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