Artist: Miles Davis
Album: In a Silent Way
Year: 1969
It feels like forever since we last heard from Miles Davis...way back in the 1950's, a full 130 or so albums ago. But he's back with In a Silent Way, an album consisting of only two tracks: the 18-minute "Shhh/Peaceful" and the 19-minute title track.
This one was all sorts of mellow, definitely late-night or super-early-morning listening here. There's copious organ throughout this album, some wispy soprano sax, some light drumming, guitar(!), and the usual spare soloing of the man himself, Miles on trumpet.
This one didn't really grab me at first, but started to make more sense about halfway through the second cut, when it really hits a nice, relaxing groove. You can tell this album is starting to fuse the improvisational nature of jazz with more of a rock sound--in a completely different way than, say, Blood, Sweat, and Tears. It's interesting to see how different the two approaches are, in fact.
I'm going to file this one under: must listen to again. I think repeated listens will reveal the power of this album, but for now I found it to be just OK. For now, I much prefer Kind of Blue. I'll give it another shot at some point...but I've got 855 more albums to listen to for the time being!
Rating: Worth a listen
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