This 1968 is a great Album of Miles Davis and when changed over to the Funky organ Jazz sound that a few other prominent Jazz musician were already experimenting with. The name of this album I am featuring is “Miles in the Sky” and could be purchased here.It will debut tonight at 8PM New York City time. Then it it will air for about two weeks, check the Schedule link for times.
More on the Album:
Digitally remastered using 20-bit technology by Mark Wilder and Rob Schwarz (Sony Music Studios, New York, New York).
With MILES IN THE SKY, Davis began to consciously incorporate elements of popular music and blues into the quintet’s open-ended style of group improvisation. This was an attempt to reach out, not sell out. By 1968, groups such as the Beatles had stretched the parameters of the pop song form way beyond their humble harmonic beginnings, while the blues trio Cream significantly elevated the level of musicianship and added a bold improvisational dimension to live performances.
It was impossible to ignore these developments. And as Miles indicated in his autobiography, he was already becoming enamored of musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Sly Stone and Muddy Waters (elements of soul jazz had already crept into the quintet’s repertoire with “Eighty-One” from E.S.P.).
On MILES FROM THE SKY, the trumpeter’s “Stuff” juxtaposes a long elliptical blues line over a harmonically varied Ron Carter bass vamp, as Herbie Hancock pumps out billowy turqoise clouds of Fender/Rhodes chords and Tony Williams alternatingly locks in and deconstructs the eighth note pulse. On Shorter’s “Paraphernalia” the horns play harmonic cat and mouse with a swinging vamp, resolving tension in cyclical chord progression, as George Benson’s electric guitar offers a teasing suggestion of things to come. Tony Williams’ “Black Comedy” and Davis’ “Country Son” offer a series of radical tempo…..Read More
