Miles Beyond
The Electric Explorations
of Miles Davis
1967-1991
Paul Tingen
Most acoustic Miles fans have probably made their peace with his earlier electric music by now. It's hard to dislike the serene beauties of In a Silent Way, by turns plaintive and poignant, its shimmering electric pianos providing deliciously dissonant polytonal harmonies over insistent bass riffs. Then there's the joyous funked up rock of Jack Johnson - Miles at the top of his game technically and John McClaughlin supplying the power and raunch of Hendrix with the brains of Jazz. If only JJ had ben promoted as heavily as Bitches Brew, much harder to grasp initially and perhaps containing too many longeurs to have stood the test of time.
Paul Tingen, a guitarist into Zen, has written a fine guide which goes where many fear to tread. On The Corner, for instance, consists of two one chord trance tracks, with heavily layered percussion and electronics, the musicians free to explore polytonality and a wide vareity of tone colours over the basic harmony. One could argue that Miles and producer Teo Macero were cutting and pasting tracks together long before Dance music or his one chord with all the others superimposed mode prefigured mixing - where two records clash, with no one minding as long as the beat works, and the requisite trance is triggered.
Many will be pleased to know that Betty Davis, his ex wife is tattooed with the words 'The ass that created fusion", (it was her taste in funk and rock that led Miles beyond.)
The author, a guitar player into Zen, gives us just enough of his own biography to illuminate his insights into the Dark Prince. Miles's Zenmaster behaviour and utterances are already familiar to most. John McClaughlin was asked to play Zawinul's haunting In A Silent Way melody as if he couldn't play the guitar. Musicians were generally given only enough instructions to preserve 'is-ness', a fresh response rather than anything rehearsed. Perhaps a defense of some of his less successful freer music or his penchant for less than dazzling organ playing, would be that Miles would rather be 'in the moment' than rehash anything, however beautiful another version of earlier triumphs would be.
Contrary to the opinion of most of Miles's critics, it would have been easier to tour an acoustic standards band. The music would have come back in fashion, there would have been no agonising striving for new grooves or genres, and perhaps Wynton Marsalis wouldn't have found the start of his career so easy. Marsalis's asinine assertions that Miles 'sold out' are easily refuted by the book's close analysis of the masterpiece Aura. Norwegian composer and trumpeter Palle Mikelborg, fuses Messiaen, contemporary big band voicings and thunderous funk and rock grooves, over which the electric John McClaughlin releases his inner beast. Throughout Miles contributes exquisite individual statements, yearningly beautiful when muted and triumphant full powered over the funk and rock.
If you are already a fan you will want to re-explore the entire period, there is much valuable in depth research into the tracks, giving exact times to the musical events discussed. Completists and obsessives will enjoy the anecdotes which cover both the musicians and his various relationships with women and their influence on his music and fashion. A discreet veil is drawn over much of the drugs and debauchery but then how enjoyable is it hearing about other people's excesses?
If you're not a guitarist you may quibble with the idea of Agharta being one of the highpoints of the electric Miles. Surely one can find better blitzkrieg metal guitar elsewhere, and much better recorded than this muddy mix? However most of the judgements are spot on and you are are likely to learn something useful from this well researched book, which informs without preaching. If only Wynton Marsalis could attempt something similar.
April 10, 2010 Extraordinary Renditions
I once played to thirtythousand people in Italy, the crowd went wild and back stage when I stumbled into Paul Simon he turned around and apologised to me. Such good manners are part of the reason why he is justly famous (in addition to great songs etc.). The Days of Wine and Roses for me have indeed, as promised, slipped away and I'm generally performing to about twentynine thousand nine hundred and fifty people less than at the San Remo song festival. But it's worth it not be deafened by pop stars or to have to mime to your own playing while fighting off various travel bugs or enduring malodorous buffoons such as roadies or being robbed blind by managers.
Why do Jazz Musicians persist when the financial rewards are so slim? Are we insane? Well, I actually am mad, technically, diagnosed as a bipolar drink and drug addict, (the full Kerry Katona). But that's no hindrance to being a Jazz musician. Bit late to publicise my latest gigs but I'm at the National Theatre 1.45 April 11th with the Goddess of grand piano and vocals Hilary Cameron and Dr Richard Niles guesting. ("The missing link between Jim Hall and Frank Zappa") As for me, I try to play melodic soulful saxophone. Please come to Bar Blue Hastings, with guitarist Nigel Price April 25th 3 - 5 pm. My children need to eat. "You sound good" Michael Brecker. "Ramsden is a consummate saxophonist and a talented composer." Ian Carr Rough Guide to Jazz. "Ramsden is a prodigiously gifted saxophonist, good chops, beautiful sound, plenty of power, and even more imagination." Richard Palmer, Jazz Journal.
April 10, 2010 Skintwo Bargain!
SKIN TWO YEARBOOK NOW JUST £15! Get them while they're hot...All the skinny (sorry) on intelligent fashion, fetish and fun. Skintwo.com which now hosts my Miss Makeover blog - Memoirs of a Corrective Therapist, adults only. A fetish Belle Du Jour with acid wit and a genuine through thread. A 'story', as it was called before kids falling off skateboards on Youtube was supposed to be interesting. Speaking of which 'Martin Amis Jihad Rap' can now be seen onYoutube.com with pics of Martin Amis and Osama Bumface Binliner.
I borrowed the chord sequence from the superb Soul Eyes by Mal Waldron. Dominic Ashworth supplies the limpidly beautiful guitar while Mr Amis supplies his unique voice on opinions on the idiocy of the jihadist male.
April 7, 2010 Spurned by Gordon Brown!
Was at Strood supermarket while Gordon Brown did photo op, we weren't
chosen for vox pop - Ruth in Guardsman's red striped hat and kinky boots
and myself in Skintwo.com baseball cap and bright red patent leather
bovver boots, both wearing Goat of Mendes pendants. Aren't we normal
enough? Perhaps we were lucky not have had the Prime Mentalist's
bonechilling smile trained on us.
March 6, 2010 Skin Two Sportswear
Had great business meet with Tim Woodward of Skintwo.com. Now jogging around hometown in my Skin Two baseball cap and hoodie to train for my forthcoming National Theatre gigs. I was swearing at library computer (not loudly) having been up all night when some idiot said to me, "Would you mind not swearing? This is not a night club. I'm autistic and have a learning disability.' He was playing a children's video game...You get interesting reactions wearing hoodie and baseball caps. Even the militantly autistic (and thick, in his case) think they can have a go...
Now wearing it underneath my top of the range Belstaff leather jacket, well if it’s good enough for Daniel Craig in James Bond...As long as the SKINTWO,COM is visibile on my baseball cap...
A long relationship
with someone whose first language is not English
may sometimes result in misunderstandings. For many years I could say,
quite literally,"My wife doesn't understand me." Since a recent
rapprochement we have returned to quotidian misapprehension, although
now with a smile rather than hurled objects and screamed insults.
Yesterday I was jabbing the laptop screen after a long awkward search
for an image of a Wilkinson Quatro Razor with beard trimmer in the
base, repeating its name, all too aware that my message wasn't getting
through, desperate to have this product before I started looking like a
Socialist Worker Party activist. Or a folk singer. Or a sociology
lecturer.
I was telling her its name often, knowing how easy it is to forget
incoming information.
"You're just another Joseph Fritzl," she said.
As fuckwit Fritzl should fritter away the next nine lives in jail, I
found the comparison troubling.
Joking apart, if that was what she was doing, a decade ago people would
often compare feelgood fetishists to Fred West, entirely seriously.
Since endless late
night telly titillation people are perhaps more broadminded. Although,
it often seems to me that we are still perverts to most Sun readers.
And not in a good way.
A particularly cloddish and geezerish drummer who shall remain nameless,
(Dave
Barry) once lumped me in with child abusers, purely for editing a fetish
magazine. Still, drummers don't tend to be the most cereberal people...
August 7, 2009 Christopher Hitchens says New Messiah is 'fat and pasty faced'
Fortunately the Grouch could never be described as 'fat' or 'pasty faced'.
Or glassy eyed, or stinking of fags and booze or...who cares anyway?
His subject was David Shayler, the stoned traitor who now thinks he's
Christ, here manifesting as the divine androgyne. Like all fledgling trannies s/he
is oblivious to how crap their cheap and nasty wigs are. And this Jesus
believes in a Zionist conspiracy. Bang him up! Real Nails!
"By Thomas More’s wall-size portrait, David quoted some lines from
A Man For All Seasons and related how they applied to him. Like many
Messiahs, I suspect he has a persecution complex. At the Martin Amis
& Friends exhibition, he pointed to Christopher Hitchens and
recalled how the Hitch had once interviewed him in Paris for Esquire
magazine. “He said in his piece that I was fat and pasty-faced. But
obviously when they took the pictures I was actually quite tanned. He
just came there to try and stitch me up.”
Almost as bad as those traitorous turds who ignore the official secrets act...
Spreading Love on the Oat Biscuit of Public Discourse
May 25, 2009 I fought the Law
"You can't stay in forever," said a siren voice, luring me on to the rocks. It wasn't the best advice for a seasoned alcoholic and addict. Staying in lets you explore your addictions to radios four and seven, reading, strong coffee and kinky sex. This system kept me clean for eighteen months, with a few disastrous hiccups. Which cut down on waking up in Casualty or, on one memorable occasion, waking up at Gatwick airport, handcuffed, while armed Police walked around and an Ambulance woman said, "Ooh, I like your tattoos." At first I thought this was some sort of uniform night, as I had been clubbing. Eight hours in hospital watched over by two friendly Policemen was less amusing - and why the most docile prisoner in the history of incarceration needed two guards remains unclear. We discussed music, as I was once a professional musician, one of them confessing to have videos of army marching bands. Groovy baby - not... Anyway, they were decent blokes who wear protective vests daily in case some teenage cunt stabs them. What a world. Overnight in a cell was a massive drag for someone who needs dvds and a computer on simultaneously just to function normally. And I had been looking forward to a three day no sleep psychedelic bliss-out. By the time I was let out of the Police Station, cautioned and no longer in possession of a very large bag of designer kerfuffle - which they couldn't have charged me with as this substance has only just been invented, I was miffed. Even more miffed having to take an eight hour bus ride home as my debit card had got lost when I passed out or during the struggle to arrest me. Apparently I had tried to fight them off. I fought the law! Well, I was unconscious at the time...but I is an outlaw, innit...
I'm ashamed now at the massive waste of public money involved, on the other hand they could have just let me wake up and...yeah yeah...addicts are a waste of space and I am no different. So, while I enjoyed my first night out in ages this month -Alternative Miss World then Subversion, it led to three weeks orbiting Pluto. On the up side, the special K diet burns off any surplus fat automatically, on the down side you look and act like a total mong. And yet, users are so much more polite and peaceful than the plankton trapped in the alcohol culture. Given a choice between talkative heads feverishly chopping up supplies of psychoactive toot and boozy brawlers I know where I want to be. But it's good to be straight again. Fully functional. And brewing up some more Satanic coffee, against medical advice as it happens but probably safer than horse tranquiliser...
May 12, 2009 GORDON BROWN: A GOOD FACE FOR GOVERNMENT
Odin, or Wotan, the God of Wednesday, has one eye. Gordon Brown, who has also nothing against the other eye, has tried to audition for the role of the Norse God of War, so far unsuccessfully. He may not be beautiful but he has a good face for government.
Fortify the over-fifties with bacon'n'brie sandwiches. When the brie melts and the bacon is crispy - that's when the living is easy.
May 1, 2009 Camille Paglia Shines Up Some Amazing Poetry
Just got Camille Paglia's Break Blow Burn. The author of Sexual
Personae analyses 43 of the world's best poems from Shakespeare to
Sylvia Plath and Joni Mitchell.
Paglia was one of the first academics championing kink, pagan culture,
body art, movies, lesbian and gay rights. She is still a most
intelligent and illuminating voice, generally swimming against the tide
of PC idiocy. As she loathes victim feminism and left wing puritans,
currently buddied up with Islamists for some unknown reason, she is one
of the brightest and the best - a sharp wit and a dazzling polemicist.
This book, reasonably priced secondhand from America, is absolutely sensational, there's a fresh insight every few sentences.
March 24, 2009 Yes, We have Nosferatu, we have Nosferatu for you
There's always gold in Mel Brooks movies. Even if you have to wade
through a vat of dung to get to it. Unfortunately the movie which
gave us the immortal "Yes we have Nosferatu,
we have Nosferatu for you" is extremely uneven.
In fact it needs a stake driving through its heart.
If you're a blood thirsty person of kink why not try...
VAMPIRE EROTICISM Amarantha Knight
“Dracula is a kind of incestuous necrophiliac, oral-anal
sadistic wrestling match set in a homicidal lunatic's
brothel in a crypt.” A psychiatrist's assessment of Bram
Stoker's Dracula.
Alan Davies, the girly comedian and rubbish actor, recently
sank his teeth into the ear of a London street sleeper,
drawing lashings of claret in the process. I actually typed
'Anal' for 'Alan', maybe I should let it stand. Some say
drunkenness was the cause of this regrettable lapse. I
suspect he must be descended from Count Dracula and was
merely peckish. Ordinary mortals stick to kebabs when drunk
but the undead may suddenly lunge for the nearest human.
Perhaps a tramp's ear is the equivalent of a packet of pork
scratchings - good, unpretentious pub fare. It'll keep you
going until the right starlet's neck presents itself.
Philip Larkin was a sad old perve, (I'm not being
pejorative, it's literally the truth). He loved Dracula
movies, saying he was 'starved of tit and fang'.
Fortunately we need no longer rely on sublimated eroticism.
Amarantha Knight has written a brilliant erotic version of
the Dracula legend, following Bram Stoker's original
closely with plenty of fetish and Cp action. “Sparing the
rod spoils the child of the night.” Ms Knight (who writes
more respectable material as Nancy Kilpatrik) is a skillful
evocative writer and she clearly loves s/m. If you liked
A.N Roquelaire's Beauty trilogy you will like this, which
is also considerably filthier. Incidentally, A.N.Roquelaire
is horror Queen Anne Rice, writing with one hand between
her legs. Her work is easier to find than this book,
which is part of the Darker Passions series from Circlet
press. Dark erotica fans will be able to find Dracula
online and in specialist bookstores. Distributed by
Turnaround.
London has a Vampire society where you can mix
and mingle with other
bloodthirsty maniacs (surely 'enthusiasts'? Ed).
Seriously, there are
many who find biting to be an acceptable fetish,
a goal in itself.
Here's Dr Charley Ferrer, a New York sexologist who
hosted a Vampires
and Sexual Freedom edition of her radio show.
“We explored the beauty
of the vampire and its underlying sensuality”.
She interviewed the
creator of Midnight Seduction a vampie roleplaying
game and was thrilled to have her neck bitten.
As ever, dip a careful toe into the water first. Gently does it.
March 21, 2009 Judy Dench in Yukio Mishima's Madame de Sade
De Sade is unbearable on the page, unless endless philosophising, child
abuse, coprophilia and non-consensual cruelty turn you on. Never mind
torture as a hard limit, try a longwinded 18th century version of the
Moral Maze narrated by a shit-eating lunatic.
Miranda Sawyer, one of the Newsnight reviewers bored senseless by this
nevertheless short play, has written non-judgmentally about kink before
- Miss Martindale's caning guide sometime back in the Jurassic era -
and I'm sure the others were hoping for upmarket erotica instead of
speechifying. The problem was the play.
As for Yukio Mishima, an author who committed suicide after failing to start a military
coup, having shoved something absorbent up his fundament to preserve
the image of his perfect demise, in any case somewhat marred by his
deputy failing three times to lop his head off, shouldn't playwrights
be a little less insane?
Arthouse cinema has been selling its otherwise too intellectual for the
masses product with hints of kink since it started. (And long may it
continue. Where would Hanif Kureshi be without it.) No doubt Judy Dench and several other cracking birds in a
play with De Sade in the title will pack the house. But it
shouldn't...(apologies to fellow cognitive begaviour therapy survivors.
I know we shouldn't say 'shouldn't'. Rats! Done it again. )
Given that most scene people are contract-oriented woman worshipers,
like Masoch, it's a shame the term 's/m' was cobbled together, and
that it has stuck, like shit to a blanket, (suppose The Marquis de
Sade's ghost will be unbearably excited now.)
I blame Kraft-Ebing, who invented 's/m'. We have been pathologised for
all eternity by a trainspotting bore. Once he had collected the set he
somehow made them uninteresting in print form, Psychopathia Sexualis, but no doubt clueless academics
will be quoting him as long as humans exist.
Kink may become mainstream - Frances Barber with a riding crop is
certainly persuasive - but the majority will always shy away from De
Sade. And unless you want the streets running with blood and shit then
the Marquis should stay in his coffin.
December 25, 2008 Hunter S Thompson: New Documentary
In 1979 I spotted Hunter S Thompson across a Hong Kong bar. It was hard to ignore a strikingly tall, bullet-headed maniac whose conversation consisted entirely of the words 'amyl nitrate'. Despite being a lifelong advert for drink, drugs, dangerous driving and firearms, a genuine outlaw, he somehow managed to stay out of jail. And the posthumous flood of books, films and articles shows no sign of drying up. Which is why I'm offering these meagre biographical scraps to Hunter junkies. It's not much but for the faithful it may be like a glimpse of the Turin Shroud. In the absence of the redeemer, it will just have to do.
A journalist visiting Hunter's farm was greeted by the man wearing two containers of coke, one behind each ear, which had tubes leading directly into his nostrils. Two young female assistants were chopping up the insane amounts required to keep these pots filled. Source: a charming Edinburgh journalist and drug fiend who was going to write a biography of Irvine Walsh. Needless to say the book was never written but I remember this man fondly for his description of my then boss Tom Robinson: a 'numpty'. Irrefutable.
Despite once opining that 'cocaine is a drug for fruits' Hunter took stupendous quantities of it for forty years or so. Living in Aspen, where the beautiful people loved coke and hated speed, controlled by Nazi bikers in America, he was often without his beloved 'crank'. He demanded speed whenever touring England. On the rare occasions he actually arrived. Source: A lowly film critic and indie cinema bottom feeder whose friend had the misfortune to promote a HST personal appearance. You might as well advertise by an appearance by the reborn Christ. He didn't show up.
The director of the new Hunter documentary thinks that he committed suicide too early, that he would have been rejuvenated by Obama. As he was earlier disappointed by Carter and Clinton what difference would Obama have made? Although, he's already made that shrieking sack of shit Diane Abbot even more insufferable. Well, if he gets one African American kid to swap gangster rap for college it will all have been worth it. And Presidential oratory and general coolness has just improved exponentially. Hunter may have occasionally voted Democrat but he lived as a Libertarian - yearning for a system that may only work in heaven. Or in our imaginations. Where he will continue to live as long as English survives.
Recommended: The Great White Shark Hunt, The Curse of Lono. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72.
Not Recommended: Trying this at home. Unless you've sold enough books that people will look after you, however much of a cunt you have become.
December 10, 2008 The Plums of PG Wodehouse: wrinkled, hairy?
As an unfortunate book title The Plums of P.G. Wodehouse is right up there with Penetrating Wagner's Ring.
Plum was Wodehouse's nickname, this is an anthology, so The Folio Book
Society probably thought they could go ahead safe from sniggering
schoolboys or indeed childish middle youth hooligans.
November 28, 2008 Matthew Wright: The Wettest Man Not Yet in Panties?
Can you be any wetter than Matthew Wright? (Apart from actually
watching this gossipy morning programme for SOPPY GURLS? Well, it's
helping me review DVDs for Forum magazine. I'm working. Honest. And I
fancy Mel Giedroyc.)
Even though pretty damn metrosexual myself, I had difficulty keeping my
breakfast down when Wright started swooning over 'high heels for
babies'. Yes. Leopardskin kitten heels for babies.
You don't have to be Clint Eastwood, John Wayne or Ray Winstone to find
this stomach churning. This is Caligula territory. And the tabloids are
correct to start another moral panic. ("Just because the editor of the
Daily Telegraph said it doesn't mean it's untrue." George Orwell.)
As for Wright, he's harmless but I challenge the ten people who read
these notes from the madhouse to find a wetter heterosexual man. Who
doesn't cross-dress.
November 24, 2008 Anarchist Porn...
An anarchist porn site is now available. Just in case you're gagging
for non-heirarchical, non-exploitative erotica. With a side order of
lentils.
Someone on Informed Consent asked,"wonder if that is an intentional political statement, or they just liked the colours?"
The Tom Robinson band was once busted for dope, flying into Norway. The
drummer, perhaps mindful of having to live up to the stereotype of
percussive idiocy, forgot to smoke a joint he had rolled for the flight
and went through customs sporting a red and black anarchy badge, worn
only because it accessorized his outfit. This was the proverbial red
(and black) rag to a bull and the customs soon detained us, found the
joint and almost wrecked the gig.
I later woke up to find our shared hotel room on fire when another
joint, smoked by said drummer, ignited some highly flammable
nylon sheets and some other foul manmade fabric in the bed.The drummer was dancing around having put his hands
in the burning mixture to put it out. It merely wrapped itself around
his flesh and carried on burning.
Outstanding work.
There seems to be a shortage of anarchist text erotica but plenty of visuals
on the freedom porn site. I was expecting a dog-on-a-string Crusty phone line but
maybe there's not much demand...
"She's wallowing in Glastonbury mud. Waiting for YOU..."
October 24, 2008 Baffling Vagina Synonym In Daily Mail
Allison Pearson has scolded ethereal beauty Lily Cole for being
pictured in 'pigtails, long white schoolgirl socks and with a pink
teddy parked up her Henri Matisse'.
Might be rhyming slang for crease, mused podcast duo Collins and
Herring. (Cole is studying art, enabling the Daily Mail matron to coin
this obscure Venus Glove synonym).
Running with the lovable overgrown students we might get Braque/crack,
or the Chapman Brothers/pair of cunts (no rhyme but nonetheless
irrefutable).
Men may wish to be done up the Picasso by Lily Cole, perhaps with an
art deco strap on. (Babes'n'Horny make the most beautiful dildos and
plugs, wide range of colours and designs, Lily Cole not included.)
Sad that Pearson has got much grumpier and censorious over the ears, ending up a right Anthony Blunt.
October 18, 2008 Middle Youth Hooligan Retires from Politics
Now is the time to retire from fruitless bickering and spread some love
on the oat biscuit of public discourse. Having recently been called
"one of the most malicious and unpleasant posters I have ever seen," by Labour's Director of communications, I shouldn't really be inviting people to join
the petition against transphobic truck driver Julie Bindel.
This is the Cro_Magnon lesbian author of "Why I hate men", in the
Al Grauniad, (where else?). A woman who makes Chris Moyles look like
Gok Wan. She has somehow got the ear of the Home Office and is
currently trying to close down the sex industry, remove juries from
rape trials and replace them with judges "trained by feminists",
(actually her position, not a smear.) Transitioning people should get
talking cures instead of surgery and even bisexuals are deviating from
the 1970s Lesbian New World order. She has no public support but seems
to have a Widdecombe-esque media niche by virtue of being utterly
ridiculous.
But some PC insanity does become law so it has to be worth signing the
petition protesting against a possible award from a Lesbian Gay
Bisexual organization.
MARK RAMSDEN
