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LIVING MUSIC

28 marzo, 2019

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By Julian Morrell

First of all, let us remember Dick Dale, “King of the Surf Guitar”. He left us wanting more, passing away March 16. Richard Monsour grew up in the eastern United States and at the age of 17 moved with his family to Southern California where he fell in love with surfing. His father was Lebanese and his mother Polish and the influence of Middle Eastern music was evident in his guitar playing. He wanted to recreate the roar of the waves while surfing and played electric guitar loudly and rhythmically. Reverberation and volume were his trademarks; he helped Fender develop a 100 amp amplifier that could handle the loudness he wanted. He influenced many U.S. electric guitar players including Jimi Hendrix. From Dick Dale’s first album,” Surfers’ Choice”, 1962:

(Dig that crazy chick!)

And more recently:

Jazz Fusion is our subject this week, specifically Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew”. There were some jazz musicians doing proto-jazz/rock fusion prior to “Bitches Brew”, like Larry Coryell, Gary Burton & Charles Lloyd, but Miles blew it up with “Bitches Brew” recorded in 1969 (released 1970).

Miles had used electric instruments before on “In A Silent Way” (recorded in one session & released March 1969). Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul played electric pianos with John McLaughlin adding electric guitar plus Miles’ trumpet, Wayne Shorter on sax and Dave Holland, bass and Tony Williams, drums. There are only two compositions, one for each side of the album: “Shhh/Peaceful” and “In a Silent Way”. Side One, composed by Miles:

It can be said that this piece is a traditional sonata form with three sections: exposition, development, recapitulation. The first part is the theme (“What we’re going to talk about”) followed by the development (“This is what we want you to know”) and then the recapitulation (“This is what we told you”). It is the beginning of the electric period. Miles was influenced by Jimi Hendrix, funk and afro-futurist sounds. Sly Stone, Sun Ra & Parliament-Funkadelic must have been on Miles’ turntable.

As I said, Miles blew it up on “Bitches Brew” with two electric pianos (sometimes three), electric guitar, electric bass plus acoustic bass, two conga players, two drummers, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet and Miles’ trumpet. Using rock rhythms, frequent tempo and key changes and most notably, extended improvisations, this album set the jazz world on its ear.

Electric piano replacing acoustic piano opened up the sonic possibilities in the rhythm section and having two drummers plus percussionists expanded the music from within. John McLaughlin’s guitar parts are revelatory, basically bypassing every known style of electric guitar, leaving all formality behind.

My brother-in-law gave me this album for my 17th birthday. I had been listening to Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and the bebop jazz players but this album expanded my musical consciousness enormously. Nobody was playing like this and Miles was not new to the scene. He played on record with Charlie Parker in 1944 and his major debut album was released on Prestige records in 1959. So Miles had been there and this was all new, electric, loud, complex, with a different foundation and sonically beyond the borders of jazz at the time.

The impact of this album was tremendous. “Bitches Brew” brought jazz to rock music and rock music, funk and R&B to jazz. Long improvisational pieces were more common in each. Rhythms were fluid, changes were common. Electrified instruments were the thing, jazz became loud. Songs could be built up, torn down and either put back together.. or not.

Miles Davis also released “Live-Evil”, further explorations into electric jazz. The live portions of the album were recorded at The Cellar Door in Washington, D.C. in 1970. It is quite different from “Bitches Brew” with Miles playing electric trumpet with wah-wah pedal, sax, drums, percussion and electric guitar, piano, organ and bass. All the musicians playing freely but still interacting with and following each other’s improvisations.