Description
Miles Davis A Tribune to Jack Johnson is the best jazz-record ever made. Equally inspired by the leaders desire to assemble the greatest rock and roll band you have ever heard as well as his adoration of Johnson, Davis created a hard-hitting set that spills over with excitement, intensity, majesty, and power. Bridging the electric fusion hed pursued on earlier efforts with a funkier, dirtier rhythmic approach, Davis zeroes in on concepts of spontaneity, freedom, and identity seldom achieved in the studio. Mobile Fidelitys sterling reissue brings it all to fore with unsurpassed realism.
Indeed, utilizing wah-wah and distortion, guitarist John McLaughlin comes on here with a nasty edge, slashing style, and vicious streak that allows A Tribute to Jack Johnson finally cross the divide between rock and jazz. Davis puts both feet in the former camp and permanently erasing any gap. In addition to highlighting McLaughlins ripping performances, Mobile Fidelitys 180g LP showcases the headliners white-hot trumpet solos like never before. Bristling with exuberance, Davis high-register passages explode with authority and commanding presence. Around him, a barrage of urgent backbeats, knifing riffs, and three-dimension bass lines emerge amidst an ink-black background.
The least-well known true masterpiece of Davis career, the 1971 recordlike Bitches Brew, seamlessly assembled from sessions by producer Ted Macerowas a victim of scant promotion. But to those that heard it, among them critic/musician Robert Quine and renowned writer Robert Christgau, A Tribute to Jack Johnson surpasses everything that came before. Davis treated it as a personal manifesto: An opportunity to salute the championship boxer admired for his threatening image to the establishment and taste in clothes, cars, women and music. Davis explains in the liner notes his affinity for Johnsona stance revealed in the music, which simultaneously hits with a prize fighters brutal force and reflects the graceful elegance with which a pugilist navigates the ring.
Producer and journalist Michael Cuscuna may have summed up the records significance in 2003: The dense textures introduced and developed the prior fall on the Bitches Brew recording sessions gave way to a lean, stripped-down, guitar-heavy sound. There was now only one drummer, and that kept the groove more pronounced and defined. The three-keyboard configuration appears only on the last session; the rest have none, one, or two, and they are used sparingly.
By any measure, A Tribute to Jack Johnson is a monster album.
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