Miles (and the title that dare not speak its name -- not on this blog, mister!)

I referred to this album a few posts ago, upset that someone hearing it thought it was "weird". Sigh.

I took a few Film Appreciation classes in college (don't judge me!). During the evaluation phase, one of my professors said "This class easily understands the visual 'language' of the foreign films we'd discussed in class, while I've had to study it." Well, we'd had been exposed to that 'language' in commercials and contemporary film; one generation's cutting edge is another's common denominator.

So that was my beef with the diss 'weird' aimed at one of Miles Davis' groundbreaking (again!) albums. It's not weird, it makes perfect sense -- but only if you were steeped in music current at the time. A critic with an ear tilted back to Basie, Ellington and even Charlie Parker would find "BB" alien, as I think one reviewer termed it.

Here's my take: many people think of this as the beginning of Miles' fall from grace, when he adopted rock star trappings in sound (loud) and clothing (louder) to tap into those rock star dollars. But (again?), as one critic said, this was not pandering, it was some of the most uncompromising music of his entire career. I think he discovered "the pulse", the rhythm that supports almost all music. Rock music pushes the beat to the fore, and I think Miles heard that, thought "Let's simplify the drum patterns, and if we focus on a simple pulse, we can pile all sorts of stuff on it -- it's the support, and as long as it's strong and prominent, we can go for it."

So yes, it doesn't sound like "Stella By Starlight" or "It Never Entered My Mind", and yes, there's no melody/solo/melody format -- but it's not 'weird', just different, and if you listen without preconceived ideas, I think you'd find it intriguing, challenging -- and not at all weird. I was disappointed to read how much producer Teo Macero formed the record, sifting through the hours of tape, splicing and editing the raw material into 'compositions'. The edits are more obvious on the remastered version -- I was always blown away how, in the first few minutes of "Pharaoh's Dance", the band stops for a nano-second, then starts at the top again (twice!). Oh, editing. I intend to find a crappy un-remastered version just so I can listen without seeing/hearing the man behind the curtain pulling the levers.

One final BB anecdote (and for the record, ha! -- I hate the album title, and I refuse to type it out because as someone who loves women, I won't use the derogatory term): I was working in the newspaper office one afternoon at Skagit Valley College, editing the school newspaper, and the instructor/newspaper advisor who shared the space was in one corner listening to a student project. It somehow involved the very album I've been blogging about, and he warned the instructor "Okay, this is pretty weird!" (Oh, crap, that word again!) The teacher said "That's okay, I've heard Pharaoh Sanders!"  -post-Coltrane squonk. Student proceeds to play the title track, which starts with some low bass notes, drum splashes, spiky electric piano chords, and some Miles trumpet blasts with echo effects. Weird, I know! And that's what the student says -- and after a few more minutes, I can't take any more. "Did you listen to the whole piece? Did you not understand that 'weird' part is just the introduction? Like a trumpet fanfare as the band enters the performing arena? Then the piece proper starts, proceeds, and then the intro starts again -- 3 times!!! It's not 'weird', there's a formal structure here!!! Auuugh!" As I remember, I went back to my desk seething, and I think they quietly concluded their business.