Hard to believe it’s been 50 years since this iconic Album has hit the shelves. Now granted, I wasn’t born yet when it was released, but the Music of my parents era, my grandparents era, had always intrigued me. That said, I’m in my mid-40s. There’s people half my age digging this kinda music!

Sidebar: most of today’s music sucks (and that’s not my soon-to-be-45 self talking, young people, your music is horrendous)!

But I digress. And I am listening to this album while writing this, I might add. While time will not allow me to talk at length about it, I would like to take a few moments to say these things about this album on its Golden Anniversary.

The picture above is the 40th Anniversary album which features material-both original and unreleased-on Sony/Legacy Records. Recorded August 1969, released March 1970, a then-43 year-old Miles Davis has said goodbye to his traditional jazz roots, and despite the backlash he received, he had reached new commercial heights in the music world, a feat he’d continue until his death in late 1991.

A huge majority of his contemporaries had distanced themselves from him, but the musicians who worked with him shared his vision(s) of music as well as the future, and as a result of this, a new groups of individuals (some of whom came from Miles’ second great quintet), some of whom had formed groups of their own (more on that shortly).

Allow me to extrapolate at least the first LP tracks (first two track on CD); 1) Pharoah’s Dance by Josef Zawinul, and 2) Bitches Brew by Sir Miles himself: I was expecting some kind string orchestrations with titles like that, or I was partially right. The first track had a nice tempo to it, it kinda called to mind some events that’d taken place in the Bible with a slight twist of the musical culture from Northeastern Africa and the Middle East. The second track, well, from what Miles put it, each member of the band was referred to the “bitches” who “brewed” their own style, panache, and flavour resulting in a plethora of a fusing of jazz, blues, world, rock, and even hip-hop (albeit decades later).

Back to the lineup:

Miles Davis – trumpet

Wayne Shorter- saxophone

John McLaughlin – electric guitar

Bennie Maupin – bass clarinet

Chick Corea – electric piano (right)

Joe Zawinul – electric piano (left)

Billy Cobham – drums

Lenny White – drums (left)

Jack DeJohnette – drums (right)

Harvey Brooks – bass guitar

Dave Holland – bass guitar, double bass

Don Alias – congas

Juma Santos- congas, percussions

Airto Moreira- percussions, quica

And from this lineup the following year, three well-known fusion groups had sprouted from this collaboration: Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter co-founded Weather Report, Chick Corea formed Return to Forever (with Lenny White), John McLaughlin formed Mahavishnu Orchestra (with Billy Cobham).

And that is just the tip of the iceberg right there!

Now whether or not Sony will issue a 50th Anniversary of this album, I really do not know, but should it happen, yours truly will buy it, period! Cash or credit, either way, I’m getting it!

As stated earlier, Miles received a ton of backlash because of his transition: But he saw a bigger picture, having had success of keeping up with the status quo, Miles had basically “flipped the script”, which is something we must do to survive in the modern world. In one interview he even claimed that he didn’t like being pigeonholed into just one category of music. He wanted to expand, he wanted to explore new things in music.

Jimi Hendrix (whom Miles deeply admired) had expressed similar views.

Some call Miles a sellout, I don’t. I call him a visionary, even a musical prophet. Decades later, young people are thirsting for music like this! Heck, when I was growing up in the early 1990s, I first heard this album (sadly, it was after he died), I didn’t take to it straightaway, but about a decade later, I couldn’t get enough of it!

Even some of the teachers I had in school said this was one of their favourite albums.

I may touch on this album later on this year (especially if Sony released a 50th Anniversary recording)!