Miles Davis

This weeks cover image is in birthday celebration of the great man Miles Davis. Nearly 50 years of music greatness. Arguably the father to the Birth of Cool.

I have a lot of time for Miles Davis. It’s like he’s become more of an enigma, like Prince than just a regular musician. But I suppose that’s a lesson right there for all the young kiddies out there wondering what they need to do to become well known in their field. Do it. Do it some more and then just keep doing it until you don’t think about doing it anymore, it’s just what you do….*cue Miles Davis.

My first introduction to Miles was through my parents once again. I can’t be sure who was the fan, Mum or Dad, but what I do know is that when a Miles Davis album fills the room, it’s like you can take a breath. It’s calling out for you to sit and just chill the fuck out.

Personally, I’m a fan of his earlier, more classic jazz style as opposed to the direction he went later in his career. I know I’m not the only one on this trip, but it’s hard to argue with someone who has dominated the jazz scene for such a long time. What he says goes and I’m sure from all my readings that if he was one thing, it was not that he was stuck in the past. Even to the point where he would refuse to play any of his early stuff off ‘Birth of Cool’ or Kind of Blue’.

I would love to have met him. I’ll be honest though, I reckon he was the silent type who would have intimidated the hell out of me. That being said though, just an intimate dinner to chat and hear what he had to say. I can dig that.

Finally, I am continuing to pop albums/artists like Davis on as much as possible when the kids are around because in a world of disposable pop like never before, I just want them to remember that once they have traversed the mountain of musical shit that they are bombarded with on a daily basis, whether it be age 13 or 33, you will always come back to what you know and what feels familiar. Childrens musical education 101 people. Lets make it a thing…oh look, I just made it a thing!

I have had this album on vinyl for as long as I can remember. The cover is so familiar to me, nearly as much as the announcement made by the host one minute into track four to say “We’re gonna have a break for 15 minutes so you can get up and stretch and wet your whistle in the lounge”.

I have a real affiliation to live albums I’ve gotta be honest. Not all, but they remind me of a time when the chance to record something real, collaborative and live was just a part of the musical landscape. It’s not so much now. I think this is also why artists from the 50’s and 60’s could produce so many albums. But often when looking through Jazz albums, the list of artists on the front of the album would kind of be the pulling factor. Every now and then I’d discover an album with 3 or 4 artists I absolutely love and more often than not, the albums would not disappoint. For instance, an album called Somethin’ Else by Cannonball Adderley [Sax Player] has Miles playing on it [Horns] & Art Blakey [Drums] all coming together to play some new, some standards, but all excellent versions. Its the collaborations that in this day and age are coined ‘Super Groups’.

But even then, a super group tends to stay together for a while. These dudes just drifted from one recording to another. Kinda like if John Mayer just went and did an album with Thom Yorke, Jack White & Quest Love. Just for a live album. It’d be friggen sick. Unfortunately everything is monetised so drastically today that this freedom seems to have slipped away. Different time, sure. But jazz is a different beast as well. Maybe I think I like it that way as well.

If you don’t get into jazz, I understand. I don’t agree, but I understand. But if at some stage you’re like “I would just like to give Miles Davis a listen”, try his early stuff. It’s typically jazz and he’s floor-less. If you are a jazz fan then I don’t think it’s possible for you not to know Miles.

I actually have listened to a fair amount of Davis over the years, but one of the albums I still play consistently is a soundtrack to a 1991 D-Grade Australian film called ‘Dingo’ with Colin Friel that Miles produced. This film is the kind of thing you’d find at the VHS shop as they flog their last ever video tape stock in an effort to buy Blue Ray Discs…because that’s like the next big thing. [Its gonna be huge!] So as much as the film is OK *grimaces to no one in particular*, the soundtrack is fucking beautiful. In fact its in my favourites of all time. So even in his weird phase [late in life], Miles still had this ability to make brilliant music [not films. Did we establish that?]

You can read it here if you wanna… https://nighthawksmusic.com//soundtracks/dingo/

So, in a last ditch effort to try and convince non jazz lover to find a skerrick of appreciation for a genre let alone one of the masters within it, I want you to wonder how in the age of black and white TV, a man who doesn’t play popular music, isn’t white and  isn’t exactly the poster boy for the communication channel, paved a road of success with nothing but music that sang to you without words. He’s an idol for a lot of peeps out there. They get it. Because like a lot of genius music by genius artists,  its universal.

So lets all just take a breath, sit down and just chill the fuck out about jazz music. Why?…because it was the forerunner to anything we perceive as pop music today. And Miles was a visionary when it came to pushing the boundaries.

Plus, his middle name was Dewey….and thats so uncool its cool.