In the spring of 1970, Miles Davis was fresh off his trailblazing, artistic watermarks In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, and focusing on the development of his live show. His band included some of the greatest session musicians in jazz at the time: bassist Dave Holland, keyboardist Chick Corea, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, and all were helping Miles to push the musical ideas he'd introduced on his records into uncharted territory in concert. But he was also very much inspired by the concept of using recording studios as compositional instruments, and when he set out to create the soundtrack to an obscure documentary on boxing icon Jack Johnson, it turned out he had many more ideas than could possibly find their way onto two sides of a single LP.
Following in the vein of Miles' recently issued Complete Sessions box sets for In a Silent Way or Bitches Brew (and featuring more raw material than either), this new five-disc collection shows a man consumed with evaluating the arsenal at his disposal. That meant recording countless takes on a theme, and, with assistance from producer Teo Macero, splicing those takes together into one coherent 40-minute release: 1971's A Tribute to Jack Johnson. But now, this compilation documents the sessions in their virtual entirety (there are a couple of missing takes, but nothing too essential), offering an incredible six hours of largely unheard material. As with the previous boxes from this era, fans will delight in hearing just about everything the musicians put to tape, as well as paging through the invaluable session info, extensive liner notes, and unseen photos included in the extensive and beautiful packaging. Obviously, though, anyone who hasn't heard and loved the original Jack Johnson album should check that out before dropping $60 on this exhaustive collection.
Disc one opens with several takes from a February 1970 session of the misleadingly titled "Willie Nelson" (it is, in fact, a Miles Davis original)-- much of which was incorporated into the original LP's largely ambient piece "Yesternow". The band, which here features Miles, Corea, Holland, DeJohnette, bass clarinetist Bernie Maupin, and guitarists John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock, set up a downbeat-heavy groove that reminds me of Funkadelic's "Music for Your Mother", if much less drugged-out. Davis enters about 40 seconds into "Willie Nelson (Take 2)" with a typically elongated phrase before settling into his "jab" motif with Maupin. Each take of the song offered here center around melodies similar to this one-- the real differences lie in Sharrock's, Miles' and Maupin's solos. It's a great way to kick off the set, if not quite as fiery a start as the original LP's "Right Off".
Later that month, Miles reconvened with a smaller band, keeping his rhythm section fully intact, but trading in Sharrock, Corea and Maupin for 19-year-old saxophonist Steve Grossman. They recorded a couple of speedier takes of "Willie Nelson" that boast more colorful McLaughlin lines and Grossman's pleasantly spooky soprano. Miles also gives some great solos, even sporting some of his bebop chops at times-- sax player Gary Bartz, a member of Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop and soloist on Miles' Live/Evil, said that some of the most exciting moments during the shows that eventually comprised the 1974 live offering Dark Magus were when Miles would reach back into history to pull out some of his old runs, and they certainly shine here. This band also tries out three versions of a tune called "Johnny Bratton" (previously unreleased, and starting the run of songs titled after boxers), a very rock-centric piece that sounds a bit like they were unsure of how to really nail this style. "Johnny Bratton (Insert 1)" is basically straight-ahead rock pounding (something like a fusion approximation of "Louie, Louie") with McLauglin doing his best to ensure that any tonal center is wiped out, and Holland entering with some admirable fuzz-wah bass playing.
In early March, Miles again headed into the studio with this same band to cut "Archie Moore" and several versions of "Go Ahead John". The former tune is a hard blues number with some very potent lines from McLaughlin-- in fact, Miles and Grossman sit this one out entirely, allowing the trio to bring it home like a seasoned rock band. Five takes of "Go Ahead John" pop up on disc two, showcasing Miles' midnight cool melody. The first part is a sparse, somber exercise in minimal blues, and features McLaughlin reeling off short, staccato statements similar to the ones played by Sharrock on the first disc. The second part of the tune is an odd combination of jittery funk and acid-rock, with DeJohnette playing a prehistoric drum-n-bass pattern and Holland holding a single bass note while McLaughlin shreds on the right. All five performances were later edited into a version released on 1974's Big Fun.
Mid-March saw Miles lay down two takes of the previously unissued "Duran" with McLaughlin, Holland, Maupin, soprano saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and drummer Billy Cobham. Miles' band was certainly getting a better idea of how to construct "simple" funk, as the basic, syncopated groove here could have been played (though never written) by any number of funk bands at the time. However, the robo-tight interplay of Cobham and Holland, along with McLaughlin's ever-edgy solos, make it much more interesting than just any ordinary breakdown. Miles reports, "that's some raunchy shit, y'all," and he's right. These guys (exit Cobham, enter future Return to Forever drummer Lenny White) also did the stop-time, angular funk tune "Sugar Ray", which Bill Mulkowski's liner notes curiously describe as "Devoesque" and "proto-punk." It sounds more like The Meters playing head games to me.
As April came around, Miles re-entered the studio with McLaughlin, Cobham, Grossman and Mike Henderson, a teenage bassist from Aretha Franklin's band, to record "Right Off" and the first half of "Yesternow". These two songs, of course, ended up serving as the tracklist on the original Jack Johnson LP, and anyone familiar with that record can attest to just how beautifully they pulled off "Right Off"'s uptempo shuffle, with McLaughlin's aggressive outcomping transforming the track from a merely interesting jazz experiment to full-on streetwise fusion. Herbie Hancock dropped by the studio as well (from the grocery store!) and got talked into laying down a fuzz-fried solo on Farfisa, a kind of organ he'd never played before. The track ended up purely celebratory, and the four takes on disc three provide just about every solo angle you could want. The two lengthy takes of "Yesternow" offered here are masterful runs into electric ambience, but inevitably not quite as interesting as Macero's final album edit.
In May, Miles added Keith Jarrett and percussionist Airto Moreira to the mix, cutting versions of "Honky Tonk" and "Ali". A short excerpt of "Honky Tonk" ended up on Live/Evil, but until now, the track has never been released in its entirety. Shame, too, because it's an excellent slice of blues-rock: Miles plays with confidence using an octave pedal while McLaughlin peals out still more spiky color for Jarrett to run rampant over. Considering that Jack Johnson would be Miles' last studio recording until On the Corner over two years later, it's hard to believe this song wasn't issued somewhere along the line.
"Ali", leading off disc four, sees the same band (here including longtime Elvin Jones collaborator Gene Perla, who nicks a riff from Hendrix's "Who Knows") following a groove similar to that of "Willie Nelson", but with a much better idea of how to flesh it out. And then there's "Konda", which the guys recorded without a bassist at all, and which didn't see release until 1981's Directions compilation. Jarrett's opening solo on electric piano perfectly sets up Miles' eerie, beautiful melody, and McLaughlin's harmonic work is practically unearthly, helping to make this track one of the box set's coolest pieces. Miles followed this muse a few days later for takes on Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal's "Nem Um Talvez". Neither of the versions here are the one from Live/Evil, though the second is remarkably close.
Miles wrapped recording in June, but not before taking most of the band from May's sessions (adding old friends Hancock and bassist Ron Carter) back into the studio for one last go at "Nem Um Talvez", three other Pascoal pieces ("Little High People", "Selim", "Little Church"), and another Davis original titled "The Mask". All of Pascoal's ballads seem to advance the side of Miles' music best heard on In a Silent Way, and serve notice to anyone who thought he'd abandoned that style for good at the turn of the decade. Unfortunately, "Little High People" is almost distractingly straightforward, at least in principal: The uptempo pop/rock groove brings Hancock's organ transmissions down to earth, and keeps Miles' wah-wah solos a bit too in check. Meanwhile, "Selim" (really just "Nem Um Talvez" with a different title) ended up on Live/Evil, along with the two versions of "Little Church" found on this set's fifth disc. Dave Holland came back to the fold to record both parts of the previously unreleased "The Mask": the first is a very out, keyboard-heavy free-jam with little assistance from Miles or McLaughlin, while the second-- hardly easy listening-- closes the sessions with an exhausted, punchdrunk swagger, finally collapsing after nearly 16 minutes.
The box, however, ends on a high note, with the original LP versions of "Right Off" and "Yesternow". I hesitate to go through them blow by blow because anyone investing in this box will almost certainly have already heard them many times over. Which, ultimately, is my only real caveat to The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions: there's more of interest here to fans; for a casual listener to tackle all five discs would be commendably ambitious, but an arduous challenge nonetheless. This set ranks behind both the Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way boxes in terms of the amount of music I'd want to just let play, uninterrupted. However, Miles Davis is one of those rare musicians who rarely failed to let a take pass without trying out something cool. As usual, the deeper you dig, the more you find.
