The Lost Broadcast

L’artista

One of the most influential and innovative musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, together with his musical groups, at the forefront of many major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion. In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the only jazz musician to date to have warranted entry, which recognized him as “one of the key figures in the history of jazz.” In 2008, his 1959 album Kind of Blue received its fourth platinum certification from the RIAA, for shipments of at least four million copies in the United States. In 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a symbolic resolution recognizing and commemorating the album on its 50th anniversary, “honoring the masterpiece and reaffirming jazz as a national treasure.” Unlike most of his contemporaries who suffered from the downturn in the popularity of jazz as the 1960s wore on and rock and pop music became the people s choice, Miles reinvented himself as a honorary rock star, took influence from Jimi Hendrix (with whom he also worked), Sly & The Family Stone and George Clinton & Parliament, and gave his band electric instruments - despite the actual music he continued to perform having little in common with that by now idiom. His March 1970 album Bitches Brew however crossed over to the rock audience and it was this record and its predecessor, In A Silent Way (1969) which were among the first fusions of jazz and rock, building on the groundwork laid by Charles Lloyd, Larry Coryell, and others who pioneered a genre that would become known as jazz fusion. Throughout 1969, Davis’ touring band included Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette; as the group never completed a studio recording, it has been subsequently characterized as the lost quintet by many critics. In 1970 this line-up, augmented at times by Keith Jarrett and Steve Grossman albeit often without Shorter, performed a number of shows and released a number of live albums recorded at the Fillmore venues - both East and West, in New York and San Francisco respectively and one such famed gig is the April 10th performance from Frisco, when Davis and group were supporting The Grateful Dead. First released in 1973 as Black Beauty, the album has gone on to gain a reputation as one of Davis finest live records.