composed by Miles Davis
If Miles Davis had not been so sick and cocaine-addled in the early ‘70s, I can only guess what he would have made of the electric music(s) he developed in the five years between Bitches Brew and the six year seclusion he just barely escaped. Maybe just more of it, but we might see its formative points more clearly. My theory about the last studio album he made in that decade (in 1974) is that it might be the Kind of Blue of its period. Not as accessible by any means, but as singular. Concision distinguishes it for one thing and, ironically, nowhere more so than on the two cuts that run over thirty minutes apiece: one is an astounding glacially-paced requiem for Duke Ellington, while the other I have now played more than any other Miles recording I own. “Calypso Frelimo” is based on a four-bar calypso-ish melody Miles plays on the organ to which the two guitars (Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas) respond with a menacing four-bar cadence in a sharply different mode. Three movements in three tempos – fast, slow, lightning – over a straight four with Michael Henderson’s bass knocking on your crypt throughout.
Note: 25 secular essays (each one exactly 200 words long) about 25 songs, to appear one per day during Advent (or so) from Nov. 27 through Dec. 21.
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