Joel Harrison and Friends - In a Silent Way Reimagined

A few weeks ago we shared a video from a group out of Germany taking electric Miles out for a spin. Seems like they aren't the only ones - here is guitarist Joel Harrison with some folks certainly known to the readers of the blog jamming on In a Silent Way" at Big Ears this past year. There is a recording of the whole meet-up that is slated for release in August.

To cap off our Miles Davis tribute week, here is 'In a Silent Way Reimagined' with Chad Taylor, Jerome Harris, Micah Thomas, Sam Sadigursky, Brandon Seabrook, Tim Keiper and Joel Harrison. 

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Miles Davis @ 100 - A Celebration Through Albums (6)

The final day of our celebration of Miles Davis at 100. See day 1, day 2, day 3, and day 4 respectively. 

 

By Paul Acquaro

 

Bitches Brew ... the first time I heard it, I was in high school. A friend had beaten me to the jazz-rock trough and had been drinking liberally. He effused about Billy Cobham, talked in hushed tones about Mahavishnu Orchestra and conspiratorially name dropped the title of Miles Davis' electric masterwork. Coming from a steady diet of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Violent Femmes, I wasn't so sure I shared in the taste, yet. I picked up a copy of Bitches Brew and popped it into the tape machine ... and I didn't get it. It was chaotic and harsh to my then tender, structure-addicted ears. Today, I hear only creamy tones and fluffy textures, I can not imagine not luxuriating in the sweet drippings of a Fender Rhodes, but that was then. What turned out was, I really needed was a gentler introduction, an opening of my taste buds to the exotic riches on offer, what it turned out I needed was the 1968 release Filles De Kilimanjaro, the first of the so called 'Directions in Music' labeled albums that was used on Mile's electric output until 1973. 

Filles De Kilimanjaro (Columbia, 1969)

A so-called transitional album, Filles De Kilimanjaro featured the 'second great quintet' with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams and Wayne Shorter on the first recording session. On a second session, Davis replaced Hancock and Carter with Chick Corea and Dave Holland. The resulting album found electric keyboard and bass along side their acoustic counterparts, looser musical structures, and the introduction of more straight-ahead rhythm and melodic snippets and statements. The near hypnotic pulse of the opening track 'Frelon brun' and the crispy blasts of trumpet on 'Petits Machins' fascinated me. However, it was the title track that had the most power effect. The electric bass most of all, driving and simple, it anchored the music. I finally heard the trumpeter's melodies and the shimmering keyboard work in their fullness. Here was Davis and his luminous crew laying the foundations for the even more abstracted constructions on Bitches Brew. By then, Teo Macero would be cutting and pasting together the long jams into tracks, but at this point they were still somewhat traditional songs. This was the gateway for me, I began developing the taste for electric Miles Davis music that sustains me to this day. 

 

Star People (Columbia, 1983) 

A little later in my listening life, a slightly tattered copy of the Miles Davis box-set The CBS Years 1955 - 1985, which I likely picked up at Princeton Record Exchange for dirt cheap, did it again. This time, I was caught by surprise by the track 'Star on Cicely.' I hadn't yet progressed into 80s Miles, or rather, the snippets that I had listened hadn't generated the enthusiasm I felt for the 'electric Miles' period. Something changed with this one. Excerpted from the 1983 album Star People, 'Star on Cicely' had an unexpected rocking punch to it. The music is slicker than the 70s output, song structure is back and Miles' playing is sharp. What I liked even more was the guitar work on the album, which was primarily Mike Stern with some contributions from John Scofield. Apparently, the head melody of the track was derived from an improvised line that Scofield played - though I'm not sure where I got that information from - regardless the song that was subsequently crafted had a lot of moxie. The album itself is rather joyful. The opening track, 'Come Get It,' is a barn-burner, with Davis ablaze on the track, bassist Marcus Miller providing a funk grounding, and Stern comping with spunk. I don't care for everything on the album, elements of 'Speak' and 'U 'n' I' are harbingers of cheesier times coming, but at least 3/4 of this album still resonates for me. 

 

I learned about the live recordings We Want Miles! and Miles! Miles! Miles! a little later and tracked down both albums, both of which captured the magical moments found on Star People. 

 

Bill Laswell - Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974 (Sony, 1998) 

Last but not least, I must mention Bill Laswell's masterful remix album Panthalassa. This album rewired my musical brain again when it came out in '98. Laswell used Davis' electric era music as a source, and employed the studio to emphasize and de-emphasize different instruments, mixing the impressionistic sounds of In a Silent Way to give it a new punch, adding a dub foundation to parts of Agharta to work up a different mood and finding a new song in 'He Loved Him Madly.' Sad that a follow-up to Panthalassa never made it to release. 

 

I could keep on going, as I slobber ecstatically when thinking of Live-Evil, Tribute to Jack Johnson, Big Fun, Get Up with It, On the Corner, At Fillmore, Dark Magus, Agartha and Pangaea, but I think you get the picture.

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Miles Davis @ 100 - A Celebration Through Albums (5)

Day four of our celebration of Miles Davis at 100. See day one, two and three. 

Pangaea (Columbia, 1975)

The influence that Bitches Brew had on jazz and music in general is impossible to overstate, a monumental album that set the course for generations of musicians to come and made waves so huge their ripples are still being felt today. But Bitches was only the beginning and the aesthetic that Davis started developing on it and later expanded on On the Corner only finally found its real apex with Pangaea.

Like all the best jazz albums, Pangaea was recorded live (on the same day as the also excellent Agartha) and, to me, it's the gold standard for what a live album should be. The music is ecstatic and full of life, the interplay is unmatched, the rhythm section is relentless, the solos blistering. The two long improvisations are expertly developed, not a second goes to waste and the whole band is in a state of grace and ferocious intensity. We could call what the musicians are doing here Fusion, but with none of the cheese, empty virtuosity, plasticky lack of teeth and all other negative connotations that the genre has accrued through the years. This record has plenty of teeth, it's true, unadulterated black music. It's a long, heavy journey that's sometimes straight ahead rocking, sometimes funky and, at the end, even swinging, almost as if going full circle on a career that redefined what jazz could be many times.

Davis spent his entire life searching and evolving, uncaring of the opinions of critics and listeners, and nowhere is that attitude more obvious than on this record. It's yet another testament to Davis' vision and ability as bandleader. Unapologetic, self-indulgent (in the best way), raw and expressive, it feels as vital and visceral today as it must have felt 51 years ago. Most of all, it's a really good time. 

 

- William Rossi 

 

 

Agartha (Columbia, 1975)

Grew up with it. It was the first and for a long time the only Miles Davis album I was exposed to, recorded (live in Japan) and released the year of my birth. Along with just as cryptic to my Southern rural France ears Herbie Hancock's Thrust and Sun Ra's Atlantis – it opened my listening vistas and shaped my aesthetic compass to a considerable degree, in spite of or because it took forever to « get it ». With a sense of danger as if the black discs would burn my fingers, unlock an ancient curse, I regularly extracted the double LP from my stepfather's record collection, cautiously positioned one side on the turntable and, sitting on the floor, would lose myself in its unfathomable, esoteric mysteries, that began even before the music (side length jams that already felt like a transgression – with the whole of side A titled « Prelude »... which, as it that wasn't enough, continued on part of side B!) resounded. The inner sleeve had winged angels or devils perched on stairs next to temple pillars. The front cover showed a megacity possibly shrouded in smog or/and enduring a heatwave, surrounded by tropical vegetation and Polynesian women – while a variant on the back had sea lifeforms instead of palm trees and a spaceship in the middle, an idea which must have been in the air since a celestial vehicle also adorned Parliament's Mothership Connection that year. Hendrixian guitars on the loose, hard-driving beats, simple and unrelenting electric bass lines, wild organ outbursts (I later linked Miles' haphazard-yet-awesome organ playing to that of Fela Kuti and James Brown) made up the ingredients of the stew, while the jazz elements mostly came from Sonny Fortune's saxophones and flute solos; meanwhile, Miles' plugged trumpet seemed more interested in being an element of the textural and rhythmical whole than in occupying the front spot for too long. This music didn't make sense, as far as what I had been told about the artform. Sprawled over the whole of side C, « Interlude » (!) was propelled by a rapid-fire riff that Miles re-used a decade later on You're Under Arrest's « Street Scenes » (aka « Theme from Jack Johnson / Intro » on the 2022-revealed version without overdubs on That's What Happened - The Bootleg Series vol.7). Funkier than a fish market. Odd, disquieting percussion noises gave the relatively gentler but no less befuddling side D its peculiar mood. Back in the day, I didn't think of looking up the musicians' names nor had the slighest idea where they came from, what their lives and experiences were like. Somehow this alien music was telling me something about them on a deeper level, which I'm still sensitive to, to this day.

- David Cristol

 

Inner gatefold

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Cookin’ (Prestige, 1957)

My first conscious encounter with jazz came through two records: John Coltrane’s Blue Train and Miles Davis’s Ballads & Blues . These two CDs were part of a magazine collection sold at newsstands, for a reasonable price. The Ballads & Blues compilation brings together tracks from different sessions and, while not especially coherent, its warm sound and velvety ballads still fascinate me. I gradually explored Miles’ discography and eventually arrived at the records Cookin’, Relaxin’, Steamin’, Workin ’. Of these, Cookin’ grabbed my attention the most. The sleeve design, simple and perfect. Just four tracks: opener “My Funny Valentine”, eternally beautiful, here made even more so by the sharp-edged trumpet; “Blues by Five”, which bluesy piano won me over on first listen and opened the way for the trumpet, which seemed to enter timidly before fully asserting itself; “Airegin”, with its supersonic rhythm and the horns in unison; “Tune Up / When Lights Are Low”: after the drums came in, the uplifting momentum of the tune swept me away. The sequence, flawless, stayed on repeat for a very long time.

In a Silent Way (Columbia, 1969)

Later, I reached the electric phase. Like everyone else, I became fascinated by almost everything from Bitches Brew onwards, notably the albums On the Corner and Jack Johnson. But the one that impacted me the most was In a Silent Way. First of all, the stellar line-up: Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Dave Holland, Tony Williams. Everything sounded new and different. The overlapping keyboards, the drifting sounds. In its atmospheric character, I could feel the musicians searching. I could hear the exploration, the discovery, the musicians locking into a perfect groove on “It’s About That Time”. The trumpet, soaring above everything else, expansive and radiant. On first listen, Teo Macero’s cut-and-splice editing sounded somewhat strange, but the album quickly became an all-time favorite. Our connection to music passes through emotional territory, and these records belong to that landscape. 

- Nuno Catarino 

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You’re Under Arrest (Columbia, 1985)

At age 14 in 1970 Miles Davis entered my life with the magical Bitches Brew . At 15, my heroes – unlike my schoolmates, all rock fans – were Black : Ornette, Bird, Miles, and Jimi Hendrix, who for me belonged to jazz too. In1971, I attended the Milan jazz festival: Ornette, Gato Barbieri, and Miles with Jarrett on keyboards. In the autumn of 1973, I witnessed, at the Bologna jazz festival, one of the Miles’ visionary dark funk sets. Shortly thereafter, he retired. At the beginning of the eighties he was back. Just after his return, I attended a concert of his in Rome; I introduced and reviewed it enthusiastically in the extreme Left wing newspaper Lotta Continua (“ongoing struggle”). Indeed Miles’ resurrection felt like more than a musical event, and in 1985 he participated in the track “The Struggle Continues” on the anti-apartheid record Sun City… From 1984 onward, Miles started to tour Europe every summer, sometimes twice a year and turned out to be something of a “familiar” presence. I loved The Man with the Horn, We Want Miles, Star People, Decoy, but You’re Under Arrest was my album of choice, from the first seconds of the opening track, with the sublime, pressing rhythm of “One Phone Call/Street Scenes”, to the wonderful lyricism of “Human Nature”, “MD1/Something’s On Your Mind” and “Time After Time”. The album was released in 1985, the year I started to work as program chief editor of the independent/community station Radio Popolare: I chose “Human Nature” as the end theme song of a daily music program. During Miles’ last decade, his music was full of a life-affirming energy, with a magnificent vein of melancholy, and subtly hendrixian traits; he was not only superbly managing rhythms and colours, but deeply digging into the rhythm and the colour, the feeling of the times, exactly like Prince. His stage bands were ready to answer his impulses, giving endless new versions of the material. I saw him as the Duke Ellington of the 80s. Only Prince and Cecil Taylor were as exciting as Miles, and attending their concerts was as emotionally charged as attending those of Miles. 

- Marcello Lorrai

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Nuno Catarino is editorial coordinator of jazz.pt since 2022. He contributes to the national newspaper Público, where he has written since 2007. He is the author, with Márcia Lessa, of the book Improvisando (2019). 

Marcello Lorrai produces & presents the weekly radio program Jazz Anthology on Radio Popolare (Mondays at 11 pm); publishes festival reports and artists interviews in the daily newspaper Il Manifesto, and is an author of books such as Africana (reviewing modern music from the African continent, Casanova & Chianura Edizioni) and William Parker - Conversazioni Sul Jazz (Auditorium Edizioni). He also writes liner notes, notably for albums by the Italian Instabile Orchestra since 1995. 

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Miles Davis @ 100 - A Celebration Through Albums (4)

Day three of our celebration of Miles Davis at 100. See day one and two here.

By Stef Gijssels

The year 1970 marked an extraordinary turning point in Miles Davis’s career and artistic evolution. He transformed himself from a jazz musician into a figure with the presence — and attitude — of a rock star. His music became increasingly exploratory and electric: wah-wah trumpet effects, fractured and layered textures, electric piano, electric bass, and organ all became central to his sound. Equally important were the relentless rhythms, the unrestrained improvisations, and the trance-like length and density of the performances. It represented a complete break from conventional jazz harmony, moving instead toward something more primal, ritualistic, and less bound by eclectic convention. While many jazz purists rejected this new direction, rock audiences embraced it enthusiastically.

He performed with an exceptional list of musicians in this year, all of which individually became famous in their own right, and some of them created the most popular fusion bands of the seventies and eighties: the John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea's Return to Forever, and Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter's Weather Report. Miles Davis opened the door to something else completely. 

The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (Columbia, 2005) 

My preferred album by Miles Davis is without a doubt "Bitches Brew", followed by "In A Silent Way", discussed before. From the same period are a few other excellent albums, including this compilation released in 2005 only. It was recorded live over a few nights in December 1970 at The Cellar Door, a club in Washington DC. The six-CD box comprises six of the ten recorded tracks, some of which have already officially been released as part of "Live-Evil". 

With its six hours of music, this album is guaranteed to give you an overdose of the Miles of that period: lengthy tracks, improvisations, brutal yet quality interplay, some moments of fun even. You get five different versions of "Directions" (also called "Call It Anything" on the triple vinyl of the Isle of Wight Rock Festival of 1970) and "What I Say" (on Live-Evil),  four versions of "Honky Tonk", also called "Funky Tonk" on "Live-Evil", and two versions of "It's About That Time" (from "In A Silent Way"). Some parts of the improvisation and "Inamorata", were also used on "Live-Evil" and called "Inamorata and Narration by Conrad Roberts". 

So much for the factoids, but it's about the music and that is absolutely stellar, as is the quality of the recording. Some call this "fusion" or "jazz rock" but those are truly deceptive classifications for this period in Davis's career. Yes, there is a strong and solid rhythm section, yet the themes and the improvisation are as open as jazz can be, with solid interplay for sure, but still far away from the soulless over-polished technical pyrotechnics of so much of fusion music. The pieces are long, and actually some performances move from one piece into the next without a break, it's a continuous never-ending party of great music, raw at times, offering the level of spontaneous creation that cannot happen without some raw or noisy overall sound. The fun part of the many versions is that it allows you to compare the freedom that the musicians have in their performances, and the difference in their collective rendition of the same music.

The band are Miles Davis on trumpet, Gary Bartz on saxes, Keith Jarrett on electric piano and organ, Michael Henderson on electric bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Airo Moreira on percussion (except disc one), and with John McLaughlin joining on guitar for disc 5 & 6 (recorded on December 19, 1970). 

A stellar band at the height of its skills, and music that is relatively unique in its sound and quality. It's a lot to digest, a huge meal of exquisite ingredients. 

A Tribute To Jack Johnson (Columbia, 1970)

This album was recorded right after "Bitches Brew", in April 1970, and was conceived as a soundtrack for a documentary by Bill Cayton about the heavyweight world champion boxer Jack Johnson.

It contains two lengthy pieces, performed by two different line-ups: Right Off" has Miles Davis on trumpet, Steve Grossman on saxophone, John McLaughlin on guitar, Herbie Hancock on organ, Michael Henderson on bass, and Billy Cobham on drums, and "Yesternow" has Miles Davis on trumpet, John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharock on guitar, Bennie Maupin on bass clarinet, Chick Corea on electric piano, Dave Holland on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

The two tracks are heavily post-produced, a kind of collage by producer Teo Macero, whose "cut and paste" approach of different jam sections and solos are brought to a new level. The collage is not always really audible although some radical rhythm changes in the pieces indicate some artificial interventions. 

While waiting for Miles to arrive, McLaughlin starts the first track by a rock-ish guitar vamp, and is joined by Cobham and Henderson on bass and drums. Apparently Herbie Hancock happened to be around the studio that day, so he joined too. It was not yet meant to be recorded, yet it was. The trumpet just joins after a few minutes and the piece gets its full voice. As the Miles Davis website explains: "“Right Off” (the opposite of the catchphrase of the day, “right on”) travels a long path, including a moment (18:44) when McLaughlin repeatedly hammers a riff from Sly Stone’s “Sing A Simple Song”, and into a series of ringing power chords, a searing saxophone solo, and further guitar ribaldry. “Yesternow” (the very title balancing past and present) opens with a more spaced-out feel, includes a snippet of “Shhh/Peaceful” from In A Silent Way (Miles literally sampling himself!)"  

Both tracks are excellent, post-produced, collaged or not. The music is hypnotic as is most of Davis's work of that period, yet it adds the specific political message of civil rights in the USA. Even if this theme is omnipresent in his work implicitly, here it becomes a real message. The album ends with the voice of Brock Peters, speaking on behalf of Jack Johnson in the documentary. “I’m Jack Johnson, heavyweight champion of the world! I’m black! They never let me forget it. I’m black all right. I’ll never let them forget it.” 

Miles Davis writes in the liner notes: “Johnson portrayed Freedom… the more they hated him, the more money he made, the more women he got and the more wine he drank.”

Freedom is to be liberated from the shackles of preconceived notions, of conventions, of racist history. 

This music is Freedom. 

Live At Fillmore (Columbia, 1970)

Recorded live at the Filmore in June 1970, this album takes advantage of the success of "In A Silent Way" and "Bitches Brew". The show contains much of the material of both albums, again with a great band of Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett on electric keyboards, Steve Grossman on saxophones and flute, Dave Holland on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Airto Moreira on percussion. The music is edited to allow for all major compositions to be represented on this double vinyl. Tracks move almost seamlessly into one another. At the same time, you never know about what was edited: "Miles was in the habit of kicking off tunes before the previous one had ended, overlapping in into another, making it difficult to pull out discreet performances", and even stronger, making the band follow suit instantly. 

The sound quality is excellent, and fans of the electric Miles should definitely check it out. 

Live-Evil (Columbia, 1971)

Recorded between February and December 1970, "Live-Evil" ends the phenomenal year of Miles psychedelic jazz style. 

The entire cast of musicians is actually rarely a complete band, but an ensemble that changes on every track. Miles Davis on trumpet, Gary Bartz, Steve Grossman, Wayne Shorter on sax, John McLaughlin on electric guitar, Keith Jarrett on organ, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul on electric piano, Michael Henderson, Dave Holland and Ron Carter on bass, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette and Hermeto Pascoal on drums and vocals, Airto Moreira and Khalil Balakrishna on electric sitar. 

The label describes the album appropriately: "it bulges at the seams in its effort to contain all Miles was up to the year before—the crazy diversity of experiences in 1970. (The sounds) ranged from rock-band abandon spilling off of small club stages, to ambient jams and mood pieces crafted in the recording studio. He was working a wider sonic mix than ever—wah-wah trumpet (within the album’s first minute!) and Indian sitar, electric guitar and electronic keyboards, whistling and vocalizing and shouts, spoken poetry and the “speaking” of the Brazilian cuíca all over. The music is a crazy psychedelic mix—not jazz or rock or funk. Not this or that. Willfully kaleidoscopic and boldly futuristic."

It is a strange album, with many different styles and unexpected twists and turns. It is not a "live" album as its title might suggest, but rather an collection of musical pieces of which some were recorded live. The core of the album is made of three very long tracks "What I Say" (phenomenal!), "Funky Tonk", and "Inamorata", tied together with shorter and more subdued interludes. 

The album ends with a poem by Conrad Roberts

"Inamorato 

Mission: music, masculinity

Master of the art: music

Who is this music that which description may never justify?

Can the ocean be described?

Fathomless music

Body of all that is

Live ever lastingly

Men, initiate

Inamorato, your music art tomorrow's unknown known life

I love tomorrow"

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Miles Davis @ 100 - A Celebration Through Albums (3)

By Stef Gijssels

I was too young in the sixties to witness their music firsthand, yet by the time I came of age in the seventies, Jimi Hendrix had become a kind of god to me — followed later by Miles Davis and then John Coltrane. What has always astonished me is how - within the same decade - each of these towering musical geniuses forged an entirely new sound and voice from within tradition itself: honouring it, absorbing it, yet ultimately pushing beyond its boundaries until they burst free from the constraints of form altogether. Out of that rupture, they created new musical languages — languages that continue to resonate deeply with so many people and that express emotions for which words could never truly exist.

Jimi Hendrix took the blues and then practised relentlessly on his guitar to expand its vocabulary, its power and its electrifying effects. This was the period of polished 2-minute pop songs, of refined vocals and backing vocals, of nicely fitting suits and the comfort of going to mom and dad in the evening. Hendrix tore it all down, yet built it up again, exposing humanity to a sonic avalanche never heard before (and rarely heard since): loud, brutal, technically brilliant, sensitive and deeply moving. 

Miles Davis was a little older, yet came later to my musical horizon, and I was sold immediately. My first experience was with "In A Silent Way", and especially the title track with its steady rhythm, its hypnotic groove and its brilliant trumpet-playing is still engrained in my brain. A decade earlier, he had already changed the course history of jazz by "Kind of Blue", a milestone then, yet when listening to it now, you wonder what all the fuzz was about, but that's primarily because it influenced all jazz after its release, as if people wondered what was so new about Picasso, who might seem somewhat conventional from today's point of view. Then "Bitches Brew". This was it. The power, the drive, the relentless and uncompromising rhythm section, the stellar musicianship, and this "man with the horn", creating sounds also never heard before, with or without "wah wah". It defied any type of soloing heard before. It opened space, and showed that anything was possible, even chaos and noise, without restrictions with the exception of the piece's overall coherence.  

John Coltrane - also born in 1926 - was the third luminary. Like Davis, and in collaboration with him, they released some of the more memorable albums of the fifties with the Miles Davis Quintet: "Cookin'", "Relaxin'", "Workin'", and "Steamin'" and with the sextet later the iconic"Kind of Blue". Then he single-handedly pulled jazz out of the smoky bar rooms of the entertainment industry and turned it into Art with a capital "A": "A Love Supreme" turned music upside down. It showed something grand, a level of spirituality and personal freedom of expression rarely heard in music before, yet still compelling and mysterious despite its novel approach. Even a simple tune such as "My Favorite Things" became a mesmerising listening experience when performed by Coltrane. With "Interstellar Space", his duo album with drummer Rashied Ali, he broke with all conventions, yet despite the negative comments from the jazz community, his technique and incredible inventiveness were beyond comparison. 

Despite the profound differences in their music — free blues, jazz rock, and free jazz — all three men broke with convention and revealed new ways of expressing what it means to be human. They were open to new forms, they integrated sounds from other musical styles, they were endlessly creative. Despite the many opportunities for commercial success, they kept searching, stretching their performances to lengthy and grandiose improvisations, the kind of music that would never get any radio airplay, let alone be of interest to mainstream audiences. They each struggled with drugs and addiction, but I don’t believe that alone explains the parallels between them. Even if their music was not "political" in the real sense of the word, they represented the voice of African Americans and their fight for civil rights - check Davis' "Tribute To Jack Johnson" as an example - but their music went much deeper, it was (is) the voice of more authentic feelings of anger, sadness, agony, despair, hope and transcendence than the entertainment industry could ever offer. They share a devotion to technique, not as a goal but as a means to free sound from historical constraints, and to create something more expansive, monumental, authentic, existential, spiritual, and deeply human. They transformed music. They created great art. Each possessed a sound and a voice instantly recognisable from afar, unlike anything found in music today.

Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix planned to record together. They had been preparing this for a while, and both had a show at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 - and by the way, it's truly amazing that Davis was invited to play at a rock festival - yet a few weeks later Hendrix died unexpectedly. 

Three exceptional musicians, three exceptional artists somehow met and did something similar profound for music at the same juncture in time and place. They combined creative discipline and control on the one hand, with ecstatic improvisation and raw expression on the other. 

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Miles Davis @ 100 - A Celebration Through Albums (2)

Day two of our celebration of Miles Davis at 100. See day one here.

On the Corner (Columbia Records, 1972)

Abrasive, Alcoholic, Anarchic, Anticlimax, Aphrodisiac, Arrogant, Autoimmune, Barbaric, Belligerent, Brash, Challenging, Contagious, Controversial, Cruel, Cubist, Cynical, Dangerous, Disloyal, Disturbing, Divining, Dizzy, Electrifying, Engaging, Essential, Evocative, Exhilarating, Expressionist, Fearless, Fussy, Futurist, Ghastly, Greasy, Grumpy, Hallucinogenic, Hardcore, Heavenly, Hypnotic, Infernal, Inflammable, Innocent, Intriguing, Irritating, Labyrinthine, Liberating, Loud, Magnetic, Material, Meaningless, Metropolitan, Monochrome, Mysterious, Neon, Neurasthenic, Nocturnal, Oblique, Obnoxious, Ominous, Polluted, Polychromatic, Pornographic, Precursory, Pretentious, Primal, Psychotropic, Quirky, Quixotic, Raw, Reckless, Rusty, Saturated, Self-indulgent, Sexy, Spiraling, Syncretic, Telluric, Temperamental, Timeless, Toxic, Uncanny, Uncompromising, Unruly, Vibrant, Visionary, Vulgar, Wicked, Xenomorphic, Yucky, Zippy: QUINTESSENTIAL, BLACK, MILES.

 - Ferruccio Martinotti 

 

ESP (Columbia Records, 1965)

Miles Davis’s second great quintet put a fantastic four behind the great leader: Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. Their 1965 ESP is the perfect result. Miles was the philosopher’s stone: put him in the presence of a potential genius stuck in a rut, two virtuosos coming to the studio with mediocre melodies, or two simple chords longing for each other and the right hands on the keyboard…and you got pure gold.

It helps if you have a crush on Shorter and Hancock. If you have been touched by the former’s Juju, or the latter’s Empyrean Isles you will feel your heart fluttering awake. The mood is pensive, sadly romantic (but in a good way), and always extending the witch’s finger. It doesn’t get better than this, just different and rarely as delicious. 

 - Kenneth Blanchard

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Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants (Prestige, 1956)

Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants was the first Miles Davis record I ever heard. It was a well-played LP in my Dad’s collection that I stumbled upon in my first year of college and for some reason, I decided to spin it. This was almost my first encounter with jazz at all — except some big band stuff in Abbott and Costello movies — and I would find it hard to convey the immediate wonderment I felt listening to Milt Jackson’s opening to “The Man I Love” (take 2).

Milt Jackson’s vibes weren’t the point to that track, and they're not the point to this encomium, but, like the Yellow Brick Road, that opening led me to an extraordinary, life-changing experience. I still wonder why nobody plays vibes like that, and I still wonder what it is about Miles’ non-muted take on the melody that hearing it — and Monk, Red Garland, and Coltrane — was like nothing before or since, for me.

Tutu (Warner Bros., 1986) 

The first new Miles Davis record that came out after hearing that was Tutu. Forty years separate me from that first listen, and thirty years separate Tutu from “The Man I Love.” I still enjoy Tutu quite a lot. All the tunes were written by or with producer/bassist, Marcus Miller — much as all the tunes from Miles’ 2nd quintet were written by Wayne Shorter — but there was no mistaking that Miles led the sessions and that it was Miles Davis music.

I would be lying if I said Tutu was as high in my estimation as the Prestige record, but the things that make Miles' music the ineffable thing it is are present in both cases. There’s a sweetness and melancholy in the ever-present harmon mute. His melodies are treated just so, and his improvisations seem inevitable. Also, possibly because of the space he leaves or the example he sets, he improves every musician he works with (except maybe Monk, but there’s a story behind that). So much time has passed, but this music still fires off my endorphins. Wonderful.

- Gary Chapin

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Ascenseur pour l'échafaud Soundtrack (Fontana, 1958)

Paris is the perfect city to film at night, in black and white, with its streetlights and shadows in soft focus. It’s the perfect city to film beautiful Jeanne Moreau as she walks without direction searching for her missing lover, passing brightly lit cafés and dimly lit alleys, stumbling in a daze through traffic.

And Miles Davis’s plaintive trumpet makes the perfect music to accompany her, the perfect music to furtively whisper “Je t’aime”, the perfect music to commit a murder for love…and the perfect music to get stuck in an elevator while trying to make your escape.

Miles Davis recorded the soundtrack for Louis Malle’s debut film Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator To The Gallows) by improvising while watching the film. It’s a great film in its own right, a terrific blend of noir tropes, and it’s one of the first films of the French New Wave. But it’s the soundtrack that makes it an all-time classic. 

- Richard Blute 

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Sonny Rollins 1930 - 2026

Photo by John Abbott

By Martin Schray

There’s this scene that has gone down in the history of jazz. A tall, almost skinny, Black man playing his saxophone on Williamsburg Bridge in New York. The man was Sonny Rollins and already one of the biggest stars in the jazz world. At the age of 29 he had decided to take a break from playing live and making studio recordings. Rollins had rented a small apartment on Grand Street on Lower East Side, but the walls were paper thin and he couldn’t practice without disturbing the neighbors. One day he walked through Delancey Street, saw the steps up to the bridge and went up. He liked it there, he could play as loud as he wanted, with the Brooklyn-bound subway on one side and traffic on the other. From that moment on the bridge became his daily retreating room of sorts for two years, sometimes for 15 or 16 hours, in any kind of weather. Spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Rollins was a musician whose name stands in one line with the greatest ones of modern jazz - Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane. Monk was indeed his teacher and partner, he first almost imitated Monk’s formal musical principles (on Think of One in 1953) before he became his equal partner (on the Thelonious Monk/Sonny Rollins album from 1956, e.g.) and finally emancipated himself with the piano-less trio classic Way Out West. As a consequence of these outstanding and successful albums he was invited to play Carnegie Hall, the accolade for every American musician. But then he realized that all these things didn’t help him to rent an apartment - because he was Black. His response was Freedom Suite in 1958. In the liner notes he wrote: “America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms; its humor; its music. How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America's culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed; that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity.“ Freedom Suite is considered the first instrumental piece that accused racism and discrimination. Rollins however, had to face isolation after the release of the album. That’s why he took the Williamsburg-Bridge-break.

But on a grey November evening in 1961 he wanted to play again. He wanted to pay tribute to Booker Little, a talented young trumpeter, who died at the age of 23. The concert was to be a fundraiser for his widow. Rollins called the concert and the following album The Bridge, it was his comeback. In the 1960s he recorded more excellent albums like Our Man in Jazz (1963), Now’s the Time (1964), East Broadway Run Down (1966) and the soundtrack for the box office hit Alfie(1966). In the musical turmoil of the early Sixties Rollins remained clearly rooted in the jazz tradition, but he helped to pave the road to free jazz. His freest recordings are Our Man In Jazz from 1962, with Don Cherry on trumpet, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Billy Higgins on drums and 1963 Paris Concert with Henry Grimes on bass. Rollins was looking for new ways but he wasn’t as courageous as Ornette or Ayler (which isn’t meant in a negative way, he just wasn’t interested in harmolodics or crassly overblown sounds). The reason why his music cannot be characterized as free jazz has also to do with the rather “traditional“ playing of bass and drums on his compositions (in the end they still played time - again not meant in a negative way). However, it has always been marvelous to listen to him exploring, finding and dropping musical ideas. His saxophone sound is just gigantic, its elegant, deep, very articulate and free flowing, he really was a “saxophone colossus“ (the name of one of his most famous albums). He had a real lust for playing, every new idea he had led to new variations - everything was elaborated with an enormous ease, but he wasn’t interested in showing off. From the 1970s onwards Sonny Rollins tried to find new ways integrating funk, fusion and Latin elements in his music, like on Reel Life (1982). He played with bag piper Rufus Harley at the Berliner Jazztage in 1974 (and the audience booed them), he recorded with ragtime pianist Mary Lou Williams. Moreover, he went to Japan and India and became a buddhist, he discovered yoga and lived in a monastery. As to music he also featured new talents like Branford Marsalis on Falling in Love with Jazz(1989) and Roy Hargrove on Here’s to People (1991). Last but not least, he curated his favorite live recordings, the Road Show Series, which is a bonanza for die hard fans.

However, Sonny Rollins was more than his music. All his life he was a political person, respect and appreciation were very important for him. In an interview with German author Christian Broecking he spoke of himself as a “planetarian“, which is one of the reasons why he released Global Warming (in 1998), a harsh criticism of the US government’s environmental policy. On 9/11/2001 his flat was evacuated, his saxophone was the only thing he took with him. Only a few days later he played a gig in Boston which was to be released as Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert.

Rollins dedicated his music and his life to the fight against injustice and ignorance, and he wanted to express this just by musical means. He believed that music could make a difference. He was a visionary. About his time on the bridge he told the Washington Post in 2011: “I used to blow my horn back at the boats when the boats would blow. All of that was great. I was in a place where nobody could see me. This was heaven.” 

Musically, things had become quiet around him in his final years. Now the last great icon of jazz’s golden age has passed away. The world is a poorer place without him.

Watch him with Don Cherry (tp), Henry Grimes (b) and Billy Higgins (dr) in Rome 1962:

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Miles Davis @ 100 - A Celebration Through Albums (1)

Miles Davis, born on May 26, 1926 would turn 100 today. The jazz world is rife with memorials of this centennial and since almost anyone who listens to this music has in some way been touched by Davis' music, we at the Free Jazz Blog thought we would pitch in. It is hardly necessary to introduce the iconic trumpeter - you likely own Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew, right? - and while the musical structures on those albums loosened and spawned entire genres themselves, Davis was somewhat ironically ambivalent in his feelings - if not rather dismissive - towards Free-Jazz overall. Oh well, life is complex. 

To join in the celebration, Free Jazz Blog collaborator Martin Schray proposed that we do what we like to do the most, write about recordings, chosen from Davis' sprawling discography. We did not set rules - no length, no time periods, overlap of albums was fine, just as long as the pieces reflected the writer's feelings towards the recordings. Today, we start off with Martin's reflections and will continue everyday with new impressions from our critics and a few close associates until there is simply no more to say!

- Paul Acquaro 

Miles Davis- Birth of the Cool (Capitol, 1957) 

In 1949 Capitol signed a contract with the up-and-coming trumpeter Miles Davis for a few singles, which he recorded with his nine-piece band that same and the following year. The first recordings were initially released on 78s, then eight tracks appeared for the first time as an album in 1953, on 10-inch vinyl. Four years later, Capitol released the sessions as an LP with eleven tracks. Even at that early stage of his career, one could already see what would define Miles Davis throughout his musical life: he was an atypical player, yet he possessed remarkable control over timing, dynamics, and emotional impact. The pieces gathered here are precise and focused; they swing with confidence and move between the immediacy of bebop and the sophistication of an Ellington band. Moreover, Davis was a brilliant bandleader who was already able to gather the best musicians around him (here and even more so later on). Birth of the Cool is characterized by the understated elegance of a band that played together perfectly, featuring Gerry Mulligan, Kai Winding, John Lewis, Lee Konitz, and Max Roach (to name just a few). Gil Evans served as arranger and the band’s éminence grise. Ultimately, this album also showcases Davis’s - sometimes underestimated- musical prowess. His mostly vibrato-free tone could be raw, yet also expressive and vulnerable. Just listen to “Jeru” and “Venus de Milo,” true musical masterpieces. 

Miles Davis- Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) 

In various rankings, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue are considered the best jazz albums of all time. And yet, especially if it comes to Kind of Blue, connoisseurs of harsher, freer music, don’t listen to this albums that often, because it allegedly has been played to death - just like “Yesterday” by the Beatles, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons“, Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”, or Keith Jarrett’s “Köln Concert”. 

But does that mean it has lost its quality over time? Not at all! As to Miles Davis, most hard bop players at the time played too much, too long, and too fast. His solution: modal playing instead of frantic chord progressions, mid-tempo, and plenty of space between the notes. He brought only a few sketches to the sessions, yet his choice of ensemble was a compositional masterpiece. 

 The band itself is perhaps the best jazz ensemble that has ever existed: Cannonball Adderley’s blues-soaked, relaxed, deep playing meets John Coltrane’s daring, modal runs; Bill Evans adds impressionistic touches; Paul Chambers’s bass and Jimmy Cobb’s drums are clean, lighthearted, and airy, forming a foundation against which the others have complete freedom. Davis’s trumpet holds the reins. It’s amazing how this sextet of giants swings. If you know “So What“, “Freddie Freeloader“ and “All Blues“ by heart, give “Blue in Green“ and “Flamenco Sketches“ a chance and listen closely. You’ll feel the magic in every note. 

 For the second time at the end of a decade, Davis shifted the course of music in a different direction. At the end of the next decade, he will also determine another change of course.

Miles Davis- The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions (Columbia, 1969) 

The next groundbreaking shift in direction, in the late 1960s, was In A Silent Way. While Columbia’s decision in the late 1990s to release the complete sessions for Davis’s most important albums may have been driven by commercial interests, for Miles’s fans it’s been a welcome opportunity to witness a work in progress. And nowhere is this more evident than on In A Silent Way. 

At the end of the Sixties Miles Davis was playing in half-empty clubs; soul, funk, and rock musicians were drawing the kind of audience he would have liked to have. For the In A Silent Way sessions between September 1968 and February 1969 he therefore wanted an electric bass and an electric piano. On The Complete Sessions you can literally feel the epochal change in the air. While the first track, “Mademoiselle Mabry,” still sounds very much like the old quintet, the change becomes more audible with every new musician. 

In addition to Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, Davis brought in Joe Zawinul as the third keyboardist. The core, now formed by three keyboards, and the addition of John McLaughlin as guitarist were the quantum leap that ushered in a new era. Davis wanted simple structures and hip sounds - nothing complex, and above all, no superfluous chords. The result, however, was not jazz-rock, but trippy psychedelic textures that also have an ambient quality. 

But Davis was also concerned with being at the cutting edge of the times, both in terms of electronic equipment and recording technology. The tried-and-true production techniques no longer made sense to him. Teo Macero played a central role as producer, cutting up the sessions at specific points and reassembling them. As a musical event and group process, what was released back then had never existed before. The fact that the record is nonetheless full of the spirit of spontaneous improvisation is one of the most astonishing events in recent music history. 

 A fun fact regarding the reception of this album is that nearly fifteen minutes of the LP version consist of exact repetitions, and that this went unnoticed and uncommented upon for decades.

Miles Davis- Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970) 

Six months after In A Silent Way, Miles Davis ultimately broke with the jazz traditionalists. Bitches Brew was even more uncompromising, more radical, more challenging. 

And it was my first Miles album. I bought it when I was 18; I needed it for a school presentation. When I played it (“Pharaoh’s Dance“, fading in somewhere in the middle and then fading out again), most of my classmates were confused. What was that? Jazz or rock or something else entirely? I didn’t understand Bitches Brew back then (and I’m not sure whether I do it today), but I found the sound fascinating. There are few albums I’ve struggled with as much - but it’s been worth it. 

Davis simply took what he started with In A Silent Way and cranked it up another two notches. As the recording sessions for Bitches Brew approached, he expanded his ensemble once more. Three drum kits, three Fender Rhodes, two bassists, and three percussionists - who infused his music with African and Indian influences - were tasked with blending jazz and rock. He also added Bennie Maupin’s bass clarinet to Wayne Shorter’s sax and John McLaughlin’s guitar. 

The musical motifs he had devised together with Wayne Shorter twitched like hummingbirds jolted by electricity. The staccato notes from his trumpet ricochet like shrapnels. The collective improvisations collapse like flash floods. Additionally, he led the ensemble like a conductor who has a rough idea of how the music should sound but had to trust his ensemble to make it happen. 

“If I heard something in the music that I thought could be expanded, I gave instructions,” Davis says in his biography. The music celebrates the creative process itself; it makes energy palpable. Producer Teo Macero hit the record button the moment Davis stepped into the studio - whenever an amorphous mass of over a dozen instruments coalesced into a collective identity that complemented, repelled, and attracted one another. “We didn’t talk much during the recording sessions,” Macero said. “After the sessions, I spent weeks in the studio, listening to the tapes and beginning to piece the material together.” The result is structured free improvisation, which allows plenty of room for individuality and often reaches absolute ecstasy, all of which is mercilessly condensed. 

An album you can listen to forever, one that never bores because it completely transcends boundaries. 

- Martin Schray

 

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Scenes from Jazz in E

By Paul Acquaro 

Every year the Jazz in E festival takes place on the long Ascension Day long weekend in Eberswalde, a small city about an hour by car north from Berlin. This year was the 31st edition of the festival, and over four nights, acts drawn from Berlin and beyond, played to an appreciative audience, each evening offering a balance of accessibility and adventure.

The event opened with guitarist Uwe Kropinski playing his unique and amply fretted instrument with a mix of flamenco flair and percussive panache. He was followed by a upbeat folk-inflected compositions of Vienna based Richard Koch's "Ray of Light" ensemble.

 

The second night was opened by "rant," the drum and guitar duo of Merle Bennett und Torsten Papenheim respectively. Followed by the highly syncopated Kind, a fantastic new quartet let by Essen based saxophonist and composer Jan Klare.

 

Friday offered a highlight of the festival in the form of the Berlin-based duo of Achim Kaufmann and guitarist Kalle Kalima. Not enough of the delicate intertwining of the two acoustic instruments is presented here in the video, but one can also check out their recording Ilmonique. They were followed by the kinetic and driving sounds of saxophonist Phillip Gropper's TAU, with Philip Zoubek on keys, Ludwig Wandinger on electronics and Felix Henkelhausen on bass.

On the last night of the festival, the relaxed guitar styling of Tobias Hoffmann and keyboardist Benjamin Schaefer opened the evening, followed by the frenetic rock of Els and the Bliss. Featuring the animated Els Vanderweyer on vibraphone and the bifurcated beats of the Bliss: Dirk Berger on guitar, Based Krajewski on drums and Beat Halberschmidt on the bass, the quartet closed the festival on a high note. 

Here is a final snippet, showing first the Koeln based guitarist painting a sonic canvass with some of Bill Frisell's brushes mixed-in with his own, followed by the Berliner's agitated art-rock.

 

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Keenan Ruffin and Stan Zenkov – The Mechanics of Getting Anywhere (Moon Villain Records, 2025)

 By Matty Bannond

Google can’t introduce you to Keenan Ruffin or Stan Zenkov. ChatGPT will guess their biographical details with trademark confidence and trademark lack of accuracy. These two improvisers operate beyond the reach of data-driven detectives and AI assistants. The only way of getting to know their artistic personalities is to listen to their music. There’s rich reward for that sonic study.

Ruffin is a guitarist and Zenkov plays reed instruments. Both perform frequently in Brooklyn. This four-track album, released in November 2025, captures a 45-minute session from October 2024. The protagonists pass moods and motifs around the studio, while Ruffin explores his pedals and Zenkov cycles through clarinets and saxophones. Two distinct identities emerge in sharp focus.

The prevailing character of the record is affable, welcoming and generous. Ruffin often constructs arpeggio-adjacent shapes like ladders for his listeners to climb, using extended effects to add warmth rather than discord or discomfort. In the early stages of the title track, he picks notes like water droplets. Later, he stifles his strings to produce a sound like a windchime.

Zenkov is more excitable and energetic but successfully avoids crowding out his colleague or overwhelming his audience. The shortest piece,“1000 Armed Massage”, has a tentative and peering-around-corners feel. It features a balladeering central section, where the bass clarinet’s plummy voice hums a melodic line as if embarrassed to have forgotten the lyrics.

The third track, “Turn the Wheel”, stands out for its spookier spirit. It’s the album’s most industrialized district. Something is rotating behind the initial exchanges. Zenkov plays more hectic material, while Ruffin deploys his pedals and switches with more pugnacity. It’s a nervy, threatening piece that suggests a cornered animal with titanium teeth bared and rusty claws unsheathed.

In today’s age of intrusive tech tools and aggressive data scraping, it’s impressive that Keenan Ruffin and Stan Zenkov have maintained such a low digital profile—but faintly regrettable too. These are two disarming and benevolent improvisers who share their unpretentious, open-hearted music with the world on The Mechanics of Getting Anywhere. Listeners get rich reward for time spent with this record. But don’t tell the robots.

The album is available on cassette and as a digital download here .

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