May 2020 - JAZZ IMPRESSIONS

Jack DeJohnette – Epilog

What do Mahavishnu Orchestra’s ‘Vital Transformation’ and Jack DeJohnette’s ‘Epilog’ have in common apart from being great examples of jazz fusion? They both begin with incredible drum breaks. ‘Epilog’ is the final track on DeJohnette’s album Sorcery released on Prestige in 1974.

Mahavishnu Orchestra – Vital Transformation

Category is: skull-crushing breakbeats. Enter the Mahavishnu Orchestra, whose high-intensity fusion of psychedelia, prog and jazz took the rock world by storm with its explosive debut The Inner Mounting Flame in 1971, which according to critic Richard S. Ginell “may have been the cause of more blown-out home amplifiers than any other record this side of Deep Purple.”

Miles Davis – Rated X

Two years after Miles released On The Corner came his album Get Up With It (1974) on Columbia Records, marking the end of a seven year period of electric jazz experimentation. This was a compilation album of songs Davis recorded between 1970 and 1974, many of which were part of the sessions for his earlier albums Jack Johnson (1971) and On The Corner (1972).

Miles Davis – Black Satin

Following on from Herbie Hancock’s jazz-robotics on ‘Rain Dance‘, we turn to another album that was Miles ahead of its time, and features three of the musicians who would go on to appear on Sextant: Herbie Hancock (keys), Bennie Maupin (bass clarinet) and Billy Hart (drums).