Blast from the Past: In a Silent Way

Last week on Head-Fi, somebody who listened to a lot of House music was looking for some recommendations of jazz music to check out.  The first thing that jumped to mind for me was Miles Davis' "In a Silent Way".

As I posted at Head-Fi, I consider Silent Way to be one of the masterpieces of modern music.  (The same goes for Miles' "Kind of Blue" - and how many artists can you think of that released two classic albums, ten years apart, in two distinct genres?).

While "Filles de Kilimanjaro", recorded in 1968 and released in 1969, may have hinted at the direction Miles was going to head, Silent Way was his first big step away from jazz and towards the new genre of fusion, albeit an almost proto-ambient type of fusion. 

Silent Way's foundation is the 3 keyboard lineup of Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Joe Zawinul.  John McLaughlin's guitar work here is tasty and restrained, as is Tony Williams' drumming.  Dave Holland shows why he is one of the all-time great jazz bassists.  Top it off with Wayne Shorter on sax and of course Miles on trumpet, both of them in a mode of adding to the milieu rather than tearing off solos.  One the remarkable things about the band Miles put together for the Silent Way sessions is that the members went on the form many of the seminal early '70s fusion bands:  Weather Report (Joe Zawinul & Wayne Shorter), Return to Forever (Chick Corea), Mahavishnu Orchestra (John McLaughlin), Headhunters (Herbie Hancock), and Tony Williams Lifetime (Tony & John McLaughlin).

Heavily edited and pieced together into two long tracks by Teo Macero, Silent Way moves away from individual solos and instead focuses on the group as a cohesive unit.  Unlike the subsequent Bitches Brew, which is very dense and challenging, Silent Way is beautifully ethereal.  Turn off the lights, pop on the headphones, and get lost in the atmospherics that these great musicians created.

1."Shhh/Peaceful" - 18:16
2. "In a Silent Way/It's About That Time" - 19:52

European Music Scene

I got to thinking the other day about how much of the music I've been picking up recently has been coming from Europe.  One of the major sources for my music is the Dime torrent site, where concert recordings of artists who do not object to these shows being traded are available for downloading.

Between terrestrial radio sources and European satellites, there are a ton of jazz & fusion concert recordiongs floating around out there.  And while a fair amount of these concerts are by American artists (Herbie Hancock jumps to mind as an artist who has had a fair number of concerts broadcast in the past couple of years) there is also a pretty solid contingent of newer artists from Europe who are making some very interesting music.  I've posted before about Eivind Aarset from Norway, and there is his cohort in the "nu jazz" scene Nils Petter Molvaer.  There's the excellent Dutch sax player Tineke Postma, the eccentric Oddjob, Marc Ducret, Nguyên Lê, Wolfgang Muthspiel...I could go on for awhile here.

The sheer variety of music broadcasts from Europe are impressive, and based on what pops up on the torrent sites we just don't get much of this type of music broadcast here in the States.  There are some exceptions of course - the Monterey and New Orleans Jazz Festivals have broadcast over the past few years (the 2006 Monterey set by Charles Lloyd remains a favorite of mine).

Unfortunately it seems that here in the US the media caters to the lowest common denominator - if they can't make a shitload of money off of something it's just forgotten.  It's a pity and probably doesn't bode well for the future of jazz in America, which is ironic.

Quiet Sunday Morning with Radio Massacre International

It's a rainy Sunday morning here in the Seattle area (of course it's raining, my son's baseball team was supposed to wrap up their fall season with a double-header later today - don't think that's gonna happen).

Everybody else was sleeping in so I had the family room to myself, decided to grab a book and my ipod and enjoy something mellow.

Radio Massacre International's Bothered Atmos really fit the bill.  Floating along in a nice ethereal space it was just what I needed given the mood of the morning.  These guys have some excellent releases out, think early Tangerine Dream as a general frame of reference.

1. Weightless (16:55)
2. Snap (11:56)
3. All The Water In The Universe Is Melted Comets (23:22)
4. Cathredral Floor (21:39)

Live Unitopia

So a recording from one of the Unitopia shows from their brief European tour this month has surfaced on Dime:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=327666

The sound is pretty good, although I must say that big part of what I like about them is the pristine production on their studio CDs.  Nevertheless this is a nice document of how they sound as a live band.  Also, the rumor is that one of the shows was recorded for a DVD release.

Odds and Ends

I was listening to Unitopia's "The Garden" over the weekend and was struck by the closing song "321".  Written as a tribute to the Beaconsfield Miners, the song really hit home in light of the amazing story of the Chilean miners rescued last week.

Three hundred and twenty-one hours, locked inside the earth
Three hundred and twenty-one hours, before we’d see the sun again
Three hundred and twenty-one hours, every minute lasts a lifetime
Three hundred and twenty-one hours…..

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Djam Karet is apparently out with a new release.  The clips on the website sound promising, I may have to pick this one up as I've enjoyed a number of their previous albums, especially "New Dark Age".


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For those who enjoy music more in the progressive rock vein, if you don't already you'll want to check out Bill's Prog Blog.

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Blast from the past files:  over the weekend I stumbled across my copy of Todd Rundgren's Utopia, the 1974 debut by that band.  Did it sound dated?  Maybe just a little bit.  But what a great album, brought back some memories of college.

Unitopia - Artificial

Unitopia is an Australian prog-rock band that turned a lot of ears with their 2008 double CD “The Garden”.  Falling into a “melodic symphonic prog” category, “The Garden” was an excellent pseudo-concept album anchored by a couple of epic tracks (the 22 minute title track and the 18 minute “Journey’s Friend”).



2010’s follow up, “Artificial”, is another extremely strong release.

“Artificial” is a bit more of a concept album than was “The Garden”.  According to Unitopia’s website, “Artificial” is “a 10 part suite based on the themes of artificial intelligence and behavior and how we perceive ourselves as a society and as individuals.  Covering topics such as dealing with low self esteem, overcoming depression, feelings of nostalgia and longing for the “good old days” and man’s great leap forward in science and technology”.



The CD’s ten tracks flow seamlessly together, presenting themselves a single, coherent piece with the final track, “The Great Reward”, revisiting many of the themes and pulling them all together to bring the CD to a strong conclusion.  Standout tracks include the 13 minute “Tesla” (named after the inventor Nikola Tesla) which moves through several different musical terrains to great effect, “Nothing Lasts Forever”, a piece of Beatle-esque pop confectionery straight from Sgt. Pepper, and “Rule of 3’s” (Nikola Tesla became obsessed with the number 3) which features a sinewy guitar riff that reminds me a bit of Martin Barre circa Thick as a Brick.



Mark Trueack’s vocals are a real strong point for the band, as are Matt Williams’ guitar work and Sean Timms’ keyboards.  Peter Raidel provides some very tasty sax work, I know a lot of prog fans don’t really care for sax but as a jazz fan I really appreciate the texture it can bring to the music, and Peter does a fantastic job here.  Jamie Jones (Drums), Shaun Duncan (Bass) and Tim Irrgang (Percussion) make up the strong rhythm section.  The overall production is superb as well.



Not only is Artificial on my list as one of the best releases of 2010, it is one of my “Desert Island Discs”.  Artificial is available from Amazon.

Miles from India

Clearly I have Miles Davis on the brain, and that's OK!

Last night I listened to the first disc of Miles from India, a fascinating collaboration between western musicians, many of whom had played with Miles over the years, and musicians from India.  Bob Belden produced this package and did a fantastic job of selecting the artists and a cross-section of Miles' music.  My tastes run towards Miles' electric period (from Silent Way through his "retirement" in '75) although I do enjoy some of his earlier work (and come on, "Kind of Blue" still stands as an absolute masterpiece of 20th century music).

The music here really benefits from the textures added by the Indian musicians on traditional eastern instruments.  The contrast between the organic sounds of their instruments with Pete Cosey's downright nasty guitar tone is really a beautiful thing.  Mike Stern also adds some nice guitar work on a couple of tracks, and really the list of musicians is a "who's who" of jazz musicians who had worked with Miles including Ron Carter, Gary Bartz, Michael Henderson, Chick Corea, Marcus Miller, John McLaughlin, and so on.

This is a truly excellent album.

Music in Weird Places

I listen to a lot of music when I'm doing other things - driving, walking, reading, etc.  I'd consider all of those pretty common I guess.

Today I had to have an MRI, and the radiology center had a pretty extensive list of music to choose from to listen to during the procedure.  Since I was pretty antsy about the whole thing I wanted something kind of relaxing, so I opted for Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain".  In retrospect, probably not the best choice for the circumstances.  I should have chosen some sort of industrial/metal rock, then all of the weird grinding/buzzing/clicking noises the machine made would have just blended in.

Anyway, I'm hoping to pick up the pace on the posts, and I'm working on one in more of a prog-rock vein right now...