Music Monday: Miles, Buster, and Dave

I keep working my way through Miles Davis’s studio albums this year and as we get to albums recorded in the later 1960s and 1970s, the time commitment necessary listen to the entire album becomes more daunting with most of his 1970s output approaching or exceeding an hour each.

Then there is 1969’s In a Silent Way. 38 minutes:

For a long time, I accepted that Kind of Blue was Miles Davis’s masterpiece. While I dislike the practice of ranking albums (or books or whatever), it seems reasonable to assert that In a Silent Way is also a masterpiece. I’ll leave it to others to decide whether an artist can have multiple masterpieces. I can’t really add much to what others have written about In a Silent Way: it’s dark, it’s organic, it’s disturbing at times while being palpably brilliant. 

During my travels, I downloaded the newly released Joe Henderson live album, Consonance, from Tidal onto my phone. I planned to listen to it on various flights, but I forgot the adapter that allowed me to connect my little Dragonfly DAC to my phone. When I got home, I intended to listen to it on my home system, but by the time I found some time to listen, the album had disappeared from Tidal. I was able to play a few tracks from the version of the album I had saved to my phone before it too had vanished. I know enough about Resonance releases to feel confident that this album will reappear in a few months. What I heard from the album was good though and I’m interested in hearing the new Ahmad Jamal release is also worth a listen.

Both of these albums appeared as part of the predictable gaggle of “Record Store Day” releases. One of the more intriguing re-releases was Buster William’s 1975 debut album from Muse records: Pinnacle. This album featured Sonny Fortune on sax, Earl Turbinton on woodwinds (particularly bass clarinet), Billy Hart on drums, and Onaje Allan Gumbs on piano and synths. Woody Shaw appears on a couple of tracks as well with his distinctive trumpet moving above the groove. The album is really quite remarkable. It integrates post-bop, fusion, and elements of early 1970s spiritual jazz into a sound that’s not quite unique, but certainly compelling. Unfortunately, the album isn’t available on Tidal, but does appear on YouTube. Check it out here:

Finally, I’ve been enjoying the new Dave Douglas album, Transcend, with Rafiq Bhatia on guitar, James Brandon Lewis on sax, Tomeka Reid on cello, and Ian Chang on drums. I’ve only had a chance to listen to it a few times, but from what I’ve been able to enjoy, it’s fantastic.