Miles Davis

    Time Travel with Miles Davis

    30 Dec

    By

    “I don’t always listen to the Cult, but when I do, SO DO THE NEIGHBOURS….”

    Some music is meant to be played loud. Ear splitting bone crunching loud. So you feel it in your chest.
    A friend asked me recently which concert in my entire life stopped me in my tracks and made the biggest impact on me musically. Without hesitation I replied Miles Davis live in Melbourne May 2, 1988 at the Hamer Hall. This Melbourne edifice is lined internally with gold leaf ceilings and leather clad walls in sandy tones. It sinks beneath street level (and apparently below the waterline of the adjacent Yarra River).

    In 1988 it still ran analog mixing and sound reinforcement. It was a regular place to hang out for me for all manner of musical genres and still a favourite venue (last concert before Covid 2020 was the amazing Nils Frahm).

    On that fateful evening I wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of Miles Davis and in fact had not ventured too far into the Jazz world. I had been thoroughly engrossed in all manner of Berlin and Dusseldorf schools of daft punk and esoteric cosmic ventures from assorted synthesizer practitioners. I was spending some hard earned at Thomas Records and the owner Peter called me over and said “Mark I’m not able to make to a concert tonight. I think you should go. No cost, here’s two free tickets”. I replied “he’s that jazz guy isn’t he” like a total neophyte.

    I think Peter must have thought “I will get this philistine educated if it takes me a century to do so”. What the heck its free and what have I got to lose? I went home and rang a friend on the telephone (yep one of those Ericsson clickety clack hardwired copper crossbar exchange phones) who was the only guy I knew who “liked jazz”. Turns out he was Dixie and Swing big band and the Miles Davis freestyle was not 100% in his wheelhouse. Nonetheless like me a free ticket is a free ticket.

    We drove in from the ‘burbs’ and parked nearby in the gardens and walked over. Our seats were right in the middle of the stalls and 3/4 way back on front of the mixer. Perhaps Peter had been given some industry insider seats. As the band assembled I had read that Miles Davis could be a “difficult” performer. He has been called “one of the great innovators in jazz” and had the titles Prince of Darkness and the Picasso of Jazz bestowed upon him. Melbourne music crowds have always been fairly serious and it would turn out we had nothing to worry about.

    From the opening notes of In A Silent Way I couldn’t scrape my jaw off the floor. Expletives deleted unbelievable! This unlike any “jazz” I’d ever heard. It was a hard rock, funk, power synth, driving blues hit you in the chest and clobber you over the head explosion of creativity and technique.
    I realised then why Peter had insisted I take the tickets. He wanted to change my thinking and ultimately improve my musical horizons.

    I was unconcerned with what fuel drove the musicians on stage. It was most likely more Scarface Al Pacino than Bob Marley. I felt like I was watching a sprinter break the 100 meters world record without concern for the enhancements they had consumed to compete Carl Lewis style. I was here to see just to see how far that record can be pushed. And my oh my was that record broken on May 2nd.

    Miles let it be known he was in a great mood and let his sidemen and women free to explore the boundaries of the set list. Some of us may have acquired the Miles Davis ‘Live Around the World Double Album’ which cuts together a series of tracks from that concert series from halls all over. It’s had producers’ hands all over it and they’ve smoothed out the set list and compressed it to fit onto two albums. It could have fit on 8 albums if allowed to use up all the dynamic headroom!

    On stage that night were:

    • Miles Davis (Trumpet, Synth)
    • Kenny Garret (Altosax, Soprano Sax, flute)
    • Robert Irving III (Synth)
    • Adam Holzman (Synth)
    • Joe ‘Foley” McCreary (Lead guitar and electric bass)
    • Benny Retveld (Electric Bass)
    • Ricky Wellman (Drums)
    • Marilyn Mazur (Percussion)

    Each one of these musicians were masters in their own right. They fought each other in tussles of supremacy and call and response virtuosity. Like poker players playing unbelievable hands only to be trumped (or trumpeted) by the counter.

    I got it. My mate Kevin didn’t. He found it too far out from his comfort zone. In fact, 24 mins 14 secs into the concert they broke into a groove that is one of those things that I can’t describe – I’ve run out of vocabulary – I can only say two words “Benny Reitveld”. The only way to describe it. Benny going out on all Raptor engines and Miles steering the rocket ship from Cape Canaveral. How high will this rocket go as the earth is shaking from the full methanol oxygen mixture…. Wow!

    As a respite Miles breaks into Human Nature and the audience is given a breather from the intensity of what burned before. The concert then built up to the final Portia which showed Marilyn Mazur as a genius of percussion. The road to that summit was fast and furious and one detonation after the other.

    The concert was recorded and replayed the following week on Jim McCloud Jazz Tracks on ABC FM and I managed to record it on cassette tape (TDK Metal). This tape got absolutely hammered in the car stereo in the years that followed till eventually I lost it. I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find other copies and only the lifeline of YouTube is offered and gratefully accepted. I’ve found other recordings of the same concert played in other cities and each one is different. Same songs but interpreted differently. Somehow the Melbourne concert burns brightest for me.

    If you can put aside all audiophilia for a moment and setup your favourite internet music connection to tap into the genius of Miles Davis at his later stage when he had found his way again and was in the process of leaving us with one of music world’s greatest musical legacies. YouTube is a “Library of Alexandria” for me – a treasure trove of lost art.

    Here is Miles Davis in full flight:

    Compared to the smoothly curated produced albums the live “bootleg” world is what happens in space and time in one location. It is another thing entirely. Bootlegs are often rough and ready. But if they are the only link to the concert experience we can train our brains to hear past the audio anomalies and find the musical truth underneath.

    A contemporaneous NZ review highlights the next stop in the tour.

    Miles Davis had his fair share of controversy and is not everyone’s cup of tea. Spike Milligan himself a trumpeter is quoted as saying “All men are cremated equal”. If the band is on fire and “in the pocket” then it’s a unique event that sears itself into your memory and creates that imprint that I’d venture to say even aged related deterioration will be unable to shift. In 30 years’ time I’m most likely to be sitting on some porch hopefully continent and might not recognise or recall what I did that morning – but I can sure say if you played me a snippet of this concert it will all come flooding back (apologies for the continence joke).

    As you can probably tell I’m Kind of Blue for 1988… The 88 series Miles is like a Koetsu cartridge made by Sugano. A classic that can never be repeated.

    As for 2020 memories well I wish them all well…

    Tracks

    In a Silent Way (J. Zawinul)
    Intruder (M. Davis)
    New Blues [Star People] (M. Davis)
    Perfect Way (G. Gartside-D. Gamson)
    The Senate/ Me and You (J. McCreary)
    Human Nature (S. Porcaro-J. Bettis)
    Wrinkle (E. Davis)
    Tutu (M. Miller)
    Movie Star (Prince)
    Splatch (M. Miller)
    Time After Time (C. Lauper-R. Hyman)
    Heavy Metal (M. Davis)
    Don’t Stop Me Now (S. Lukather-D. Porcaro)
    Carnival Time (N. Larsen)
    Tomaas (M. Davis-M. Miller)
    Burn (R. Irving III-R. Hall)
    Portia (M. Miller)

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