Miles Davis - The Complete In A Silent Way

In 1968 Miles disposition was moving towards electric rock based music rather than the bebop he was playing at the time. This resulted in the breakup of his second great quintet following the departure of Ron Carter in the Filles de Kilimanjaro sessions but on the other hand liberated Miles to work towards some of his most creative music. In A Silent Way is silky and ambient, almost like a drone. Both monotonous and melodic it is one of the defining points of this career.

The set itself starts off kind of slow with Mademoiselle Mabry before kicking into Frelon Brun which opened the original Filles De Kilimanjaro LP and is one of the highlights of this set. This time round I’ve enjoyed the material that ended up on Water Babies a lot more, particularly Two-Faced. The cool thing about this set as opposed to Bitches Brew is that it has some of the jams and rehearsals that were cut down to the LP versions I’m familiar with. The Jack Johnson set did that as well of course, but it seems much more effective here because it isn’t as bloated as that set is.

As far as mixes go, Frelon Brun has lost its punch in this mix. Most of the other material fares better, although I’m not familiar enough with the original mix of In A Silent Way itself to compare.