Listening to Miles With Sadness in My Heart

So goddamned cool

She went quickly and much too soon and of course, we were all heart-broken. You know the details so I won't get into them. I imagine you got an invite to next weekend's memorial gathering.

She didn't think much of jazz, but I liked her anyway. This weekend, since I needed as much comfort as possible, I turned to an old friend, Miles Davis's Prestige recordings.

It's a debate I've had many times in many cities and hope to have another debate soon: namely, what is Miles' best musical period. It's a great debate since there is, clearly, no BEST period. It's all a matter of taste. I love his earliest recordings with Bird as well as his fusion recordings, especially In A Silent Way.

Admittedly, I've never met anyone who would argue that the recordings from his final decade are the cream of the crop, though I still like his recording of "Time After Time" from You're Under Arrest, (or how about this live version?) but maybe that's just because I'm partial to that Cyndi Lauper tune. Now I know that many of you are groaning from much of what I've written in this paragraph, but I'll stand by Cyndi.

As I'm sure I've told you before, I'm partial to Miles' Prestige recordings. Great bands, great songs. Jazz doesn't get much better than albums likeas the classics Cookin', Steamin', Relaxin' and Workin'. The familiarity of these great recordings helped get me through this tough weekend. I could offer up a dozen tracks to prove my point, but how about "Ahmad's Blues"?


Enjoy. I hope to raise a glass with you again soon. Call me.