In a silent way

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In A Silent Way
Studio album by Miles Davis

Publication
(s)

July 30, 1969

admission

18th February 1969

Label (s) Columbia Records

Format (s)

LP , CD , MC , SACD

Genre (s)

Fusion jazz

Title (number)

2

running time

38:10

occupation

production

Teo Macero

Studio (s)

CBS 30th Street Studio , New York City

chronology
Filles de Kilimanjaro
(1968) 		In A Silent Way Bitches Brew
(1969)

A Silent Way is the first fusion album by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis . It was recorded on February 18, 1969 at Columbia Studios in New York and released that same year. The title track of the album, composed by Joe Zawinul , "became the signature of refined jazz rock ".

Prehistory of the album

Davis 'wife Betty Mabry, who was friends with Jimi Hendrix , is seen as a major influence on Davis' musical development at the time. After his album Filles de Kilimanjaro (the final session in September 1968 took place) was Miles Davis again in November to the recording studio and extended his band to a third keyboardist (next to Hancock and Corea), the from Austria originating Joe Zawinul . In addition, the drummer Jack DeJohnette , who also played in the later Bitches Brew, played with, as Tony Williams intended to leave the band.

In this line-up, the title Splash, the two takes from Directions and the title Ascent were recorded. “Zawinul was able to use the different tone colors of the keyboard to create those changing textures and 'patterns' that Gil Evans produced in an orchestral way. But the main difference was that the musicians (Miles) now worked with could respond spontaneously to the improvising soloist, ”wrote Davis biographer Erik Nisenson. “With this session Miles discovered a method to combine seemingly incompatible elements: the use of electronics and the freedom of improvisation, the spontaneous music of the moment - which for him was still the quintessence of jazz - and the multi-layered timbres that In the past, they could only be realized through complicated orchestral arrangements. ”After the Directions session, the young English guitarist John McLaughlin , who had just arrived in New York, joined the Davis band. The first session for In a Silent Way took place with McLaughlin .

The album

Compared to his previous album Filles de Kilimanjaro, on which he played for the last time with his “classic quintet”, In a Silent Way “is a complete liberation from the bop concept. Tension and intensity are essentially no longer tied to the trumpet and tenor saxophone, but are created by the "background contrasts" of the electric guitar and keyboards. Heat builds up quickly to cool down again, mostly with short guitar riffs that are contrapuntal to the ostinal bass playing, while the drums contribute rock-related, but relaxed rhythms, ”says Davis biographer Peter Wießmüller.

With this album, Davis finally said goodbye to the dense chromatic improvisations of the mid-sixties and has returned to the long diatonic and modal lines of the 1950s. But at the same time the solo is no longer in the foreground, but the overall musical expression. What is new about the music on this album is that the two pieces, each filling a full page of the record, were cut together from different recordings. From a total of about 80 minutes of material, the pieces were cut to size by cutting, joining, copying and repeating.

The most surprising aspect of this album was "the ease with which the music is accessible, daring as it may be in many ways . " It paved the way for the August 1969 album Bitches Brew , which became another major milestone in this phase of Miles Davis' work.

reception

The music magazine Rolling Stone chose the album in 2013 in their list the 100 best jazz albums in 6th place Pitchfork Media leads In a Silent Way at No. 9 of the 200 best albums of the 1960s.

The titles

Page 1:

1. Shhh / Peaceful (Miles Davis) - 18:16

Page 2:

2. In A Silent Way / It's About That Time (Miles Davis / Joe Zawinul) - 19:52

The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions

Under this title, Columbia Legacy / Sony Music released the two edited titles in 2001, as well as the entire unedited recordings that were recorded for the album and its predecessor Filles de Kilimanjaro . Individual early titles appeared in the 1970s on the Columbia compilations "Water Babies", "Circle in the Round" and "Directions". "Of real interest," said Richard Cook and Brian Morton critically about the edition, "are the" alternate takes "of the title track and Shhh / Peaceful , which, however, could not keep up with the versions released at the time. A rarity and the only title of real importance is The Ghetto Walk ; it anticipates Miles Davis' return to the blues towards the end of his life. The documentation of the large amount of material ultimately shows the skill of Teo Macero and Miles Davis to have created “timeless masterpieces” from them. You'll listen to In a Silent Way a hundred times ; but you may only listen to these tracks three times just to be amazed at how this miracle could be achieved. "

Disc 1:

  1. Mademoiselle Mabry
  2. Frelon Brun
  3. Two Faced
  4. Dual Mr. Anthony Tillmon Williams Process
  5. Splash
  6. Splashdown

Disc 2:

  1. Ascent
  2. Directions I
  3. Directions II
  4. Shhh / Peaceful
  5. In a Silent Way (rehearsal)
  6. In a silent way
  7. It's About That Time

Disc 3:

  1. The Ghetto Walk
  2. Early minor
  3. Shhh / Peaceful (Original LP Version)
  4. In a Silent Way / It's About That Time (Original LP Version)

Quote

“ And please, let's not forget that Miles Davis'“ Bitches Brew ”would never have seen the light of day without Joe Zawinul. It was Joe who, alongside Miles, helped the electronic keyboard make its breakthrough in jazz - and who had heralded the birth of fusion jazz a year earlier with “In a silent way”. Joe was the bridge to the future Miles Davis crossed. "

- Herbie Hancock, 2007

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Niklas Wilson (HG), Jazz Klassiker, Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-030030-4 , p. 541
  2. ↑ first appeared on the double LP Circle in the Round
  3. ↑ first appeared on the double LP Directions . All items are also available on the CD edition The Complete In a Silent Ways sessions included
  4. ↑ cit. after Nisenson, p. 163
  5. ↑ “Here I was,” he recalls, “a British jazz musician, and all of a sudden I was playing with Miles. You can't even imagine how excited and nervous I was. ” Quoted from Nisenson, p. 164
  6. ↑ cit. after Wießmüller, p. 154
  7. ^ Nisenson, 165
  8. ↑ Rolling Stone: The Best 100 Jazz Albums , accessed November 16, 2016
  9. ↑ The 200 Best Albums of the 1960s on pitchfork.com (accessed May 17, 2018)
  10. ↑ The Edition u. a. by Seth Rothstein .
  11. ↑ The 3-CD-Box is part of a series of box sets released from 1996 to 2005 that contain previously unreleased material from studio sessions and live performances.
  12. ↑ cit. after Cook & Morton
  13. ↑ "The rhythm counts" , Business Week , October 28th 2007, no. 44, column by Hancock

Web links