June 05, 2005
MIles Davis & Grateful Dead
When I was in Sydney recently I bought a copy of In A Silent Way (1969) by Miles Davis.
This CD marked the point at which Miles left conventional forms of jazz behind altogether, and moved into completely new ground. I have not heard the complete sessions.
This music influenced the live jams of the Grateful Dead, circa 1977.
Previously (eg., Filles De Kilimanjaro) Davis had reinvented old forms, made them his own by painting his lyrical, melancholy trumpet lines over whichever canvas he chose as his basis of expression.
In a Silent Way presented a
In the 1970s Miles moved away from the European approach to music, to a more Afrological, spontaneous, and collective way of creating music. Miles tried to break open the logic of the music and have the rules change completely every night. Oddly enough, it was a way of music-making more akin to the Grateful Dead playing Dark Star than to conventional jazz. Just as the improvisation in Dark Star can differ greatly from night to night, and the tune part is not really that important, the Miles stuff from the mid 70's,(from '72-'75) from start to finish, is pretty much all like the middle of a really open Dark Star completely different each time it occurs.