Why Miles Davis left some of us behind and why we're just now catching up
I’ve been a longtime fan of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. This is, up until he moved beyond me into funk and rock, not exactly jazz to my way of thinking. I was still back with his record-selling “King of Blue” CD. Then I saw a listing in Netflix for “Miles Davis: Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue,” and I ordered it. Couldn’t be all bad, I figured.
So after watching this hour and 13 minutes work (along with about an hour of commentary from jazz musicians) I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe I was a bit out of step with Miles’ thinking and playing. Maybe I was simply not open to new kinds of music played by a player-composer.
Several years ago at the Berlin Jazz Week I asked Herbie Mann about the then rage of “free jazz.” He scoffed; “I don’t think there are that many Mozarts running around.” Well, maybe so, but Miles will do I think.
This DVD shows a lot of Miles playing and living — he was a boxing fan, which goes far to explain his jab-like bursts of music perhaps. It also shows the 38-minute “Call It Anything” piece he created for some 600,000 jazz fans on the Isle of Wight. It’s not an easy listen, but it shows what Miles was thinking and doing. Not rock, not funk, maybe not jazz. But intriguing, forceful. He was surrounded by fine jazz musicians who seemed a little lost at times but hanging in there until they could get on board Miles’ express.
The commentary by musicians is especially rewarding. Such as Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarret, who look back on Miles with awe and respect. Hancock signs off with a melancholy bars of wistful memory.
If you were a Miles fan and signed off back when he moved ahead of us, check this DVD out. You may find your way back on board with that brilliant, iconoclastic musician. Find a copy of “Bi**hes Brew,” his initial attack on the status quo. Give it a couple of listens; there’s plenty there. Took me a couple to really find what Miles was up to.
— Sam Bauman