The Afterword

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On the körner

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I’m sitting at the supper table, eating a meal of my own devising, as the family are away for a week. It means I can experiment without getting rude comments about stinky cheese or strange smells. So tonight on the menu is tomato and beetroot soup with gorgonzola on körnerbrot, sausages, mashed potato with extra gorgonzola, auburgine, mushroom and garlic stir fry and a small gin with lemon and elderflower to wash it all down.

A riotous cacophony of flavours, individual, contrasting, strong and clashing, though sometimes complementing in unpredicted and delightful ways.

And to soundtrack this, I am lucky enough to be listening to ‘On the Corner’ for the first time ever.

As I prepared the meal, I was listening to the final moments of the smoothly-stewarded and enthusiastically-informing Afterword two-parter on Miles Davis – well done to all who took part – a most enjoyable journey through his life and musical career. I suppose I downloaded it because of the great affirmation that ‘Kind Of Blue’ got in the 60 years thread. I listened to some of that record earlier in the week, but I’m afraid I got a bit bored (sacrilege, I know).

Anyway, the guys » Continue Reading.

Misleading Opening Album Tracks

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I’ve been listening to Miles Davis’s Aura, released towards the end of his career. It is a suite of tone poems written for a large horn ensemble (and harp) by the Danish composer, Palle Mikkelborg. The pieces are all named after colours. I’m especially fond of Green, a duet with Denmark’s greatest bassist, Niels-Henning Pederson. It is gentle, soothing music on the whole with a bit of John McLaughlin thrown in.

The opening track, called Intro, starts quietly enough, but soon becomes a battle between John and Miles to make the loudest noise. It is nothing like the rest of the album. If you just heard Intro, you would have completely the wrong idea about the mood and style of the whole. It’s a shame because Aura is a very fine album, albeit somewhat long at over an hour. The sensible thing to do is to skip Intro.

Can The Afterword think of any other examples?

Miles – best era?

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Like Mick Jagger, there are many Miles Davises, and I wouldn’t profess to know all of them that well. I really like the Coltrane era, and this album, not often mentioned as it’s overshadowed by its kind of blue brother (but a real gem nonetheless), is one of my favourites.

So what’s your favourite Miles? Chasing Bird, with cool elan? Rewriting the rules of jazz with Trane? Getting free with the second quartet? Going all weird with rock dudes? Put on your shades and be cool.

Miles & Trane – When the Student Became the Master

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There is an up and coming Columbia Legacy box set of the Miles Davis Quintet’s tour of Europe in 1960.

This article gives a bit of background to the creative tensions within the band and certainly whets my appetite for this set.

Are there any sax players out there who can enlighten me to multiphonics? If it’s two notes at the same time, does that mean the two combine to create a third sound or is there some technique that means each note is distinct but is played simultaneously. It is clearly easy to do on a piano or a guitar (or any instrument that has seaparate strings), but I can’t understand how two separate notes can sound on a sax (or any other wind instrument), because that is my reading of the comment in the article.

https://slate.com/culture/2018/03/miles-davis-and-john-coltranes-the-final-tour-reviewed.html

Startling news just in: expert analysis of a John McLaughlin epic reveals it’s all just one chord

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Danial Peter, a guitar buff with a very clear presenting style, has recently posted this fascinating breakdown of what John McLaughlin actually plays in the side-long epic ‘Right Off’, on Miles Davis’ ‘A Tribute To Jack Johnson’ (1971).

Famously, the track began as an informal jam between John and the two other musicians on bass and drums, with Miles rushing in from the control room when he heard it. (Later in the track, Herbie Hancock, who had literally wandered in to say hi, on his his way past the studio with a bag of groceries in his hands, was motioned over to an unfamiliar keyboard by Miles and ends up playing on the track there and then.)

I play a bit of guitar – no great theory expert, all bluff and instinct, really – but Daniel’s revelation that John is really only playing a Bb7 is fascinating to me. Being John McLaughlin he, of course, stretches and inverts the living daylights out of that chord, making it sound to the fairly casual listener like an armoury of chords. Clever and yet, in a way, simple stuff. The performance was all about the groove – keeping it moving, with an » Continue Reading.

Miles!

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Miles Davis – his entire discography visualised. http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/browse-miles-davis-entire-discography-in-a-stylish-interactive-visualization.html

http://cdn8.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/02001053/Miles-Discographic.png