DariusNYC
07-20-2004, 07:19 AM
I picked up "He Loved Him Madly" by Miles Davis on iTunes the other night based on the following recommendation from Salon.com. It's a really cool track, and a great deal:
"He Loved Him Madly," Miles Davis, from "Get Up With It"
If you're going to spend 99 cents on a track, it might as well be very long, right? As a rule, any track longer than 10 minutes is not available for individual purchase on iTunes or the other stores, only as part of an album. But for some reason (maybe the work of evil "jazz purists," who continue to miss the point of Davis' '70s recordings) this 32-minute masterpiece, from 1972's "Get Up With It," is an exception, and can be yours for a measly 99 cents. "He Loved Him Madly" was Davis' tribute to the recently deceased Duke Ellington, but rather than the stumbling, staggering, weeping motion of a dirge, it is absolutely static -- everything here is eerily elongated and unnaturally still, with the tone set by Davis' harmonically beautiful, ambiguously voiced electric organ playing. The stillness must have appealed to Brian Eno, who cited this track as one of the most important influences in his development of ambient music. He said the track has a "very strange atmosphere, as if you are standing in a clearing hearing different instruments at different distances from you." That very tangible quality of space in the track makes a great textural bed for Davis' trumpet when it finally enters, 16 minutes into the track, manipulated ever so delicately with a wah-pedal, to create an enthralling, serpentine sound. This is 99 cents well spent.
"He Loved Him Madly," Miles Davis, from "Get Up With It"
If you're going to spend 99 cents on a track, it might as well be very long, right? As a rule, any track longer than 10 minutes is not available for individual purchase on iTunes or the other stores, only as part of an album. But for some reason (maybe the work of evil "jazz purists," who continue to miss the point of Davis' '70s recordings) this 32-minute masterpiece, from 1972's "Get Up With It," is an exception, and can be yours for a measly 99 cents. "He Loved Him Madly" was Davis' tribute to the recently deceased Duke Ellington, but rather than the stumbling, staggering, weeping motion of a dirge, it is absolutely static -- everything here is eerily elongated and unnaturally still, with the tone set by Davis' harmonically beautiful, ambiguously voiced electric organ playing. The stillness must have appealed to Brian Eno, who cited this track as one of the most important influences in his development of ambient music. He said the track has a "very strange atmosphere, as if you are standing in a clearing hearing different instruments at different distances from you." That very tangible quality of space in the track makes a great textural bed for Davis' trumpet when it finally enters, 16 minutes into the track, manipulated ever so delicately with a wah-pedal, to create an enthralling, serpentine sound. This is 99 cents well spent.