HOW DO YOU PENETRATE THE CATALOGUE OF A MAN WHO RE-INVENTED JAZZ MANY TIMES OVER? FRED BOLZA DOES THE THINKING FOR YOU, SO YOU CAN JUST KICK BACK AND LISTEN TO THE MANY WAYS OF MILES DAVIS: FINDING HIS WAY, KEEPING UP AND GETTING AHEAD.
Words and curation by Fred Bolza, artwork by Mick Clarke
One of my favourite anecdotes about Miles Davis comes from Herbie Hancock who played with him through much of the 1960s. Here it is as told to John Fordham in a piece for the Guardian:
"We were in Detroit…must have been around 1964. George Coleman was on saxophones… Tony [Williams teenage drum prodigy] and I had got into the habit of playing all kinds of mixed rhythms behind George, newer stuff, quite loose and free. Miles said, 'Why don't you play behind me the way you play behind George?' We thought: 'Really?' So we started playing some of those rhythm things behind Miles too, things that were hard to predict, would sometimes swing and sometimes float. The first night we did it he stopped a lot in his solos, jerked around as if he was uncomfortable, not sure what to do, trying to find his way. Next day, he was more at ease, playing longer phrases, but still not into it. Then by the last set on the next day, he wasn't struggling with it any more at all. In fact he played so many unexpected things himself that it was me that was jerking around. In less than 24 hours Miles had not just grabbed the ball, but run beyond us with it.”
Not only does this encapsulate the man and musician illustrating how he used his immense talent to quench an insatiable thirst for change but also serves as a neat way of tracing his four decades plus of music from the birth of bebop in the late 40s to the golden age of hip-hop in the early 90s and all points in between.
What becomes clear one you have worked your way through all this music is that Miles occupied his own lane taking what was around him and bending it to his will to create something entirely new and different. Time and time again.
But not just that. He was also perhaps the only true superstar in the jazz firmament combining musical restlessness with a barely contained rage at being boxed in by race or genre. And as if that weren’t enough, he added to that a brooding sexual energy, impeccable sartorial flair, and an insouciant flamboyance that dared the establishment to begrudge him his achievements. Forget about televisions out of hotel windows and other puerile acts of teenage rebellion that were the staple of the rock fraternity. If you want to see a real bad ass at work then watch the recent Stanley Nelson documentary about Miles and then come and talk to me.
John Lennon once famously said “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry’”. I think we can quite safely extend this to say that if you tried to give jazz another name, you might call it ‘Miles’.
First Set: Finding His Way (1947-57)
Miles’ apprenticeship started as a sideman to none other than Charlier Parker who was one of the key architects of modern jazz. Miles’ playing wasn’t always suited to the blistering tempo and alto sax pyrotechnics but his ability to turn this weakness into a strength ended up being the perfect foil to the incendiary playing of Bird.
From bebop he moved to his first date as leader, entitled Birth of the Cool where he first met arranger (and future collaborator) Gil Evans and was able to find a context where he could prioritise his lyrical playing at a far more measured tempo.
The rest of this set comprises some of his recordings for Prestige and Blue Note which define a template for the East Coast jazz sound that blended the soul of the blues with the sonic innovations of bop. All of this served up in the finest ivy league clobber. Of particular note is the recording of ‘Oleo’ which features his first use of the Harmon mute - a sound which ultimately became one of his stylistic signatures. It also includes the only time Miles recorded with Monk in what was a tense session by all accounts. On ‘The Man I Love’ his irritation boils over and he asks the engineer to keep the false start on tape. The set is rounded out by revisiting ‘Salt Peanuts’, a bebop classic which was one of the numbers he started out playing with Bird.
Second Set: Keeping Up (1958-1968)
Here Miles moves into his second decade and starts pushing into new directions. In this period he began a relationship with Columbia records which he maintained pretty much to the end of his life. This set starts with the prophetically titled ‘Miles Ahead’ arranged by his partner in crime Gil Evans and follows with an improvised tour de force soundtrack for French Nouvelle Vague film Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud by Louis Malle.
From there he formed his first great quintet which featured none other than John ‘Trane’ Coltrane on sax, with whom he recorded the stone cold classic Kind Of Blue - the sound which to this day remains what most people bring to mind when they think of the word jazz.
He then started his second great quintet featuring Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams. The blend of rhythm, lyricism, fire and drive makes the recordings of this group one of the pinnacles of improvisational interplay.
Third Set: Getting Ahead (1969-1991)
As the end of the sixties beckoned, it was time for another change of direction. Hipped to Hendrix and Sly by Betty Mabry - his soon to be wife (listen for the Hendrix influence in his tribute to her) and an incredible funk innovator in her own right - Miles saw where he wanted to go next.
From there, he plugged into the mains and went electric, simultaneously opening up a whole new audience while alienating most of his old fans. His modus operandi was to get his band of the moment in the studio, command them to play for long improvised sessions and then work with his long standing producer Teo Macero to re-edit all the takes into something completely different. From In A Silent Way through to Bitches Brew and On The Corner this cut and paste technique was used to ever more astounding effect. As for his live sets well, let’s just say he could still cut it without the studio trickery. Then in the mid 70s due to a triple-whammy combination of sickle cell anemia, a car crash and narcotics, Miles disappeared from view.
He returned in the 80s with a series of highly polished albums in which he again subverted the jazz tradition of playing popular songs by choosing to interpret the music of Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson. And then just before bowing out for good, he saw the power of hip hop and turned his horn to that. While the results may sound dated, his vision and understanding of the direction in which popular music was travelling is unquestionable.
