Jan 14 2009
Miles in His Later Years
Somehow I got on this Miles Davis kick this week, so I thought I would continue with that. I love it when I just write something because I am interested in it and then it turns into an entire series. It makes writing this blog so much easier that way.
Miles spent much of the 70s doing very experimental work. He released albums that attempted to attract a new and younger audience by including electronic guitars and synthesizers. At the time, as I have mentioned, it was not the most successful thing he had ever done. His popularity waned, but then the general popularity of jazz was at an all-time low.
As the 80s and 90s wore on Miles began to come back as a popular artist. Although he would never again achieve the kind of notoriety he achieved during his peak in the 50s, he began playing larger and larger venues. He again put together a band and went on tour. He played relentlessly.
It has always been a kind of tradition for jazz musicians to take popular songs in the “mainstream” and do a jazz interpretation of them. Coltrane was notorious for this. His renditions of “Greensleves” or “My Favorite Things” are now staples in the jazz musicians cannon. Miles was the same way. He did an entire album that was an interpretation of the music from the play “Porgy and Bess.”
So, in his later years he began to do jazz version of popular songs. One of the ones that immediately leapt to my mind was his curious and rather beautiful version of the Michael Jackson tune “Human Nature.” He also does a version of Cindy Lauper’s “Time after Time” that adds a kind of beauty and grace to the song not present in the original.
So, here is Miles during his later years. This is him performing live and doing “Human Nature.”
And here he is in Montreal doing “Time After Time.”
