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jfderry
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on 9th Sep 2004
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MILES BEYOND : Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991
by Paul Tingen
There are few allies of the electric period to be found in the vast literature on Miles Davis. Writing the excitingly refreshing Miles Beyond, Tingen realises the political "mindfield" that he's stepping out into. Immediately he defines a philosophical framework which acts as a safety net and shields against the slings and arrows of outraged critics - and outraged they should be as Tingen defends fusion against the ingrained snobbery that has discarded it as not worthy of the jazz epithet. Giants tumble with an almighty crash as Tingen slays those who are still stuck in the past, including Leonard Feather, Stanley Crouch and Ken Burns, for injustices carried out in the name of music.
Tingen skilfully draws on a wide range of sources to construct his counter arguments in Miles' defence. But simply going by the critics' writings that he excavates, those critics of the electric era apparently forgot to trust the one source of justification for the new direction that they should have trusted - Miles himself. It is evident from the intelligently presented evidence given in the book that Davis might not have known exactly how the music was going to sound going into the recording session, but he sure knew how he wanted it to sound. Bluesy, funky, danceable, "I was trying to play the music I grew up on now, that roadhouse, honky-tonk, funky thing that people used to dance to on Friday and Saturday nights" (Gary Moore opening Montreux this year is not the best example of this). Instead the critics preferred to listen to what they heard, their interpretation of the music. Now, who do you think is better qualified to comment?
In the great search for hidden meanings, Tingen often reaches for ethereal explanations of the music and the man. This sometimes takes the narrative too far on a harmonic detour, ensuring the reader's comprehension of the difficult philosophical ground before returning to the task in hand. What someone means by the words they use is only known to them (thank you Lewis Carroll), so our best bet of understanding Miles' thoughts and creative processes by studying his quotes is to take them at face value. But Miles excelled in hidden meanings and this makes it a more complicated matter. John McLaughlin is amongst those that allude to Zen, "Miles in the studio directed very closely, but with very obscure statements. He was like a Zen master. He would give you very strange directions that were very difficult to understand, very obscure. But I think that was his intention, as it is with a Zen master. They will say something to you, and your mind will not be able to deal with it on a rational level. And so he made you act in a subconscious way, which was the best way. He had this gift of pulling the best things out of people, without them even realizing", giving Tingen his justification for interpreting some of Miles' characteristics in a Zen way.
Also extensively used are Ken Wilber's holons, conceptual elements that define a hierarchy for all objects (tangible and abstract). An aspect of holon philosophical thinking adapts the saying that "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts". This is a property that has also been recognised of integrated systems in sociology, embryology and recently ecology (in which emergent behaviour is unexplainable by just the plants, animals, etc., in the same way that a cake's texture is not explained by the appearance of its ingredients).
Now, neither Zen nor holism are home-baked philosophies, nor is using them to study Davis and his music an easy undertaking. And there is the added danger of alienating your audience. Being otherworldly can be a turn-off for most people, but even if you don't agree with the use of these philosophies that Tingen adopts to present his more personal analyses, you'll probably agree that including them provokes stimulating thought whilst broadening the musical context. However, in a few places this can interrupt the book's flow to the cost of the narrative. In his journey to incorporate a higher meaning, each characteristic of Davis referred to by a collaborating musician, friend or family member is laboriously anchored to some spiritual aspect or belief. And yet, contrarily, albums like Love Devotion Surrender and Birds of Fire, predominantly spiritual expressions, are accused of exhibiting virtuosity over meaning and form over content. However, Tingen is quite right that there is something deep and mysterious in Miles' music and something magical and supernatural about the man, but can it be formally analysed? Indeed, does it need to be formally analysed?
Undeniably Davis did have great educational powers. His capacity to listen and instruct his musicians how to listen underpins much of his teaching. [Hancock] once played a completely "wrong" chord in the middle of one of Miles' solos. Cringing with embarrassment, Hancock heard Miles instantly change his notes, to make Hancock's chord sound "right".
There is honesty and an admirable maturity to Tingen's approach. He openly adores Davis and this music, but his subject doesn't blind him. For example, he accepts that Davis did not invent jazz-rock but cleverly responded to the general movement in that direction. In fact, this section, 1967-68, is very skilfully unravelled, precisely showing how the second quintet was where rock started to be included and also highlights the first appearance of guitar and electric instruments.
Throughout, the book is packed with wonderful anecdotes from sessions that are a real pleasure to read. There has always been mystery surrounding the recording and production techniques that were used to construct the electric music. But, thanks to this book, at last, these methods have finally been clarified. To salvage the track [Go Ahead John] Macero tried to spice things up with some studio toys, most notably two new devices invented by CBS's research department. One was an "electronic switcher", which made it possible to instantly move an instrument to specific positions in the stereo spectrum; the other was called "instant playback", a variation on tape delay that allows "entire passages or single instruments to be played back at thirty- to forty- second intervals."... He continuously switched the placement of Jack DeJohnette's drums between left and right for long sections of the track, making it sound like there were two drums. The application of "instant playback" creates the impression that soloists are duetting with themselves.
A vital and invaluable contribution is the dissection of some of the more dense, hard to navigate recordings (particularly the live ones) from 1973-75. The technique employed uses track timings typical of a CD era book, focussing on the minutiae, but the full effect of each featured track is commented on as well. In fact, the dynamic flow of the text is like one of the extended tracks written about from that period; dense in its detail, rhythmic commentaries are drawn out trough the narrative as interweaving anecdotes solo across the broad base of clustered musicians' names.
There is very little to criticise throughout; a couple of errors were corrected for the second print-run. There is possibly only one contradiction when Tingen claims that the critics misunderstood the music because suitable hi-fi was not used. But, if Davis really wanted to reach "the street", and particularly black youth, then he would have appreciated that the music wasn't supposed to be heard on good quality audio equipment. Also some tracks are stated as having been edited too long, this grates a little. Now, this is not going to be a universal concern and is delivered too earnestly to be merely suggestive, but it should be noted that track length is identified as a strength elsewhere.
In a well-situated section coinciding with Davis' temporary retirement in the mid-70's (a comfortable interval between the two chronological halves of the book), Tingen carries out his perceptive psychoanalysis of Miles, the man, adding to those of Carr, Nisenson and Troupe, bringing together the contradictory elements of his persona. The evidence for the physical, mental and social Miles attempts to balance out the extremes. Judgements on his shortcomings are passed only by reference to quotes in which Davis criticises his own behaviour rather than condemnation by proxy. Tingen is sensitive in his assessment of a human Miles rather than the usual depiction of a detached demigod. When the testaments of others are used, Tingen has obtained the comments and commendation of none other than Jo Gelbard (Davis' partner from 1986) with which to show us how lonely and insecure he really was. This evidence is objectively balanced against the reports of Miles' dark side resulting in a well-conceived forward-looking appraisal of his contributions to music via his electric explorations.
Following Miles' famous self-imposed exile, Tingen continues the story with as much density and detail as his dealings with the '60's and '70s music. In fact, although you get the impression that his favoured period is from before the 5-year break, the section following it appears more detailed, probably because recollections are more easily made with events being more recent. The continuity of style from the previous section is only betrayed by the number of fleeting, under-documented engagements in the latter part of the "superstar" Miles' life. This bulk of information requires more structuring than the pre-'76 material and is therefore also reflective of the style of music from the times that it documents, the '80/'90's orchestral arrangements developed in the Davis live band during that time. All photographs are black and white bar the cover, but this is not a problem. Only it is disappointing that the album cover art was not featured, especially when the illustrator is Corky McCoy
It is questionable whether the claims of the book's publishers to be the first on Miles' electric period are true when one of the first references listed in the bibliography is Larent Cugney's "Electrique Miles 1968-1975". However, Tingen's book provides a voice to stand up to the anti-electric, anti-rock brigade, re-addressing the balance when jazz popularity is on the increase, and yet a major advertisement for it is in the shape of a television series which remains cemented in the retrogressive, acoustic attitude.
Is this book just jumping on the bandwagon of renewed interest in jazz, fusion and particularly Miles Davis? No, because it makes a genuine contribution to our understanding about the methods employed at that time and the approaches to making the crossover to fusion music, as well as extending this knowledge base beyond the fusion umbrella right up to the '90's. The fact that the majority of the quotes came directly from more than 50 interviews that Tingen carried out himself, in addition to the priceless appendices by Enrico Merlin (Miles Live Band Personnel 1963-1991, Discography 1967-1991 and Sessionography 1967-1991), a wealth of information has been made newly available. But is the main part of the book valuable enough in spite of Merlin's wizardry? Yes, because it complements these data with collected recollections of those involved, providing us with so much more than just a list of dates. It is an important and well-timed document on a widely influential period in music. An added bonus is that the topicality of the book allows included commentary on the planned box-set releases of In A Silent Way, Live Evil, Jack Johnson and On The Corner material.
For persuasion's sake, it is not necessary to be overly enthusiastic about this book, however, I'm going to be anyway - this is a fabulous read, ever entertaining in it's delivery of anecdotes and deeply stimulating with its thorough examination of Davis and the music. It is essential reading and an indispensable reference for any fan of Miles Davis (especially those that do not appreciate his electric music - go on, you might learn something!). The wealth of information about the recordings, production and Davis' sidemen also makes it widely applicable for any fan of theirs, and anyone generally interested in music from about that time.
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