Jazz Articles

Children on the Corner: Rebirth

by John Kelman
November 13, 2004

It seems to be open season on Miles Davis tribute bands paying homage to his '70s electric output, which until the past fifteen years was looked at with derision rather than as the groundbreaking music it truly was. But few have captured the essence of what the music was about. Arguably closest has been Henry Kaiser/Wadada Leo Smith's Yo Miles!, releasing two fine records that honour the ultimate nature of Miles' innovations without being strictly imitative. But, for the most ...

Children on the Corner: Rebirth

by Russ Musto
January 25, 2004

In this age of acid jazz, trip hop and jam bands it's difficult for most listeners to realize just how controversial On The Corner was when it was first released more than 30 years ago, when fusion was becoming something other than nuclear and for most folk funk was merely an odor. Miles Davis had developed a cadre of dedicated disciples from the pot smoking-acid tripping Caucasian counterculture with the “Directions In Music" he cooked up on Bitches Brew , ...

Children On The Corner: Rebirth

by Colin Buttimer
November 2, 2003

Miles Davis’s first electric period traced an arc from 1969 to 1975 which continues to inform the most exploratory electric jazz of the past three decades. Miles developed techniques (generic cross-pollination and studio cut and paste, to name only two) which produced seriously funky and out music and which have inspired a whole slew of innovators including – to take fellow trumpeters as one example – Jon Hassell, Cuong Vu, Dave Douglas, Erik Truffaz and Rob Mazurek. Miles Davis’s legacy ...

The Jinx Motive: Live Bait

by C. Michael Bailey
November 4, 2002

Move over, little dog, the big bad dog is movin’ in...

Jinx Motive is a merry band of Berklee graduates who came together to carry jazz into the frontier where Medeski, Martin, & Wood, Phish, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident leave off. Their music is decidedly funky with Jellyroll’s “Spanish Tinge" thrown in with Dan Salyers’ telepathic percussion. Add to this smart, post-nuclear lyrics delivered with the competent vocals of guitarist/vocalist John Howland. Live Bait is the first release ...