Jazz Articles about Miles Davis

Miles Davis v. Wynton Marsalis: Jack Johnson in Jazz

by Michael Holman
March 8, 2005

A director fascinated by the outsized life of the African-American boxer Jack Johnson sets out to make a documentary to tell the man's story. Given the centrality of race to Johnson's story and Johnson's own musical interests, a jazz soundtrack seems most appropriate, so he enlists the foremost jazz trumpeter of the day to provide a score. This certainly will sound familiar to those who've caught Ken Burns' latest PBS documentary, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall ...

Miles Davis: My Funny Valentine

by Jim Santella
February 17, 2005

Many have tried to copy Miles Davis, but no one can measure up to the kind of performances that he gave us when he was in his prime and led the mainstream. This concert from February 12, 1964 at Lincoln Center's Philharmonic Hall in New York ranks among the best. With George Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, he expressed the deep affection that we all feel in our hearts when romance is the subject.

Davis ...

Miles Davis: A Tribute to Jack Johnson

by Jim Santella
January 12, 2005

Like the motions of a boxer, Miles Davis' music for this tribute contains much repetition in the motion and rhythm of his sextet. His open trumpet drove the point home with force.

Electric guitar and electric bass were new to Davis' music in 1970. Ironically, he was honoring a traditional fighter who loved traditional jazz by rolling out his new sound with futuristic overtones. His echoing muted trumpet eventually became a Davis trademark. The perky soprano saxophone in ...

Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings Miles Davis 1963-1964

by Russ Musto
January 9, 2005

Miles Davis Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings Of Miles Davis, 1963-1964 Columbia Legacy 2004

This seven-disc box set documenting the final phase of what is generally referred to as the “transitional period" between two of the greatest Miles Davis bands, details some of the innovative trumpeter's finest work, including the complete recordings of his often neglected quintet with tenor saxophonist George Coleman. The set begins with the first of Coleman's studio ...

Miles Davis: A Tribute to Jack Johnson

by Paul Olson
January 9, 2005

Well, here it is, finally: the Miles Davis album A Tribute to Jack Johnson, newly remastered and affordably available to those unwilling or unable to pay for the five-disc Complete Jack Johnson Sessions, which has been available since 2003. That's been Columbia/Legacy's modus operandi for Bitches Brew, In a Silent Way, and now Jack Johnson: put out the box set and after a suitable, cash-draining interval, cough up the remastered album alone.Jack Johnson 's re-release (more accurately at ...

Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue

by John Kelman
December 17, 2004

Miles Davis Electric Miles: A Different Kind of Blue Eagle Eye Media EE39020-9 2004 By the time Miles Davis hit the stage at the British Isle of Wight Festival on August 29, '70, he was fomenting yet another stylistic leap forward, this time with a concept that revolved around extremely loose sketches that were mere starting points for collective improvisation in an aggressively electric context. Unfortunately, he had also alienated much of his ...

Miles Electric: A Different Kind Of Blue

by Mark Sabbatini
December 14, 2004

Miles Davis Miles Electric: A Different Kind of Blue Eagle Rock Entertainment 83 minutes 2004

I hated Bitches Brew. A bunch of lengthy, rambling, ear-assailing nonsense by a legend too strung out to play well and was therefore suckering audiences with a so-called “new thing."

Those with similar thinking might change their opinions faster than the years it took me after seeing Miles Electric , a two-hour documentary ...