Product Description

This book reassesses Miles Davis' "electric period" and analyzes its continuing influence on contemporary music. While jazz purists often revile this phase - which encompasses the entire second half of his career, from 1967 until his death in 1991 - this book takes a new, appreciative look at this music and shows its importance to Davis' career and to jazz as a whole. The author also reveals surprising connections between Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone, particularly the ways they fed each other's creativity. This book will stir up the longtime debate about this important music and give Davis' legions of fans refreshing insights into his work.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216016 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 242 pages

Synopsis
In this group of related essays, Freeman examines the second half of Miles Davis' career--a time when he began experimenting with electric instruments on his albums, beginning at the end of the sixties to his death in 1991. Taking a chronological approach, he considers specific albums such as In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, On the Corner, The Man wi

Customer Reviews

OK, but...
This book has some plus points, most notably the author's unreserved enthusiasm for On the Corner, Miles' most controversial album (personally, I can't understand how its spacey street funk is so "difficult" for so many). Philip Freeman brings an understanding of much of the cutting edge music which has followed and been inspired by Miles' extraordinary endeavours from '69-75, and this is informative to an ancient like me. But he gets quite a lot wrong - for example, has anyone ever heard those strings he claims are overdubbed on to the last few moments of Live/Evil? If you're new to Miles' electric music this is a handy introduction, but this is not in the same league as Ian Carr's definitive biography or Paul Tingen's "Miles Beyond", both of which are classics of their kind.

A Worthy Tribute to a True Legend's Contoversial Music
Like me, Philip Freeman came to the music of Miles Davis without a notion of the acoustic/electric dichotomy of the master's career. Also like me, it appears, he doesn't care. Miles's music, up to his "retirement" in the mid-seventies at least, stands with the best, in and out of its genre(s). The only place Freeman and I vary, in fact, seems to be in our respective views of what happened after that first retirement came to an end.

However, the book's approach is so enthusiastic, so vivacious, that he had me going back to the later stuff to see if I wanted to change my mind. Well, actually no. But good try Phil.

Throughout, in fact, Freeman's prose, like Miles's electric music, fizzes, pops and explodes. It's almost musical in itself, and makes the reading compelling in the way some thrillers keep you glued to the page. What's going to happen next?

What sometimes happens next are some extraordinary comparisons - not just the obvious Dylan acoustic/electric things, but also with rock bands like Iron Maiden - and the interesting assertion that all the later music was all Hip Hop. This stands alongside Paul Tingen's assertion in his book Miles Beyond that all the music was basically blues, and therefore there was never a real crossover. And although this book and Tingen's are nominally about the same thing they complement each other well.

Freeman has an absolutely enviable access to rarities and bootlegs, and an equally enviable amount of time to listen to them too. His descriptions of these recordings leave you begging for more Miles. But he also helps you get to some realisations about what you have much more quickly. As with many brilliant artists, each listening of Miles reveals something new, and that doesn't change even after reading Running the Voodoo Down, but maybe this author finds things you wouldn't otherwise have noticed.

Also good is Freeman's exploration of spun-off music. Not just the likes of McLaughlin, DeJohnette and Shorter, but also more recent set-ups like Burnt Sugar.

Miles Davis's music was so eclectic, so complex, so protean and so controversial that nobody will ever be able to sum it all up in one book. That doesn't stop Running the Voodoo Down being an outstanding contribution to our understanding and appreciation of a true musical legend, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for enlightenment.