Miles Davis’ birthday was yesterday but I still love him today, so I’m posting this absolutely staggeringly great series of clips comprising his 1970 performance at the Isle of Wight festival. After viewing this for the first time when it was released a few years ago it got under my skin to such an extent that I had dreams about it for the next few nights. There’s some sort of holy communion with the spirit of pure music going on here that I can’t begin to profess to understand, but the musicians here are obviously touched by the proceedings in a way that transcends mere “rocking out”. See if you don’t agree.

 
The insane $2000 Miles Davis Box Set

I was in a master class with Herbie Hancock once, and he had some phenomenal anecdotes about playing with Miles. Apparently his vibe and the way he ran the show encouraged even the most talented musicians (like Herbie) to open up and explore music/sound in ways they had never thought imaginable. Evidently it was a truly spiritual and higher-consciousness sort of groove he put them in.

One of my all-time heroes, that Mr. Davis. Up there amongst the most creative souls of the 20th century.

BTW - my favorite part of this performance is Keith Jarret with his fro just *feeling* it on the fuzzed-out wurli. 

Dude has gotten so square since then.

how to listen to this and not think of Adorno:

“Considered as a whole, the perennial sameness of jazz consists not in a basic organization of the material within which the imagination can roam freely and without inhabitation, as within an articulate language, but rather in the utilization of certain well-defined tricks, formulas, and clichés to the exclusion of everything else.”

Jazz = counterfeit freedom.

Alex:

Well, a) Adorno wasn’t speaking of fusion when he wrote about jazz (although I’m guessing he would not care for this); and b) although I do appreciate some of what Adorno has to say on certain topics, his writings on jazz prove how wrong he could be, how Eurocentric his world view was, and how vaguely racist he could be (i.e. European culture is high culture, American/African/other is inferior). But then John Cage said similar things about jazz.

Thanks for reminding me how much I hated being forced to read Adorno in school.

‘Musicologists’ are elitist dicks, by definition. I even have trouble giving credence to that term as an actual discipline. BS academia for the sake of itself. 

There isn’t a single musician I know (and I know many) that could say with a straight face that Miles and these folks did *not* have a huge influence on them and their art. That’s something.  I also guarantee you a majority of them have never heard of Adorno (who was dead before this concert even happened, BTW), nor care about what he had to say in his lifetime.

Sorry… I just had a bad flashback reading that name.  Not meant to be a personal attack on another commenter or anything.

Thank-you for this post. It is exactly why I return to DM every week (forget the marketing surveys). What an amazing, mind expanding series of clips. I hope I dream about this concert, as well.

So good. So well miked. I’m going to go dig out Bitches Brew. Haven’t listened to it in years. Love Keith and Chick.

Great clips.
Agree about the squareness, but i guess there’s a mellow out factor that comes with aging. I <3 Keith Jarret’s Live Evil contribution though. Always hits the spot.

thank you. i just had a spiritual experience during part 3