Music Monday: More Miles and Some Linda Oh

I had some book layout work to do this weekend and a manuscript to review. As a result, I had time to enjoy some music.

I read somewhere on my social media feed that this year marked the 55th anniversary of Miles Davis’s famous concert at the Isle of Wight music festival. By all accounts, it was a weird event that grew ever more chaotic as the days went on. When Miles and his band performed there were between 500,000 and 700,000 people at the festival. This makes this event the largest audience ever recorded for a jazz performance (and certainly for a jazz recording). More interesting still is that the band who performed with Miles featured Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett on keyboards, Gary Bartz on sax, Dave Holland on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. This group only performed together a few times and only in 1970. (You can see the band here at Tanglewood just a few days earlier.)

I’ve always liked the recordings which first were released on Bitches Brew Live in 2011. It begins at track 4 on this playlist.

I’ve also been really enjoying Linda May Han Oh, Tyshawn Sorey, and Ambrose Akinmusir’s latest album Strange Heavens. I’ve been listening to Akinmusire’s trumpet for the last few years, and this album really complements his groove (somewhere between Freddie Hubbard and Wadada Leo Smith). Sorey’s drumming is on point and Linda Oh is amazing on bass. This is perhaps my favorite album of the year so far (but I do have a very short memory…).

This album drew me to Uneasy (2021) with Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey, and Linda Oh. A very different vibe, but great late-summer Saturday morning music.

On last album, a bunch of people I know have been puzzling over this long lost album from 1967 by Phil Yost called Bent City.  Bandcamp featured it last week. I don’t know what to make of it either, but it’s worth a listen if you like weird shit.