Music Monday: More Miles and Some Woody Shaw
This past week involved the luxury of a couple of longer listening sessions. One night, I had the house to myself and listened to TWO Miles Davis albums in my effort to navigate his studio outputs. This is what happens with the NBA takes breather before the playoffs and the Phillies have off.
Listening to all of Miles Davis’s work with his second quintet has been a revelation. The Difference between Miles Smiles (1966) and Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968) is pretty staggering even if we only listen to the Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock tracks. Dave Holland and Chick Corea introduced their own sound.
Miles in the Sky (1968) seems more of a watershed than I had expected. It’s big and tonal and dark. I feel like I could hear In a Silent Way brewing in it as much as the kind impressionistic moments of Nefertiti (1967). Maybe it’s the changing attitude of Miles and Shorter to the rhythm section of Carter and Williams. Carter and Williams feel like they’re driving these albums forward. Miles, Shorter, and at times Hancock ride atop the wave where they speak their truth.
Along with Miles, I keep digging through various discographies to find new things. For example, I’ve found Woody Shaw’s The Moontrane totally enchanting. I don’t know the ensemble well: Steve Turre on trombone, Azar Lawrence on sax, Onaje Allan Gumbs on piano, Cecil Mcbee on bass, and Victor Lewis and Guilherme Franco on percussion. While the line up might suggest a pretty intense and dense album, but Shaw’s trumpet makes itself heard and felt throughout. This is one of the Muse Records releases that deserves to be more available than it is.
Finally, as people who read my blog know, I’m a fan of James Brandon Lewis. His very recent album with the Lutosławski Quartet called These are Soulful Days and recorded in Wrocław in 2021 is good and enjoyable. “Movement III” seems to capture the title of this album most accurately.
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