This sunrise was taken from the summit of Mt. Monadnock, New Hampshire during the summer of 1988, just before we moved to Texas.
It was the last thing I did as a Boy Scout and it was probably the coolest. We started hiking to the summit around 3am and arrived just before dawn. All around we could see the tops of other mountains poking out of a sea of clouds.
It’s the best sunrise I’ve ever seen.
I finally finished reading Thomas Ricks’ thoroughly depressing Fiasco. It’s a well documented and engagingly written account of the disaster in Iraq. It is also a tale of self-inflicted wounds in which those who make the choices are never the ones who feel the pain.
Since I first started reading Fiasco, the Democrats have taken back congress, Rumsfeld – one of the many villains in this sorry episode of our history – has been deservedly sacked with full honors, and Saddam Hussein executed. It’s not enough, though. We’re still stuck in this mess of our own choosing.
Ricks documents the rush to war in Washington and then the poor planning for the occupation. Much is made of the fact that strategic decisions were regularly made based on data summarized in that great shortcut to thinking PowerPoint, which while useful is probably not expansive enough a tool for developing war strategy and foreign policy.
Much of Fiasco is based on interviews with military commanders at all levels in the chain of command and what emerges is a portrait of the Iraq situation from the ground up. There appears to be much anger within the military regarding the way the Army and Marine Corps were thrown into this situation without proper training in and support for occupation and counterinsurgency.
Throughout the book, Ricks documents instances in which military commanders operate in the most counterproductive ways, flouting established methods for dealing with counterinsurgency. There are bright spots, where cooler heads and wiser generals operate in relative harmony with the local Iraqi population, but time and again these units that post records of reduced insurgent activity and very little abuse are rotated home and replaced by those with heavier hands.
There are some bright spots – Marine General James Mattis and Army General David Petraeus who both seem to grasp the nature of the task at hand. Just today, Petraeus was placed in charge of all troops in Iraq. It may not matter much, though.
The situation as Ricks paints it is bleak, and it is one that will surely haunt this nation for many years.
A Sonic Youth cover of a Madonna tune and Supertramp, Jobim following the Milkmen all playing harmoniously in today’s random ten, yet it works. Asterisks by the ones I’ve caught live.
I’ve never attempted a thematic playlist on iTunes, but today I wondered what the history of the world would sound like coming from my iPod. What emerged is actually kind of a cool playlist. Here it is…
“Circa 1762” – Pavement
“1916” – Nucleus
“1916 (Battle of Boogaloo)” – Nucleus
“Easter 1916” – Nucleus
“Paris 1919” – John Cale & Alejandro Escovedo
“Cadillac 1959” – Bill Frisell
“1962” – Michael Fracasso with Patty Griffin
“1963” – New Order
“’64 Aka Go” – Lemonjelly
“1968” – Bill Frisell
“Winter ’68” – The Black Angels
“Summer ’68” – Pink Floyd
“’68 Aka Only Time” – Lemonjelly
“Death Valley ’69” – Sonic Youth
“October 1970” – Mushroom
“1972 Bronze Medalist” – The Bad Plus
“’75 Aka Stay With You” – Lemonjelly
“’76 Aka The Slow Train” – Lemonjelly
“1979” – Smashing Pumpkins
“1979 Semi-Finalist” – The Bad Plus
“’79 Aka The Shouty Track” – Lemonjelly
“1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)” – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
“The World in 1984” – Shearwater
“’88 Aka Come Down On Me” – Lemonjelly
“’90 Aka A Man Like Me” – Lemonjelly
“The Summer of ’91” – …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
“Food Gathering In Post-Industrial America, 1992” – Frank Zappa
“’93 Aka Don’t Stop Me Now” – Lemonjelly
“’95 Aka Make Things Right” – Lemonjelly
“Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997” – Beck
“2001 Spliff Odyssey” – Thievery Corporation
Maybe it’s time for school to start again?
Anyways, feel free to steal this meme-like. I won’t tag anyone, though.
Last week, we started listening to Miles Davis’ live electric output from the early ’70s and today, we reach The Cellar Door Sessions, a box set that documents four days (Dec 16-19, 1970) of Miles and his band moving away from the Bitches Brew material and beginning to move in a funkier direction.
The new band consisted of Michael Henderson on bass, Gary Bartz on sax, Keith Jarrett on electric piano and electric organ, and Jack DeJohnette on drums joined by percussionist Airto Moreira on the 17th-19th and guitarist John McLaughlin on the 19th. Over the course of the four night stand they worked out on seven tunes: “Directions,” “Yesternow,” “What I Say,” “Inamorata,” “Honky Tonk,” “It’s About That Time,” and “Sanctuary,” with a Keith Jarrett improv preceding each version of “Inamorata.”
Edited versions of some of the recordings from the 19th were released in 1971 on Live-Evil. The rest were kept in the vault until the 2005 release of The Cellar Door Sessions.
Listening through this is a truly amazing trip. Each rendition of each song is slightly different and over the course of the four days each song that is played more than once evolves as the musicians come to more fully understand what Miles was after.
“What I Say,” with its funky groove and simmering intensity forces a body to move. It’s just impossible to sit still while this is playing, particularly the 21 minute version from disc five that features John McLaughlin on guitar. Ever since I first heard it on Live-Evil (incidentally, it’s the only unedited track on that album) it’s been one of my favorite numbers from Miles’ electric live material.
Other highlights include the disc three version of “Honky Tonk,” a fascinating workout for Jarrett. For the most part, it’s a slow plodding tune but Jarrett’s deft touch on the electric piano (far more interesting than Corea’s blocky chord playing earlier in the year) makes the track. There’s a searching quality as Jarrett seems to explore the song’s structure before taking off in flights of notes that eventually settle like birds landing on a sound wave.
On disc four, Miles leads a beautiful and introspective – if short – “Sanctuary,” the only song remaining from Bitches Brew, that cools things down after a scorching “What I Say.” Miles’ trumpet sounds as haunting as ever and leads nicely into one of Jarrett’s pre-“Inamorata” improv moments. That improv leads to my favorite “Inamorata” whereupon the whole band comes back like an engine revving while Miles and Gary Bartz soar above.
The best of this exemplary set, though, is found on the last two discs when John Mclaughlin sat in on guitar. McLaughlin’s playing is intense and explosive as ever, doing to jazz what Hendrix did to rock. Miles’ music of this period screams for the addition of guitar (including screaming guitar), and most of the material for the three quintessential Miles electric studio albums (In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, and A Tribute to Jack Johnson) feature McLaughlin. Guitar (expecially his) is the missing ingredient on all of the electric Miles recordings of 1970 until the last sets of the The Cellar Door Sessions. From that point on, the rest of the released recordings from the early ’70s would feature electric guitar.
After The Cellar Door Sessions, I went back to listen to Live-Evil, which from 1971 to 2005 was the only available recording of this music. All of the live music is edited from the sets featuring McLaughlin. I’ve always enjoyed Live-Evil, but now that I’ve heard the unedited versions, I probably won’t go back to it much. The album is filled out with interesting studio material (is this the evil part?) recorded earlier in the year and available in The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions.
1970 was a year in which Miles Davis managed to alienate most of the jazz world by plugging in and incorporating rock style guitar intensity with funk rhythms and jazz improv. This was music unlike any that had ever been heard before. Was it even still jazz or was it something new? Miles seems to be searching for a way to connect with the times and currents swirling around him, the music in the air and on the radio, but though the sounds, electrified, intense and sometimes sinister were changing his trumpet is as moving as ever. Unfortunately, these recordings were where many of Miles’ longtime fans abandoned him.
It was only starting to get interesting.
Yes, it’s the same picture as last year, but then it’s the same weather outside too. A tradition, perhaps?
Happy ’07.
Cheers.
We caught the first set of Galactic’s show at La Zona Rosa on Thursday night. They were touring without the singer who appeared on Ruckus and instead performed an instrumental set, which I enjoyed. Jam bands don’t really need singers since the vocals tend to get in the way of exploration anyway.
Highlights included a rendition of “Bittersweet,” the only tune on which I thought I’d miss the vocals, but it sounded even better without. They closed the first set with a song that sounded familiar to me. My wife told me it was “Cashmere” by Led Zeppelin. Galactic, of course, is the far superior band and they managed to turn a Led Zeppelin tune into something funky and, to me, interesting.
Despite enjoying the music, we left early, feeling a bit defeated by the whole thing. Not the band, but just the sorry circumstances one has to endure to “enjoy” live music. When I add up the fact that there’s nowhere to sit, too many people in a cramped room, and the late hours, it becomes increasingly easy to walk away from a show after I’ve had enough.
Perhaps I’ve gotten spoiled lately, seeing bands that don’t draw much of an audience and so places aren’t crowded, but I realized that I just can’t stand in one spot for the hours on end that so much of the improvisational music that I love requires.
Mainly, I wanted to be outside in the fresh air, surrounded by fewer people, and, more than anything, I wanted a place to sit. Galactic was good, lots of energetic exploration of their funky grooves, and I’d probably have stayed if there were chairs or if it had started earlier or if my back wasn’t hurting.
I guess I’m getting too old for this. Damn.
One of the things I really like about vacation is the chance to listen to music, not listen as in playing it in the background while doing other things or sitting in traffic, but listen as in sit in front on the stereo focusing on the music as one might read a book.
Today, the book we started was Miles Davis’ live electric output from the early 70’s. We got the Cellar Door Sessions for Christmas, which means that we have – I think – all of the live material that was released between 1970 and 1975 when Davis went on hiatus.
First up was Live at the Fillmore East (March 7, 1970): It’s About That Time. This two-disc set features Wayne Shorter on sax playing his last gig with Miles, Chick Corea on electric piano, Dave Holland on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums with Airto Moreira on percussion. The material is primarily drawn from Bitches Brew, which had yet to be released and probably had the audience wondering what in the hell had happened to Miles Davis.
The sound is raw and a bit murky. This material was only released a few years ago and probably was recorded without the intention of releasing it. Despite the murkiness of the sound it reveals Miles in transition (of course when was he ever not?) testing new material and making a sharp break with the past. Here his band sounds muscular and enormous and Shorter’s sax playing is as aggressive and intense as ever. The best parts are on disc two: “Bitches Brew” and “It’s About That Time/Willie Nelson.”
Next up comes Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West recorded on April 10, 1970. It features the same lineup as It’s About That Time except that Shorter is gone and has been replaced by Steve Grossman. The sound on these discs is clean and crisp and it’s apparent that the band has gotten very comfortable with the Bitches Brew material.
Highlights include an exceptional rendition of “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down” with a great Grossman solo over Holland’s pulsing bass. The tune ends with a fuzzy keyboard freakout followed by what is probably my favorite version of “Willie Nelson.”
This “Willie Nelson” has a funky feel that leads into a nice call-and-response bit between Miles and Corea on the electric piano. This shifts into Corea playing a simple riff for Miles to solo over until Holland comes in mirroring the riff on bass. Miles exits and Corea takes his turn soloing while Holland continues the original riff that Corea had begun.
After “Willie Nelson,” Miles takes over with a short “I Fall in Love Too Easily” from his Seven Steps to Heaven days. This provides a brief and lovely interlude that acts as a respite from the electric explorations and funky fury of the previous tracks. It doesn’t last long, but it’s a poignant reminder of Miles’ past and a place where the audience certainly had a chance to catch its collective breath.
Next up came At Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East recorded June 17-20, 1970 by the same group that recorded Black Beauty, but with the addition of Keith Jarrett on organ. This album consists of four medleys comprised of selections of tracks recorded over the four night stand.
“Wednesday Miles” was my favorite, comprised of “Directions,” a 53-second “Bitches Brew” that made me wonder what the other fifteen minutes must sound like, “The Mask,” “It’s About that Time,” a muscular stomp-down groove that shifts into a pensive, searching trumpet solo floating above a seething volcanic stew of keyboards and bass before shifting into “Bitches Brew/The Theme.”
“Saturday Miles” has a very futuristic electronic feel to it, almost as if the music with all its bleeps and skronks was made for robots, but then Miles’ trumpet comes in on another “I Fall in Love Too Easily” that segues seamlessly into “Sanctuary” together lending a lonesome human feel, a different version of an imagined future, before spiraling into the pumping chaos of “Bitches Brew.”
At Fillmore more than anything is a sampling of four nights of what must have been amazing music. I hope someday Columbia will release a complete At Fillmore box set as they have done recently with the Cellar Door Sessions recorded in December 1970.
Taken together these CDs give a fascinating glimpse of Miles Davis taking the Bitches Brew material on the road, exploring and expanding on the new sounds before he permanently added guitar and got funky(er).
And, here’s the tree…
This year we ran out of time so our tree is decorated only with white LED lights. At first I wasn’t sure, but I kind of like the simplicity of it. Besides, what could be greener than white LEDs?
Merry Christmas.
For Christmas, three pups in one post each enjoying their vacation.
Joey checks out the kitchen, looking for easy openings…
Phoebe looking good on a red couch…
And, Daphne in a ball, doing what she does best…
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