[VIDEO] All About The Mahavishnu Orchestra with author Walter Kolosky
Posted: November 27, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: 1970s, Billy Cobbham, Fusion, Jan Hammer, Jazz, Jerry Goodman, John McLaughlin, Miles Davis, Rick Laird, Rock, video, Walter Kolosky Leave a commentMeet Walter Kolosky, author of “The Mahavishnu Orchestra Picture Book.” Walter has written three books about the Mahavishnu Orchestra and we’ discuss the history of John McLaughlin’s group.
To buy the iBook go to https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/maha…
To buy the Kindle Book go to https://www.amazon.com/Mahavishnu-Orc…
[VIDEO] Conversations with John McLaughlin
Posted: February 1, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Berklee College of Music, Dr. David Schroeder, guitar, Guitarist, Hunter College High School, Jazz, Jazz Rock Fusion, John Coltrane, John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, New York City, NYU, NYU Steinhardt Jazz Interview Series, Philip Glass, PopMatters Leave a comment
NYU Steinhardt Jazz Interview Series with Dr. David Schroeder interviews legendary guitarist, composer and bandleader John McLaughlin. December 5, 2016
[VIDEO] ‘You Know, You Know’, John McLaughlin & Chick Corea at the Blue Note in NYC, December 8, 2016
Posted: January 4, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Blue Note, Jazz, Jazz fusion, John McLaughlin, Lenny White, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, Music, NYC, Return to Forever, Victor Wooten, You Know You Know Leave a comment
Miles Davis: Photo by David Redfern
Posted: November 26, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Jazz, Miles Davis, Music, Photography Leave a commentSource: Jazzyzin
[VIDEO] MILES AHEAD (2016) – HD Preview
Posted: April 2, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Chet Baker, Cinema, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Ewan McGregor, Films, Jazz, Miles Ahead, Miles Davis, Movies, Robert Budreau, Rolling Stone, video Leave a comment
MILES AHEAD is a wildly entertaining and moving exploration of one of 20th century music’s creative geniuses, Miles Davis, featuring a career defining performance by Oscar nominee Don Cheadle in the title role. Working from a script he co-wrote with Steven Baigelman, Cheadle’s bravura directorial debut is not a conventional bio-pic but rather a unique, no-holds barred portrait of a singular artist in crisis.
[Official Miles Ahead Soundtrack: iTunes –Amazon]
In the midst of a dazzling and prolific career at the forefront of modern jazz innovation, Miles Davis (Cheadle) virtually disappears from public view for a period of five years in the late 1970s. Alone and holed up in his home, he is beset by chronic pain from a deteriorating hip, his musical voice stifled and numbed by drugs and pain medications, his mind haunted by unsettling ghosts from the past.
[VIDEO] Miles Davis and Cicely Tyson Celebrate Davis’ 60th Birthday, 1986
Posted: February 13, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Cicely Tyson, Jazz, Miles Davis, Photography Leave a commentJazz musician Miles Davis affectionately wraps his arm around Cicely Tyson as they celebrate Davis’s 60th birthday. (Isaac Sutton/ EBONY Collection)
[PHOTO] Miles Davis
Posted: December 16, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Be Bop, Birth of the Cool, Brooks Brothers, Cool, fashion, Jazz, Miles Davis, Photography, Style 1 CommentMiles Davis was the best-dressed man of the 20th century. Starting out, he’d customise his pawnshop Brooks Brothers suits, cutting notches in the lapels in imitation of the Duke of Windsor. After 1949’s Birth of the Cool, he favoured the Ivy League look of European tailoring. In the 60s he went for slim-cut Italian suits and handmade doeskin loafers. He was always the coolest-looking man in the room. Hell, he even managed to look cool sporting a blood-splattered white khaki jacket following a scuffle with police outside Birdland. In the 70s his wardrobe went as far-gone funky as his music and he was the only man who could get away with wearing purple bell bottoms, kipper ties and hexagonal glasses.
[PHOTO] Miles Davis by Guy Le Querrec
Posted: November 5, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Guy Le Querrec, Jazz, Miles Davis, Music, Photography Leave a commentCarlos Santana Talks Reuniting Santana IV, New Band With Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin & Herbie Hancock
Posted: August 28, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Ashley Kahn, Carlos Santana, Chick Corea, Cindy Blackman, DTE Energy Music Theatre, George Avakian, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Miles Davis, Newport Jazz Festival, Wayne Shorter Leave a commentGary Graff reports: Carlos Santana is getting closer to the finishing the Santana IV project, which reunites members of the 1971-72 lineup of the band. But that’s not the only band he plans to launch in 2015.
“Definitely spring recording and summer touring in Europe and maybe America. Can you hear it? It’s kind of like playing with, sharing music with Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, ’cause Wayne and Herbie, they’re at that level of genius, genius, genius, genius.”
The guitar legend tells Billboard that he and his wife Cindy Blackman Santana are forming a jazz fusion group called Supernova that will also include saxophonist Wayne Shorter, keyboardist Herbie Hancock and guitarist John McLaughlin.
“I’m just grateful that they accept it and want to do it. And every time I play with Cindy, it goes viral. People go crazy. The energy between Cindy and I is very, very supernova.”
“Definitely spring recording and summer touring in Europe and maybe America,” Santana says of their plans. “Can you hear it? It’s kind of like playing with, sharing music with Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, ’cause Wayne and Herbie, they’re at that level of genius, genius, genius, genius. I’m just grateful that they accept it and want to do it. And every time I play with Cindy, it goes viral. People go crazy. The energy between Cindy and I is very, very supernova.”
[Read the full story here, at Billboard]
That said, Santana acknowledges being a bit skeptical as to how well a group like Supernova will play in his homeland. “America is still into ‘Tutti Frutti’ and that kind of stuff,” he says. Read the rest of this entry »
[PHOTO] Miles at Newport, 1955
Posted: July 14, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Jazz, Miles Davis, Newport Jazz, Photography Leave a comment[PHOTO] Miles Davis and Ron Carter, 1967
Posted: June 23, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: 1960s, Bass Player, Dave Holland, Herbie Hancock, Jazz, Miles Davis, Miles Davis Quintet, Music, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Trumpet, vintage Leave a commentRon Carter came to fame via the second great Miles Davis Quintet in the early 1960′s, which also included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams. Carter joined Davis’s group in 1963, appearing on the album Seven Steps to Heaven and the follow-up E.S.P., the latter being the first album to feature only the full quintet. It also featured three of Carter’s compositions (the only time he contributed compositions to Davis’s group). He stayed with Davis until 1968 (when he was replaced by Dave Holland), and participated in a couple of studio sessions with Davis in 1969 and 1970.
Miles Davis Statue in Kielce, Poland
Posted: May 26, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, History | Tags: EUROPE, Jazz, Kielce Poland, Miles Davis, Music, Poland, Statuary, Trumpet 1 CommentMiles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) – Happy Birthday Miles!
[PHOTO] Miles Davis with Camera
Posted: May 5, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: 1960s, Cameras, Glamour, Jazz, media, Miles Davis, Music, Photography, vintage Leave a comment[PHOTO] Miles Davis, by Anton Corbijn
Posted: April 24, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Anton Corbijn, Jazz, Miles Davis, Music, Photography Leave a commentMiles Davis autographed pic. Photo by Anton Corbijn
The Prince Of Darkness: Miles Davis, 1958
Posted: January 30, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Jazz, Miles Davis, Music, Photography, Trumpet 1 Comment[PHOTO] Miles Davis
Posted: January 26, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Jazz, Miles Davis, Photography, Trumpet Leave a comment[PHOTO] Miles Davis
Posted: December 18, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, History, Mediasphere | Tags: Boxing, Jazz, Miles Davis, Photography Leave a commentHerbie Hancock and Miles Davis, Amsterdam 1964
Posted: November 24, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, History, Mediasphere | Tags: Amsterdam, Herbie Hancock, Jazz, Miles Davis, Photography Leave a comment[AUDIO] Miles Davis: ‘Darn That Dream’
Posted: October 17, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: 1940s, Big Bend, Darn That Dream, Gerry Mulligan, Jazz, Jery Mulligan, Miles Davis 1 Comment“Darn That Dream” by Gerry Mulligan
[PHOTO] Stan Getz and Miles Davis, 1951
Posted: October 8, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, History | Tags: Jazz, Miles Davis, Photography, Stan Getz 1 Comment[AUDIO] Miles Davis: ‘Ascenseur pour l’échafaud’ (Lift to the Scaffold) Soundtrack 1958
Posted: October 4, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Anatomy of a Murder, Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud (Lift To The Scaffold): Original Soundtrack, Duke Ellington, Jazz, Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Pierre Michelot, Rene Urtreger 1 Comment“Ascenseur pour l’échafaud” = “Lift to the Scaffold”
[Order Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud (Lift To The Scaffold): Original Soundtrack from Amazon.com]
Miles Davis – Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Fontana) 1958
Miles Davis – trumpet
Barney Wilson – tenor saxophone
René Urtreger – piano
Pierre Michelot – bass
Kenny Clarke – drums
“This recording can stand proudly alongside Duke Ellington’s music from Anatomy of a Murder and the soundtrack of Play Misty for Me as great achievements of artistic excellence in fusing dramatic scenes with equally compelling modern jazz music”
buriedbones1963 – Diary Of A Radical Conformist – YouTube
[AUDIO] Friday Night Jazz: Miles Davis’ ‘Seven Steps To Heaven,’ 1963 – Full Album
Posted: September 5, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Baby Won't You Please Come Home, Davis, George Coleman, Herbie Hancock, I Fall in Love Too Easily, Miles Davis, New York, So Near So Far, Tony Williams, Victor Feldman Leave a commentHat tip/Paulo Ricardo
- Miles Davis – trumpet
- George Coleman – tenor saxophone on “Seven Steps to Heaven”, “So Near So Far”, “Joshua”
- Victor Feldman – piano on “Basin Street Blues”, “I Fall in Love Too Easily”, “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home”, “So Near So Far” (alternative), “Summer Night”
- Herbie Hancock – piano on “Seven Steps to Heaven”, “So Near So Far” (master), “Joshua”
- Ron Carter – bass
- Frank Butler – drums on “Basin Street Blues”, “I Fall in Love Too Easily”, “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home”, “So Near So Far” (alternative), “Summer Night”
- Tony Williams – drums on “Seven Steps to Heaven,” “So Near So Far” (master), “Joshua”
Background
After the unfinished sessions for Quiet Nights in 1962, Davis returned to club work. However, he had a series of health problems in 1962, which made his live dates inconsistent and meant that he missed gigs, with financial repercussions. Faced with diminishing returns, by late 1962 his entire band quit, Hank Mobley to a solo career, and the rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb to work as a unit. The departure of Chambers especially was a blow, as he had been the only man still left from the original formation of the quintet in 1955, the only one never replaced.
With club dates to fulfill, Davis hired several musicians to fill in: Frank Strozier on alto saxophone and Harold Mabern on piano, with George Coleman and Ron Carterarriving early in the year. For shows on the West Coast in March, Davis added drummer Frank Butler, but when it came time for the sessions, Davis jettisoned Strozier and Mabern in favor of pianist Victor Feldman. With a lucrative career as a session musician, Feldman declined Davis’ offer to join the group, and both he and Butler were left behind in California.[10] Back in New York, Davis located the musicians who would be with him for the next six years, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams; with Carter and Coleman, the new Miles Davis Quintet was in place. Williams, then only 17 years old, had been working with Jackie McLean, and Hancock had already scored a hit single with “Watermelon Man“, done by percussionist Mongo Santamaria.
The assembled group at the April recording sessions finished enough material for an entire album, but Davis decided the uptempo numbers were not acceptable, and redid all of them with the new group at the May sessions in New York. Two of the ballad tunes recorded in Los Angeles were old – “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” written in 1919 and a hit for Bessie Smith in 1923, while “Basin Street Blues” had been introduced by Louis Armstrong in 1928. None feature Coleman; all are quartet performances with Davis and the rhythm section. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Bill Evans Trio: ‘Waltz For Debby’ London, 1965
Posted: August 24, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, History | Tags: Bill Evans, Chuck Israel, Jazz, Larry Bunker, Miles Davis, Monica Zetterlund, Scott LaFaro, Village Vanguard, Waltz for Debby 1 CommentBill Evans – piano, Chuck Israels – bass, Larry Bunker – drums
Portrait In Jazz: Bill Evans Trio 1960
Posted: August 22, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Bill Evans, Bill Evans Trio, Edward Heyman, Ella Fitzgerald, Jazz, Miles Davis, Music, Portrait in Jazz, Victor Young Leave a commentBill Evans Trio – When I Fall In Love (with Victor Young, Edward Heyman)
album: Portrait In Jazz release: 1960
Miles Davis’ ‘Kind Of Blue’ Turned 55 This Week
Posted: August 19, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, History | Tags: Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Jazz, Jimmy Cobb, John Coltrane, Kind of Blue, Maurice Ravel, Miles Davis, Wynton Kelly 1 CommentFull Album – 50th Anniversary Collectors Edition HQ Audio
Kind of Blue brought together seven now-legendary musicians in the prime of their careers: tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, alto saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb and of course, trumpeter Miles Davis.
And just as younger artists looked to Miles for guidance and inspiration, he looked to them for raw, new talent and innovative musical ideas. In the mid-1950s, Davis discovered gold in the subtle sounds of 25-year-old pianist Bill Evans, who he recruited into his late ’50s sextet. Evans would prove an essential contributor to the Kind of Blue sessions. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Preservation, or Innovation? John McLaughlin: State of the Musical Arts
Posted: August 5, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Mediasphere | Tags: Jazz, John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, Music, Music of India, New York, Tony Williams, YouTube 1 CommentUnfortunate to hear a great artist lay out a thoughtful, passionate, lucid description of the problem– the decline of jazz in the U.S.–then offer a predictable, depressingly misguided solution: “make the government subsidize it!”
Did the Mahavishnu Orchestra depend on taxpayer subsidies? Did Miles Davis need a government check in order to flourish? Unthinkable. If music is dynamic and alive, people will beat down the doors to go see it. If it’s boring, people will ignore it.
What Is the Future of Jazz in New York? (punditfromanotherplanet.com)
Who Should Pay for the Arts? (city-journal.org)
If it’s waning, drained of its creative force, or is replaced by other artistic innovations, people will look elsewhere. Should it be put on life support? Kept alive artificially? Turned into a social program for talented but neglected musicians? There are technical revolutions, new media disruptions, that are still unfolding, that influences these outcomes, more than lectures about taste, or lowering standards just to get a gig.
The End of Jazz (punditfromanotherplanet.com)
Islam and American Jazz (punditfromanotherplanet.com)
He’s right, jazz one of America’s great original art forms. And he’s right that should be supported, not neglected. It’s part of our history. (though what kind of future it has, organically, is questionable) Foundations, philanthropy, and so on, absolutely, if that’s required to preserve it as a museum piece, or classical artifact. Or, if cities and states have the popular will to support it with government arts funding, then let public policy respond to that. But it won’t make audiences love it, it won’t lure them come see it. Only the music itself can do that. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Jack DeJohnette Drum Solo: Modern Drummer Festival 1997
Posted: July 30, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Jack DeJohnette, Jazz, John McLaughlin, Miles Davis, Music, Tony Williams 1 Comment[VIDEO] Herbie Hancock & Omar Hakim: ‘Call it 95’ LIVE ‘Dis Is Da Drum’
Posted: July 29, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Herbie Hancock, Jazz, Miles Davis, Music, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, YouTube 1 CommentAlbum : Call It 95
Herbie Hancock – Piano
Jeff Lorber – Keys Bruce Hornsby -Keys
Omar Hakim – Drums
Check out Call It 95 at Amazon.com
[PHOTO] MILES DAVIS: ‘Best-Dressed Man of the 20th Century’
Posted: July 16, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Birdland, Birth of the Cool, Brooks Brothers, Don Cheadle, Duke of Windsor, Ivy League, Jazz, Miles Davis 1 CommentMiles Davis was the best-dressed man of the 20th century. Starting out, he’d customise his pawnshop Brooks Brothers suits, cutting notches in the lapels in imitation of the Duke of Windsor. After 1949’s Birth of the Cool, he favoured the Ivy League look of European tailoring. In the 60s he went for slim-cut Italian suits and handmade doeskin loafers. He was always the coolest-looking man in the room. Hell, he even managed to look cool sporting a blood-splattered white khaki jacket following a scuffle with police outside Birdland. In the 70s his wardrobe went as far-gone funky as his music and he was the only man who could get away with wearing purple bell bottoms, kipper ties and hexagonal glasses.
Horace Silver Dead: Jazz Pianist Dies at 85
Posted: June 19, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Art Blakey, Blue Note Records, Bud Powell, Hank Mobley, Hard bop, Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver, Jazz, Miles Davis, Ramsey Lewis, Song for My Father 2 Comments“He not only defined the first steps in the style, he wrote several of its most durable staples, ran bands that embodied and transcended the idiom and perfected a piano manner which summed up hard bop’s wit and trenchancy and popular appeal.”
For Variety, Steve Chagollan writes: Jazz pianist Horace Silver, synonymous with Blue Note Records when hard bop — a style he helped pioneer — became the label’s bread and butter, died at age 85 of natural causes at his home in New Rochelle, N.Y. His son Gregory confirmed the pianist’s death to several news outlets.
Silver, whose association with Blue Note spanned a quarter decade, produced a number of hits for the label beginning in 1955 with “Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers,” a group that would continue under the leadership of co-founder Art Blakey when Silver split off on his own and crafted an amazingly diverse solo career that mixed jazz, blues, gospel and Latin influences.
Signature works like “The Preacher” and “Song for My Father,” the title track from Silver’s 1965 album, would help steer jazz into into a more soulful, less doctrinaire direction — a style also reflected by many young jazzmen of the day, including Herbie Hancock, Cannonball Adderley and Ramsey Lewis. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Herbie Hancock Headhunters LIVE in Japan 2005: ‘Watermelon Man’
Posted: January 22, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Japan | Tags: Arts, Cantaloupe Island, Herbie Hancock, Jazz, Kennedy Center Honors, Miles Davis, Watermelon Man, Watermelon Man (composition), YouTube 1 Comment[Check out Amazon’s Herbie Hancock selection]
Headhunters ’05 – Watermelon Man – YouTube

CONFIRMED: Nancy Pelosi Under the Influence of LSD at Press Conference
Posted: October 16, 2013 Filed under: Humor, Mediasphere, Politics, The Butcher's Notebook | Tags: Bitches Brew, Harry Reid, Jan Hammer, John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra, McLaughlin, Miles Davis, Tony Williams, White House 5 Comments“I never saw anything like what Harry Reid did. To watch him, was to watch a master at work.”
“This was an opportunity cost of time. We could have been talking about jobs, farm bill, immigration, any number of issues that need to be addressed, and I commend the Speaker for coming around for bringing it to the floor. I salute — I never saw anything like what Harry Reid did. To watch him, was to watch a master at work. He was superb, intellectually, politically astute, and just the sheer stamina of it all. And it was a sign of the respect that his members have for him.”
Nancy excused herself from the podium, put on sunglasses, congratulated her staff and associates, then got into a van with an unnamed member of the press corp, where they remained for 20 minutes.
According to a White House source, and confirmed by others in the parking lot, Nancy and the journalist reportedly smoked a doobie while listening to the 1970s jazz-rock-fusion Supergroup Mahavishnu Orchestra‘s “Between Nothingness and Eternity“, at extremely high volume.
“I had to cut sound on my microphone, the noise from the van was bleeding in” a TV reporter complained.
Asked later about her taste in music, Nancy was eager to discuss early-’70s rock-funk and jazz. “Jan Hammer’s keyboard work is amazing”, Nancy said, walking to her office. “Though I really like John McLaughlin‘s earlier work, in Lifetime, with Tony Williams, and Bitches Brew, with Miles Davis. Have you ever heard McLaughlin’s solo album, Devotion? There’s a song on there “Don’t let the Dragon Eat your Mother” that totally kicks ass”. She added “The engineering on the album isn’t ideal, but McLaughlin’s guitar solos are mind-melting”.
h/t Hot Air
Late Night Jazz: John McLaughlin
Posted: October 9, 2013 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Doncaster, England, Jazz, Jazz fusion, John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis 1 CommentJohn McLaughlin was born on the 4th of January 1942 in Doncaster, England. His pioneering Super-fast, Super-loud Supergroup, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, left many in my generation with permanent hearing damage, and turned the rock world upside down. He’s 71 and still a killer. He, along with Miles Davis and his quintet were the foundations for jazz-rock fusion. I saw this quintet perform in 2010, and remember it fondly. For those up late at night, this is a good groove.