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Sunday, 22 February 2015
Saturday, 21 February 2015
Miles Davis - Live @Tanglewood, Lenox MA (18/8/70)
Miles Davis - Trumpet
Gary Bartz - Soprano and alto sax
Chick Corea - Electric piano
Keith Jarrett - Organ, electric piano
Dave Holland - Electric and acoustic bass
Jack DeJohnette - Drums
Airto Moriera - Percussion
1 Directions 09:31
2 Bitches Brew 09:15
3The Mask 03:55
4 It's About That Time 07:13
5 Sanctuary 01:53
6 Spanish Key 05:42
7 The Theme 00:48
8 Miles Runs the Voodoo Down 04:39
9 Bill Graham Outro
Other than his appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival later this same month, this Tanglewood performance was possibly the largest audience that Miles Davis had encountered up to this point. His extraordinary band, containing many soon to be legendary musicians, was all deeply immersed in the early experiments into electric instrumentation. This incendiary performance captures Miles embracing a rock dynamic in his music that was more electric, more funky, more rhythmic, and simply more "out there" than anything that had proceeded it.
Much of the material performed this night derives from Miles' studio sessions during the groundbreaking In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew album sessions. Because the performance remains one long continuous suite, it allows one to follow the flow and logic of the music over an extended period of time. This continual flow, devoid of announcements identifying the songs, often left critics and some listeners confused, but focused listening reveals that distinct changes are taking place. Miles is thoroughly in control of the musical direction at all times, whether he is in the forefront or not. Miles guides the music back to particular vamps or themes, continually bringing focus to the group improvisations. The swift and agile response of the musicians to Miles' cues and coded phrases is truly remarkable and is a primary reason for the relentless intensity of this music.
Apart from the set ending cue of "The Theme," little of this music derives from Miles' jazz period, nor does it fall into the free jazz category that it is so often mistakenly associated with. This music is much funkier, often comprised of deep, one-chord, cyclical grooves that have little in common with jazz. As he had done several times in the past, Miles was forging into uncharted territory and creating a shift in modern music that would influence countless musicians.
The audience seemed to recognize and appreciate this and they achieve the rare occurrence of bringing Miles back to the stage for an encore (something that rarely ever happened during this era). The encore, a rather short, focused take on "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," features Corea playing the main riff like a hard rock musician, with Holland's deep bluesy bass line and the rest of the group's dynamic falling somewhere between Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix - and they achieve this without any electric guitars!
While sometimes difficult, often challenging and unquestionably intense, this night's performance is one of the most intriguing of Miles' lengthy career. It's one of those rare performances with boundless depth that continually rewards repeated listening.
Friday, 20 February 2015
Caribou - The Longest Mixtape: 1000 Songs For You
The last few years of my life have been incredible, thanks in large part to all of you - so I've been thinking of how to say thank you.
As you can imagine, music has been a central love of my life since I was a teenager and over the years I've been introduced to a lot that has stayed with me. I've collected the majority of that music here – and I thought sharing it with you seemed like one way I could say thanks.
I'm sure some things are under-represented or over-represented, but roughly speaking this is a musical history of my life. Of course a lot of this music has come to me through my friends - thank you to Koushik, Kieran, Jeremy, Gary, Brandon, Jason, Sam, Ketan, Ryan, Toby and many others...
Also, please share music with me that you think I would like but is not included here, in the hope this becomes a dialogue rather than a monologue.
I suggest you listen to this on shuffle as I made no attempt to sequence these tracks - I just entered them as I browsed along the shelves in my record collection. If you see dead links or duplicate songs please tweet me @caribouband.
Due to a fault in youtube's playlist coding if you embed this playlist it will be truncated down to 200 tracks. Hopefully they will resolve that at some point but for now if you want to hear all 1000 songs you need to listen at this link.
I hope you find something to enjoy here. Thanks,
Dan
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