Miles released A Tribute to Jack Johnson fifty years ago . The first track - of two - " Right Off ", stands as his fullest excursion into straight ahead rock, while the second " Yesternow ," is a gritty, bluesy funky vamp. Who knew Willie Nelson could be so funky? It is the "Rock" part of his "Jazz-Rock" fusion that concerns us with this playlist. Some of the tunes here, "Right Off" and "Red China Blues", are straight ahead blues based rock. The pieces from the Bitches Brew sessions are spacier....almost prog...with "Great Expectations" never quite resolving into the implied quote of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.  There's plenty for a rock fan to enjoy, and some jazz too. When writing about this period of Miles' work, Stanley Crouch said that listening to it was like having nails driven into his forehead. We've got that covered too.

Which is not to say, Workin', nor -again- is it with his quartet. Instead, we have largely the same players as featured in last week's Chillin' post. Most of Miles's studio output from the period 1970-1974 comes from a series of sessions - Bitches Brew , Jack Johnson , Cellar Door (Live Evil) , and On the Corner - that largely ended by mid '72. In addition to the main albums that came from each session, the albums Live Evil , Big Fun and Get Up With It were also compiled from the sessions. With regard to his fusion period, the story goes that Miles was impressed with a Sly and the Family Stone show and tried to incorporate those sounds into his music. These tracks are in line with that story. We have here the gritty funk of There's a Riot Goin' On rather than the slick sounds of Fresh . It's a sound like early Funkadelic more than Parliament.... ...and the On the Corner outtakes somehow catch the vibe of the cover more than that album did.

Which is not to say, Relaxin'....nor with his quintet. On this day in 1969, Miles Davis released his first fusion album, In a Silent Way.  He'd started to go electric the previous year, on initially on Miles in the Sky and more so on Filles de Kilimanjaro. While it has some grooves and uptempo material, Silent Way is a fairly quiet album that doesn't feature any of the more jarring work that one finds on Bitches Brew , Live Evil , On the Corner or Get Up With It , nor does it rock like Jack Johnson . Today's playlist features the mellow cuts from Miles during 1969-1975 his early fusion period. The complete sessions boxed sets (Silent Way, BB, JJ, Corner) from allow for the undoing of some of Teo Macero's edits. For instance, "Orange Lady", with its sitars and tablas can be disaggregated from "Great Expectations" off of  Big Fun . Likewise, the blues vamp from the middle of "Go Ahead John" can stand on its own, although it s...