Miles Davis Archives - JAZZ IMPRESSIONS

Routes: A Jazz Impressions Podcast – Episode 9

We take flight in Episode 9 with two classic live cuts: Joe Henderson’s ‘Junk Blues’ and Don Pullen & George Adams’ ‘Saturday Night In The Cosmos’. But what’s the best route? Via Italy and Japan? Or as the crow flies? Ornithophobics need not apply. Thanks for all your support in this first year of the podcast and stay tuned for more Routes in the new year. Keep watching the skies!

Also available on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

Tracklists below (SPOILERS!)

Cannonball Adderley – The Black Messiah

The year before pianist George Duke featured on Frank Zappa’s The Grand Wazoo, he recorded two solo albums and spent the best part of the year playing in the Cannonball Adderley Quintet. If Zappa was Duke’s mentor in all things rock, Cannonball was his teacher in jazz and soul. Joining Adderley’s Quintet gave the young Duke an opportunity to develop not only as a performer, but also as a composer and arranger. In the summer of 1971, Cannonball and his band recorded a live album at The Troubadour club in West Hollywood, Los Angeles. The album was named after its title track, a composition by Duke, and was released later that year as a double album on Capitol Records.

Pete La Roca – Lazy Afternoon

One of the many attractive qualities of jazz, more than any other musical genre, is how the same song can be interpreted in many different ways. Whether this is Bill Evans and Yusef Lateef offering their personal takes on a classic soundtrack, or Ahmad Jamal and Bobby Hutcherson reworking a Herbie Hancock original, the musical freedom that underpins jazz allows its musicians to constantly reinvent and offer fresh perspectives on popular classics. In his last post, Dan wrote on guitarist Grant Green’s version of the ballad ‘Lazy Afternoon’. Whilst Green’s version is excellent, the definitive version in my opinion of this well known standard is found on drummer Pete La Roca’s album Basra, released in 1965 on Blue Note.

Idris Muhammad – Piece Of Mind

After a couple of months in hibernation, we’re back! In our last post, Dan chose Freddie Hubbard’s fusion classic ‘Red Clay’, released on CTI Records in 1970. A year after this album was released, CTI founded Kudu Records, a sub-label intended to showcase artists with a more commercial appeal to their CTI counterparts. Consisting of mainly black musicians, Kudu’s releases were often rooted in the soul jazz sound that was popular at the time. Drummer Idris Muhammad’s defining masterpiece Power Of Soul, released on the label in 1974 is one of the standout albums of the Kudu catalogue.

Joe Henderson – Power To The People

From two great tenor sax players to another, today’s post focusses on Joe Henderson’s politically titled track ‘Power To The People’ from his album of the same name, released on Milestone in 1969. Mainly compromised of Henderson originals, this album was the first in a string of political albums Henderson released in the late 60s and early 70s which were inspired by an increased awareness of black issues and the Black Power movement which reached its peak at the beginning of the 70s.

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.

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).

Herbie Hancock – Rain Dance

Happy International Jazz Day 2020! After a spell of beautiful spring sunshine, the British weather has gone back to its usual rainy habits. What better way therefore to celebrate with another Herbie track released a couple of years prior to his funky ‘Hang Up Your Hang Ups’.

Jackie McLean – Sweet Love Of Mine

At first glance, it could be easy to mistake Jackie McLean’s album Demon’s Dance as a close sibling of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. Both were released in the same year and sport psychedelic cover artwork by Mati Klarwein but the similarity ends there. Whereas Bitches Brew was a mind-bending concoction of jazz, rock and funk, Demon’s Dance is beautiful example of modal hard bop, recorded three years earlier in 1967 and was the last of 21 albums that McLean recorded for Blue Note Records.