of taxonomy.

Some people just hate the way this music sounds, and I can understand that. One man's meat is another man's poison. But some go so far as to charge that Miles abandoned all concern with artistic expression in a cynical ploy to gain money and a youthful audience.

That's a charge that listening to the music as it evolved from the "lost quintet" of 1969 (Shorter, Corea, Holland, DeJohnette) through the two- and three-guitar bands of the mid-70's makes me find hard to credit. The music trades subtle acoustics for electric volume, and the relationships within the instruments in the band gradually change completely, becoming simpler. The suave, controlled ferocity of Miles's earlier bands give way to raw, unimpeded ferocity, with a monolithic wall of rhythm close to funk and psychedelia rather than swing. The harmonic virtuosity of jazz masters was no longer needed since, as Dave Liebman put it, the band often "jammed on an E chord for three hours straight."

Yet the music was far from simple, let alone simple-minded. No matter what boasts Miles may have made about putting together a rock band to rival Jimi Hendrix, there's no way it could have been intended to gain a large audience of teenagers or pop music fans, so uncompromising was it, so abstract within its parameters of volume and stomping energy. I listened to it when I was in high school, and my friends thought it was unbearable. Same old story for those uninitiated in the ways of jazz--where's the melody? Sure, there was a beat, but no hooks, no words. It was impenetrable to them.

And it still is impenetrable to most people. (Maybe the academic question "is it jazz?" can be answered by looking at who listens to the music and who appreciates it. The answer: jazz fans. Not all jazz fans, to be sure, and there may be a contingent of early-70's Miles fans who don't listen to other jazz. But I'm sure the vast majority of people who enjoy "Get Up With It," "Agharta" or "Live-Evil," and who trade in the many bootlegs from this period, are people who love jazz in general.) So--was Miles a cynical sell-out, or an artist who was on to something good? I say he was on to something good. Unfortunately, he then retired from performance for five years, and when he came back he began playing the lame, pop-inspired instrumental funk that was, if not perhaps a cynical sell-out, in any case very far from the challenges he had sought in the past.

[stonemonkts]

Repertory Jazz, Fusion, Marsalis, and Crouch

by Marshall Bowden

Jazz, like any other musical form, does not exist in a vacuum. Or, at least it shouldn't if it is to continue to survive and be an active part of our musical language. The musical landscape is constantly changing with the arrival of new technology, changes in the delivery of music both live and recorded, and the considerations of the marketplace. Against this background each musical genre must compete, morph, and reinvent itself while still maintaining the identity that attracts its core audience.

There are those who would have you believe that jazz should not be part of the marketplace, that it should actually be subsidized and shielded from market considerations in much the way that classical music of the European tradition is. This is in itself interesting, since these very same self-appointed keepers of the flame simultaneously decry jazz artists such as Dave Brubeck, John Lewis, and Gunther Schuller, who they see as coming under the sway of European traditions.

Wynton Marsalis, considered by many to be the best jazz musician of his generation, has decided, after receiving his post-graduate degree in Jazz History from critic and cultural observer Stanley Crouch, to ensure that no further music created henceforth be considered jazz unless it slavishly imitates a style already long ago admitted to the jazz canon. One can only assume that this is because Marsalis has realized that though he is an excellent trumpet player with a beautiful tone and gobs of technique as well as a fairly good composer, he has nothing genuinely new to say and cannot hope to bring to jazz any true individuality along the lines of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, or Thelonious Monk

I am reminded of the words of Francis Davis, discussing the current crop of jazz's young lions in the Atlantic Monthly: "There are no innovators or woolly eccentrics among those we've heard from so far. In setting craftsmanship as their highest goal these neophytes remind me of such second-tier stars of the Fifties and Sixties as Blue Mitchell and Wynton Kelly -- players whose modesty and good taste made them ideal sidemen but whose own record dates invariably lacked the dark corners and disfigurements of character that separate great music from merely good". That's Wynton -- no dark corners here, man. But he is the first recording artist to win Grammy awards in both classical and jazz categories, recording both genres for Columbia, the same record label that Miles Davis recorded for during most of his career. Marsalis has been quick to accuse Miles of having "gone electric" in the late '60s because his record label wanted him to sell more records, yet he obviously sees no problem with recording both classical and jazz music prolifically with Columbia's encouragement, doubling his recorded output and, one assumes, the associated revenue.

Marsalis believes that popular music has become increasingly infantile over the years, and that this was not always the case. Perhaps not, but many songs of the jazz age, considered standards today, were aimed at young flappers and their escorts whose music scandalized their elders. I'm not taking issue with whether jazz should be looking for a way to become teenybopper music (it shouldn't) but with whether it should or even can remain "pure" and untainted by what is going on around it. Jazz musicians have always tried to pull into their work sounds from every conceivable place -- from popular music, from cutting-edge music in the European classical tradition, from other parts of the world. Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, and countless others have tried to incorporate music that was not necessarily a part of jazz at the time. Sometimes these experiments are self-indulgent and come off poorly, but in the hands of the truly talented they often succeed beyond anyone's expectations. There is a huge difference between the electric wah-wah pedaled trumpet histrionics of Don Ellis and the dark, bubbling work of Miles Davis, and Marsalis should realize and embrace this. Perhaps he does to some extent. In his source interviews with Ken Burns, parts of which were later used in Burns' Jazz documentary, Marsalis seems to make a distinction between the earliest "fusion" bands and what happened as the '70s progressed: "As fusion progresses, we see that the musicians' desire is not to come up with a jazz sensibility and use things from rock and roll, but it's to just become a glorified pop musician who can play instrumental music also. And this comes, we get to see it in full, in full bloom when Miles Davis returns in the early '80s with a straight instrumental pop album that has no overtones of fusion at all. And we also see it with the demise of the great fusion bands as we progress into the '70s".

Stanley Crouch also exhibits some shades of gray in his interview with Burns that are lacking in many of his published critiques. In his essay "On the Corner: The Sellout of Miles Davis" collected in his 1995 book The All-American Skin Game he addresses Davis' electronic music thusly: "And then the fall. . . . Beginning with the 1969 In A Silent Way, Davis' sound was mostly lost among electronic instruments inside a long maudlin piece of droning wallpaper music. A year later with Bitches Brew, Davis was firmly on the path of a sellout. It sold more than any other Davis album and fully launched jazz/rock with its multiple keyboards, electronic guitars, static beats, and clutter". By this time in the essay, Crouch has spent quite a bit of time giving us a real musical breakdown of some of Davis' earlier work, yet this is nearly all he can muster about Davis' actual electronic music. He provides plenty of reasons why Davis chose this path, but for a man possessed of a fine critical mind and the ability to express himself quite clearly, he completely fails to offer any realistic musical description of such Davis works as In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, works that even Marsalis is willing to acknowledge as adventurous and innovative recordings within a jazz framework. But in his discussion with Burns (in 1997), Crouch backpedals a little: ". . . I used to think that he sold out from the start. Now I don't necessarily think that's initially what happened . . . at first, I think, he went into it he was actually looking around, looking for something to see if there was a place for him. And in Filles de Kilimanjaro, for instance, in that recording, he has a piece called "Mademoiselle Mabery" which is an adaptation of Jimi Hendrix' tune, "And The Wind Cries Mary" which is a masterpiece, this particular thing. Had he stayed over in there, he would have actually invented something that we didn't know".

But, as we all know, Miles didn't "stay over in there". He wasn't just trying to connect with a white rock audience, though. He was deeply troubled that black people didn't listen to jazz, a music that had been a focal point of Afro-American expression from the time of slavery straight through the civil rights movement. As black people began to demand social and economic freedom they found expression in R&B and funk. On the Corner, a record more controversial than Bitches Brew in the Davis canon was his attempt to address funk music and incorporate the grooves of James Brown and Sly Stone. Later, Davis became more interested in layered, slowly evolving soundscapes that today we might call ambient. It is true that when Davis returned to recording in the early 1980s he was pursuing a more pop sounding path and might have lost his way for a time, but his brilliant Tutu, released in 1986, pointed the way he would go in the future.

Trying to deny jazz any history or future after the early 1960s is a mistake, and so is trying to return to that period or an earlier one. The innovations of the past should be honored and the music should certainly still be played. Repertory requires money for musicians, copyists, publicists and a host of other individuals, and programs such as Marsalis' Jazz at Lincoln Center provide a necessary element to jazz performance and the jazz community. But given Marsalis' bias against the jazz experiments of the '60s and '70s, can anyone seriously expect to see a retrospective of the music of Weather Report there anytime soon? Maybe jazz can't compete in today's MTV-Big-Mac world, maybe it will mutate into something else (and that is not to say something inherently "better" or "more advanced" than what has gone before) in order to survive. I believe that's called evolution. There's little question it will never achieve the commercial success of its stepchildren, R&B and Rock. Does it matter? Some say without being carefully maintained under glass, as Afro-American classical music, jazz won't survive. I wouldn't bet against it.

[Gary Sisco]

His music from that period has never been more influential. It's more influential now in the music world than his pre-BB music is.

[Tom Storer]

Thanks, stone, but since Stanley C. has been sighted in these parts, perhaps he'll give us his own current thinking? Meanwhile, what do you think?

[Chris D]

I'd dig "Get Up With It" a whole lot more if Miles had stayed away from the organ.

[stonemonkts]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

Thanks, stone, but since Stanley C. has been sighted in these parts, perhaps he'll give us his own current thinking? Meanwhile, what do you think?

Tom - I posted that for his benefit, hoping that he will indeed take the time to comment on it. I tried to find the entire essay online but failed; my own copy of it is contained in "Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage, and Criticism from 1919 to Now" by Robert Gottlieb. Interesting read to say the least.

I greatly enjoy most of what Miles did during the period in question. Beginning with "In a Silent Way" and culminating in "Pangaea". I think Miles created some of the most compelling music to be heard, not just within that time frame, but above and beyond it too. It is very far removed from traditional jazz, but as you said, that's not the point of why people do or don't appreciate it.

I'm lousy at explaining why I like or dislike certain music, but all I can say is when I hear any of those albums I am immediately engaged and often astounded at Miles' solos and overall dramatic sensibilities as a musician. I also think his chops were near their very peak, especially in the Jack Johnson session. I've stated several times that his extended solo on that recording is among the very best I've ever heard, perhaps my all-time favorite solo on any instrument.

I can certainly relate to those jazz fans who are not enamored with this genre, and/or Miles' contributions within it. My tastes are fairly catholic but there are jazz genres I do not connect with as well.

[HLJ]

Man I have tried digging BB many times and I just can't get it.Nor "On The Corner" and "Get Up With It" just not feeling it.Now some of the stuff just before that run "Miles in The Sky","In A Silent Way" I dig. Not hateing on Miles I'm sure that music inspired many of the fusion artists just not my bag. Peace and all that.

[clinthopson]

I'm in the odd position of agreeing with Whynnie and Crouch on the "fusion," or whatever you want to call it, playing of Miles.

After the Shorter, Williams, Hancock band, as far as I'm concerned, Miles did zip, nothin' nada that deserves a second listen.

I stick with the earlier Miles work which is immortal.

[BFrank]

I recently read about a new documentary about Miles' Isle of Wight performance. Sounded really interesting.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by BFrank

I recently read about a new documentary about Miles' Isle of Wight performance. Sounded really interesting.

On DVD Nov. 16.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by clinthopson

After the Shorter, Williams, Hancock band, as far as I'm concerned, Miles did zip, nothin' nada that deserves a second listen.

Originally Posted by clinthopson

I'm in the odd position of agreeing with Whynnie and Crouch on the "fusion," or whatever you want to call it, playing of Miles.

After the Shorter, Williams, Hancock band, as far as I'm concerned, Miles did zip, nothin' nada that deserves a second listen.

I stick with the earlier Miles work which is immortal.

Ditto.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

When I think of Miles in that period I just smile. A guy I worked with at Ft. Ritchie, MD in the mid-seventies turned me on to Miles via "Sketches of Spain". I thought it was perfection until I found my way to "Kind of Blue". I became a Miles nut, basically buying everything I could find which was surprisingly hard back in those days (being in Western Maryland).

Anyway, eventually I came across "Miles at the Fillmore" (I think), a double LP. Me and my friend listened to it and it sounded inpenetrable. Now I'd been exposed to "Bitches Brew" and dug it, but the Fillmore set was too much. The songs were titled "Miles Wednesday" or "Miles Thursday", etc. Everytime me and George heard a fucked up song on the radio we'd go "Miles Friday" or something like that.

So I get stationed in West (at the time) Germany, started hainging out with these crazy, free-jazz loving Germans, digging late Coltrane, Ayler, Shepp, et al, and all of a sudden "Miles at the Fillmore" wasn't a joke anymore. It made sense. By the way, it took digging free jazz to get me to appreciate Ellington and Armstrong too, go figure.

Prior to that, I could only get into "BB" and "Jack Johnson" (which was easy because of its rock-orientation). Once I got back to the States again I started digging into Miles' '70s work. It made sense to me, my ears were opened.

It was ahead of its time. That's what the problem was. And it was subversive too. Rumors abound that Clive Davis made Miles go in a rock-oriented direction because jazz was getting it's ass kicked and Miles had gotten a ton of money from Columbia. I figured Miles gave Clive the wildest shit he could think of as a way of giving him the finger.

Bottom line, I love the stuff, except for "On the Corner". Too monotonous, and DeJohnette should get a medal for sounding like a drum machine before there where drum machines.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Darryl G. Thomas

Rumors abound that Clive Davis made Miles go in a rock-oriented direction because jazz was getting it's ass kicked and Miles had gotten a ton of money from Columbia. I figured Miles gave Clive the wildest shit he could think of as a way of giving him the finger.

Bottom line, I love the stuff, except for "On the Corner". Too monotonous, and DeJohnette should get a medal for sounding like a drum machine before there where drum machines.

I really doubt that Clive Davis had any real influence over Miles' choices, but that he was happy with the way things went. I think in every instance this was the music Miles wanted to make at the time.

It took me close to 30 years to get with On the Corner, partly because it was SO far ahead of its time (global mix, early sampling, looping, etc.). Now I think it belongs on the short list of his most significant albums.

[bostontricky]

Originally Posted by HLJ

Man I have tried digging BB many times and I just can't get it.Nor "On The Corner" and "Get Up With It" just not feeling it.Now some of the stuff just before that run "Miles in The Sky","In A Silent Way" I dig. Not hateing on Miles I'm sure that music inspired many of the fusion artists just not my bag. Peace and all that.

HL, where do you stand on "Jack Johnson"? We might be coming from the same point, I never got Brew either, nor On the Corner but love Silent Way, and all the 60s material. I can't get enough of the opening track.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Pete C.,

One time the Association of Jazz Journalists (I think that's their name, Howard Mandel started it up) had an online session about Miles with Gary Bartz and Dave Leibman particpating. I logged on asked about the Clive rumors. Bartz basically said what you said. But I'd always wondered because Miles supposedly had gotten a lot of advances from Columbia and he did have a lavish lifestyle to support.

But I guess the music doesn't support the rumor because it wasn't commercial. Especially compared with Herbie's Headhunter records.

[gonzo]

i love the stuff from this era!!!is it jazz? i think it is. i too especially love the live albums from this era moreso than the studio. i have some live cd/dvds from this era that i think are excellent. the live album w/wayne/chick/holland/dejohnette/airto from the fillmore is especially good.

[AntManBee]

"And then the fall. . . . Beginning with the 1969 In A Silent Way, Davis' sound was mostly lost among electronic instruments inside a long maudlin piece of droning wallpaper music. A year later with Bitches Brew, Davis was firmly on the path of a sellout. It sold more than any other Davis album..."

It seems that every time a great performer finds new paths to travel, there's an outcry of conservatism from the one-eared crowd, picking their favourite word "sell-out" out of their purist ductionary without knowing how to tell the difference between sell-out and innovation. The outrage is usually particularly intense if the artist's change means she/he have the guts to move towards something that even only remotely resembles rock music. Some people just love to nourish their misconception that rock music by necessity equals shallowness. Miles lost his sound? If he "lost his sound", wasn't change the very hallmark of Miles Davis anyway?

"In A Silent Way" maudlin? What absurd bullshit.

[Gary Sisco]

Why wonder? He's too predictable to wonder about how he'll respond.

[Tom Storer]

I don't think Miles' work of the period was influenced by rock as much as it was by funk. Hendrix, too, but the blues-on-acid psychedelic aspect more than the rock/pop aspect. I never heard a rock band that sounded anything like Miles's crews.

[mke]

Rock, funk, pop, electro, etc., it's all the same and it's all evil, right?

[Rob C]

Bitches Brew, which I got early in my jazz listening, took me many years to appreciate. It can be tough going at first, but concentrate on Shorter's solos--short as they are--and just TRY not to dig them.

I love most of what I've heard from this period. I haven't heard Jack Johnson, because I'm waiting for the single-disc remastering I expected on the heels of the box set (which I decided to take a pass on). When is that coming out?! (I've also been hesitant to pick up Pangaea and Agharta for the same reason--I know as soon as I buy them, new remasters will be announced.)

I also patiently await the long-rumored Cellar Door box set. Live-Evil is one of my favorites, and I want more more more....

[stonemonkts]

Originally Posted by Rob C

I haven't heard Jack Johnson

I find this deeply disturbing.

By the way, one of the more pleasant surprises for me was the Jack Johnson box set. I was leery going in, what with the umpteen takes and all...but god DAMN it is fucking great.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Rob C

I also patiently await the long-rumored Cellar Door box set. ...

It has been floating around the underworld for some time. Wonderful stuff, of course.

[AntManBee]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

I don't think Miles' work of the period was influenced by rock as much as it was by funk.

I'm aware of that, hence my wording "even only remotely resembles rock music". Even the most distant influence from anything "non-jazz" sometimes seems to be too much for the purists.

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

I never heard a rock band that sounded anything like Miles's crews.

That's true, and not much else either for that matter!

[frankiepop]

i think jack johnson is god's lp

man i just dig all his stuff....


hey jones if u dont like bitches brew try just focusing on bennie maupin's bass clarinet solos on the 1st 2 cuts as they arrive and dissipate....somehow that put the music into focus...

[Uli]

Originally Posted by frankiepop

hey jones if u dont like bitches brew try just focusing on bennie maupin's bass clarinet solos on the 1st 2 cuts as they arrive and dissipate....somehow that put the music into focus...

You're the man, frankipop! He and Miles make BB for me. The rest got better with the Fillmore record.

[HLJ]

Originally Posted by bostontricky

HL, where do you stand on "Jack Johnson"? We might be coming from the same point, I never got Brew either, nor On the Corner but love Silent Way, and all the 60s material. I can't get enough of the opening track.

Trick man good question.While back I saw a thread where Ken Burns is doing a Jack Johnson doc. with Wynton doing the soundtrack so I thought I'll check out Mile's "Jack Johnson" a friend let me dig his. In two words. HELL NO!! Peace and all that.

[Pete C]

I saw the Jack Johnson film when it first was released, at the Museum of Modern Art.

[mke]

Originally Posted by Pete C

I saw the Jack Johnson film when it first was released, at the Museum of Modern Art.

That was informative.