Happy Birthday, Miles Davis

[Woochifer]

Last Saturday would have been the great jazz trumpeter's 86th birthday. I can't think of too many musical artists that I would classify as revolutionaries, but Miles Davis absolutely fit that description in every way. He rewrote the jazz template no fewer than three times during his career.

Here's his legendary set from the 1970 Isle of Wight festival, and Miles was in top form. Appropriately, the session is simply called "Call It Anything." He was on the bill with ELP, The Doors, and The Who that day in front of an audience of 600,000 people. If anything else, Miles Davis always surrounded himself with amazing musicians and gave them the space to do amazing things. His band that day included Dave Holland, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, and Jack DeJohnette.

By this time, he had completed his transition to electric instruments, and had shaken jazz to its core, charting a course for music that continues to this day. The looping and other studio techniques used in Miles' 1969 landmark B*tches Brew album helped lay the foundation for a lot of modern electronica.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bihaL1risM0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Swish]

..I can't disagree with your post. I know I've mentioned this numerous times, but I was lucky enough to see him live just months before he died. While I'm so pleased that I got to see him, he was not exactly the Miles I wanted to see. Doing Michael Jackson and Cindy Lauper covers was, in my opinion, the low point of his career. In addition, he didn't play all that much, giving way to his band when it came to most of the soloing.

I suppose his health was failing and that's why he gave such an underwhelming performance. Still, his was a big name to come off my bucket list.

[thekid]

Usually find myself listening to Miles Davis or John Coltrane at least once during the week.

[Woochifer]

..I can't disagree with your post. I know I've mentioned this numerous times, but I was lucky enough to see him live just months before he died. While I'm so pleased that I got to see him, he was not exactly the Miles I wanted to see. Doing Michael Jackson and Cindy Lauper covers was, in my opinion, the low point of his career. In addition, he didn't play all that much, giving way to his band when it came to most of the soloing.

I suppose his health was failing and that's why he gave such an underwhelming performance. Still, his was a big name to come off my bucket list.

I saw him about a year before he died. Supposedly, it was one of his better performances in a while -- for one thing, he actually talked to the audience and took that damn mute off his trumpet for some extended solos. It was basically 12 songs in a 3 hour concert. Lot of high points, but obviously nothing approaching the urgency and ferocity on display with his Isle of Wight performance where he was venturing into uncharted musical territory in front of 600,000 people.

He'd been in failing health for years, and took six years off between 1975 and 1981. When he came back, he never pushed the envelope like he did with regularity and impunity in his younger days. I'd read that Miles had been thinking about veering off even further into show tunes and pop music for years. If anything, Miles had a long history of offending his most devoted fans.

In his latter career, he turned the songwriting over to bassist Marcus Miller, who had more of a R&B slant that yielded mixed results (nothing unusual about the arrangement, as his "second great quintet" era in the mid to late-60s featured saxophonist Wayne Shorter as the primary songwriter). But, he did have some flashes of brilliance such as his often overlooked Music From Siesta soundtrack. That album and Amandla were featured when I saw him in concert.