Marvels Of Miles On The Flugel
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday January 31, 1989
WHEN Buddy Holly died, his small record collection included a 45 rpm containing four tracks from Miles Davis's Miles Ahead album. According to reports, Holly wanted to sing either with Davis or in a setting that echoed the sonorities of Gil Evans's orchestrations. I still have a copy of that 45, and it is my idle whimsy that Buddy and I may have bought it at the same time. Certainly neither of us would have heard anything like it.
The album has some dramatic intimations of the later Sketches of Spain, but the tracks on the 45 are like a final summation of the so-called cool period. Lacking the programmatic elements of Sketches of Spain and Porgy and Bess, they distil the strange, detached intimacy of Davis's supposedly cooler playing. Using the softer-edged flugel horn for the first and almost the last time, Davis constructs solos that are marvels of modular compactness and obliquity - as if he were imparting cryptic suggestions to a hypnotised subject.
Fascinating, to an almost maddening degree. Rather more maddening is the CBS restoration of this art treasure. The sound is superb, apart from the flugel horn's being set too far back in the mix, but anyone familiar with the original pressing will soon notice something very odd. Some tracks are obviously out-takes, with Davis playing completely different solos. On other tracks Davis begins with phrases identical to the master-takes, even to the slightest inflection and error, and then moves in another direction. There was some evidence of tape splicing on the original, so it seems that what we are getting are out-takes plus master-takes minus the splices. Curious. Even curioser that the liner notes make no mention of this.
The solos, on the whole, are inferior to those on the masters. On one track Davis plays his written part scrappily and solos indifferently, as if it were just a warm-up. Are the masters lost? Is it worth buying as it stands? For the stunning orchestral sound, yes, and for some of Davis's playing. He never played quite like this before or since (his playing with his quintet at the time was quite different), and for many this must serve as the only indication of what was achieved on the original Miles Ahead.
Some of the most interesting current bands mix American and European, black and white, young and aging players. It has taken decades for this fraternity to develop. Once, few non-Americans were considered good enough to get the"real jazz" feel. This is no longer the case. Perhaps more importantly, it is now recognised that the American way is not the only valid one. Elements that were once considered unhip are now embraced. Ornette Coleman's Virgin Beauty album had a wonderful country guitar solo. Miles Davis does not shy from atmospheric electronics once automatically taken to denote phoniness. The intense separateness of inner-core jazz served its purpose - the creation of a unique stream of modernism that reflected the urban environment as perhaps no other music had - but much jazz has now been absorbed and overtaken by music at large.
Much, but not all. Jazz still has something special to say, as Miles Davis and Ornette Coleman have shown, but that something had narrowed down to a thin stream before musicians such as British saxophonist Andy Sheppard began to embrace anything and everything that was of use in the musical environment. Using Europeans and Americans - including Randy Brecker - a synthesiser on two tracks and exotic echo effects on another, Sheppard has made an album that has an instantly appealing ambience while being far removed from the calculated singles bar music of a Kenny G.
Fresh, often sweet, often funky, sometimes rawly exciting music, it sounds as if it were made for pleasure, and to communicate with no particular target audience. Worth hunting out in the import shops, for itself and as an introduction to a wealth of vivid music - Dave Holland, Old And New Dreams, Henry Threadgill, etc - that goes practically unremarked in this country.
© 1989 Sydney Morning Herald