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Miles Davis - The Jack Johnson Sessions


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Miles Davis - The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions

BEN RATLIFF

MILES DAVIS: 'THE COMPLETE JACK JOHNSON

SESSIONS' (Columbia Legacy, five CD's, $69.98) Miles Davis

was fascinated by Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone and searching

for his own way to rock when he made "A Tribute to Jack

Johnson" in 1970. His main strategy was to set up

unswerving bass and drum foundations below volatile,

aggressive, even vicious guitar and trumpet, sometimes

adding unearthly keyboard sounds. Davis had his musicians

vamp though one-chord shuffles, 12-bar blues and

three-chord rock until the music began to seethe and snap.

Then his producer, Teo Macero, cut and pasted the two long

tracks of the original album, which complete the fifth

disc. There's some wheel-spinning in this lengthy set. But

the sessions reveal how grooves evolved from metronomic to

funky, and they compel new admiration for the resourceful

drumming of Billy Cobham and Jack DeJohnette and for John

McLaughlin, who kept finding new ways to make his guitar

slink around the rhythm or claw and shriek right through

it.

JON PARELES -NY Times

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I'm as passionate about the original Jack Johnson album as Rainbow is about Queen 2. As the urban dudes say, "This is the shit!"

The legend goes that Miles was pissed off that the rock stars were making all the money, so he decided to put the best rock band together in the world. Side one, which was recorded in one take, is unbelievable--John McLaughlin's guitar is in another world. I still cant believe that this was recorded over thirty years ago.

Dont know how this new rendition is, but everytime I play this CD for people, it blows their minds--particularly when I tell them it was recorded 30 years ago.

Check it out!

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  • 2 weeks later...

For all you electronic and mix guys, the NY Times said this in a review last week about this album:

Sometimes, it was the influence of someone other than the

artist that made an album notable. Take "Jack Johnson." The

producer Teo Macero essentially recorded a series of

Davis's jam sessions and then spliced the tapes into a

finished album. Certainly, Davis's playing at the time

would have been influential in the jazz world however it

was recorded. But the decision to mix together different

takes was an inspiration years later to electronic music

and the culture of the remix in general

This collection was really ahead of its time and is worth a listen.

Ask Kooperman...

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