Miles Davis Waves The Electric Flag
Apr 11 '01 (Updated Apr 18 '01)
The Bottom Line Miles Davis's Fusion period was not the disaster that it's detractors made it out to be, nor was it as revolutionary as its devotees would have you believe.
Between 1968 (or 1969, depending on your point of view) and 1974, Miles Davis embarked on a series of albums that reflected, among other things, his growing interest in Rock and Funk. These would prove to be the most controversial albums and this the most controversial period of his career. (Admittedly, there was some controversy over albums like Doo-Bop and his selection of covers like Time After Time on his post-retirement albums, but I don't think that's really comparable as most people seem to agree that that stuff basically sucks) People seem to either swear by or swear at this music. Some detractors like New York Times critic Peter Watrous and the trumpet player Wynton Marsalis go as far as to say that Miles led Jazz astray during this period. To my ears, none of these extreme views seems fully justified.
First, let's get one thing straight; despite the claims of Columbia Records and other self interested parties to contrary, Miles Davis did not invent Jazz-Rock Fusion. Any number of artists on both sides of the fence were already crossing it at will. By the time Miles in the Sky, Davis's first tentative step towards a rock sound, was issued in 1968 Wes Montgomery & Nina Simone, to cite two examples in Jazz, had already recorded definitive Jazz recordings of songs by the Beatles, Animals, Screaming Jay Hawkins and others. In Rock, Big Brother & the Holding Company had done the inverse with Gershwin and the young Carlos Santana (admittedly a Davis acolyte) was just waiting for a national stage with which to do the same for Tito Puente.
More significantly, perhaps, were the original sounds being produced by groups outside the mainstream but within the changing parameters of each genre. The genre-bending and defying efforts of Jimi Hendrix, the Mothers of Invention, the MC5 and others are well documented elsewhere. It is worth noting here that Davis was influenced heavily by Hendrix in this period and it is one of the great tragedies in music history that Jimi died before his planned recording sessions with Miles occurred.
Perhaps more germane to our discussion though, the electronic keyboard sound of Herbie Hancock on the afformentioned Miles in the Sky, as well as that of Chick Corea on B!+ches Brew both owe a profound debt to the innovations of Sun Ra (and having already recorded the Bliss! sessions with Ra tenorman John Gilmore, Corea was certainly aware of the man from Saturn), and the same can be argued about the size and conception of the ensemble on the latter LP. Additionally, much of the sound of that LP is presaged by Pharoah Sander's epochal 1996 Impulse! recording Tauhid (and it is probably no coincidence that the drummer on this LP is Roger Blank, a Sun Ra Arkestra stalwart). Although he was publicly derisive of the Avant Garde, Davis seemed to admit on some level his debt to this album (albeit--ahem--in a silent way) by titling the album's first cut Pharoah's Dance and by using--if not properly crediting--Sanders' guitarist Sonny Sharrock on 1972's Jack Johnson.
So, this "Fusion" of Jazz and Rock (Were the two musics entirely separate to begin with? Are the improvisations of Chuck Berry really worth less than those of Charlie Christian?) was already in progress by the time of Davis's entry into the field. The really groundbreaking aspect of B!+ches Brew was the fact that it was MILES DAVIS doing it. Following this line of reasoning to its conclusion, I think it is fair to say that while Miles did not invent Fusion, he did codify it with his foray into it. And it is undeniably true that the most important groups in the Fusion Movement were headed by Davis alumni, namely John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Corea's Return to Forever, Tony Williams' Lifetime and Joe Zawinul & Wayne Shorter's Weather Report.
Of course, what does all this have to do with the music itself, the way it sounds? That is something that needs to be viewed as much outside as inside of the context in which it is created. And, as far as that goes, it holds up pretty well.
In A Silent Way is the one unambiguous masterpiece recorded in this era. On the Corner is definitely the funkiest. B!+ches Brew, despite it's many flaws, remains an intriguing collection, as do Live Evil, Live in Concert and the other live albums from this era. Panthalassa, a recent remix of various sessions during this era by producer Bill Laswell, is a particularly fascinating document; using modern studio techniques and 20/20 hindsight, Laswell demonstrates exactly how many miles ahead Davis really was.
Oddly, on many of these albums, Davis's trumpet is often one of the least interesting things going. His last really dominant performance as a soloist comes on Miles in the Sky, an album where the rest of the groups seems to flounder a bit. As the musicians grew into their own new idioms, Miles retreated, by 1975 out of music altogether. He came out of retirement in the early 1980s, but he never again recorded anything of comparable worth to these and his earlier efforts.
In any event, these albums neither revolutionized nor ruined the music. They did help create spaces both critically and in the marketplace for Mahavishnu, et al., as well as for other deserving artists such as Gil Scott-Heron. But to blame Miles for Spyro Gyro is about as absurd as blaming Count Basie for Lawrence Welk. Fusion certainly didn't stop artists like The Art Ensemble of Chicago from moving Jazz forward in other frontiers, and if, by example, it help to inspire musicians like Donald Byrd and Ornette Coleman to include electric musicians in their groups, all the better, no matter what the reactionaries at Lincoln Center say.
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