Bob Gluck's Blog

My new book has come together nicely in recent weeks. With decent drafts of 9 1/2 of these chapters, I have two new candidates for a working title:

“Circles and Connections: Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins”
“Revolutionary Ensembles: Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins”

Here’s the gist: music history requires a new narrative about the legacy of Miles Davis during the Bitches Brew period. This narrative privileges sonic and structural openness, surprise, and experimentation. In Miles’s music during the period, musical values of openness coexist, not always easily, with the groove. When viewed in this way, new webs of musical interconnection can emerge and suggest a broader musical context. Miles Davis’s aesthetic during this period becomes interlocked with Ornette Coleman and the Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM), as well as with funk and rock, music that emphasizes the beat. Coleman was already an important model for Davis’s Quintet of the 1960s. A broader view brings saxophonist-composer Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, and even Music Elettronica Viva into this larger interconnecting web of influences and people.

And here are the chapter headings as of this week. Still, a long way to go… but we’re getting there!

1. Introduction: End of the 60s and into the early 70s
2. Formation of the Miles Davis “Lost” Quintet
3. Evolution and unfolding of the Miles Davis “Lost” Quintet
4. Chelsea: Corea & Holland, Dave Liebman & Free Life Communications, Studio WIS
5. Trio: Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul; Meeting Anthony Braxton
6. Anthony Braxton in New York: Peace Church Concert and MEV Tour
7. Circle: Musical Process and Form
8. Circle on the Road, and the Critics
9. The Revolutionary Ensemble
10. After Circle: Sam Rivers, World Band & Chick Corea, electric again
11. Musical Affinities: Ornette, Miles, AACM & MEV

~ by bobgluck on April 12, 2013.

Posted in Crafting the text
Tags: alvin curran, barry altschul, bob gluck, chick corea, dave holland, electric piano, fender rhodes, frederic rzewski, herbie hancock, improvisation, jazz, jerome cooper, leroy jenkins, live electronic music, mev, miles davis, music elettronica viva, mwandishi, new york city, paul bley, piano, revolutionary ensemble, richard teitelbaum, sam rivers, sirone