I was at the Isle of Wight Festival - 17 years old. At the time I knew next to nothing about Jazz and even less about Miles Davies. To me it just sounded like random notes being blasted out and I hated it. Strange how time can change you way of thinking. Bitches Brew now one of my all time favourite albums and seeing footage of this gig - I love it!
The problem back then......if you want to call it a problem, was that there were so many bands and so many genres of great music, you didn't appreciate it at the time compared to today's manufactured packaged music.
Yes, I was there too. Age 14. I ran away from home for the three days. I don't even remember Miles Davis band but I do remember Joni crying - which Gary mentions in this video - because people weren't listening.
Gary Bartz is one of the greats that I think never got the total the recognition that he truly deserves. Gary Bartz has always been honest in his interviews about the drug scene and who was hooked, including himself, when asked. He is one of the greats that is still alive.
I just want to tell you how important the work that you do here is..! .., and how much I enjoy the music and the insightful interviews regarding the music 🎶
@@fideliusconcrete4871 take a look to his discography: he played with the greatest in an impressive list of records and gigs. I think that, especially with Miles, he did what the leader asked him to do, nothing else.
@@olemofjell I certainly don’t want to take any joy of music (or any art) away from you. I’ve heard Airto four times with Miles, and those four times he was disturbing the beautiful flow of the music. Sorry to inform you, but his input did not make the sound deeper or more interesting, quite the contrary. I’ve heard at one festival Airto with his own band, and I really liked that concert. But in Miles‘ band he was at the very wrong time at the wrong place.
This is great and important footage. I’m just sorry that it took me so long in life to pick up on what this marvelous collection of musicians was all about. Thank you, Bret.
I highly recommend the DVD this came from, "Miles Electric--A Different Kind of Blue". Watching it was for me the first time I got to hear a continuous, uninterrupted Miles performance from this period--something without the Teo Macero dicing and splicing. It was before the Fillmore box set came out. It shows the entire 30+ minute performance and has interviews with some of the musicians in the band and others. Plus it shows the tail end of Tiny Tim's set where he was singing "There Will Always Be an England".
I was there. I ran away from home for the weekend. I was 14. I have forgotten so much, but I remember Joni crying because people weren't listening to her.
I was at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970. Maybe we were many people there, but at that time apart from me and two friends almost no-one cared about Miles' gig. On top of that the sound was pretty bad, you could not hear anything when you were more than 150 feet away from the stage, except the rock bands. Meaning we wanted to hear Miles and the band, but we were not able to do that ... Okay, let's face it: Out of the 600.000 about 20.000 were able to hear something, seriously.
True but you have to bear in mind that this type of open air gig was new in the UK at the time. PA amplification had not yet been developed for such a huge crowd and as I remember it the whole festival was chaotic, every act running late, the schedule went right out of the window for sure.
Absolutely gorgeous, Bret. The track's titled Willie Nelson, right? Everyone's just BRILLIANT, and it's great to hear and see a yourhful, adrenalin-fuelled Jack de Johnette getting it Just right with that funky relentless offbeat
Great share Jazz Video guy, appreciate your interviews with old jazz legends....and hey that looks like JAMES GADSEN on drums, he was with Bill Withers and noted for his funk drum licks like on Use Me Up...
My biggest gig was at the Blue Cross Arena with Bobby Womack opening for the Isley Bros and Frankie Beverly and Maze. I played keys wasn't a Jazz festival. My biggest Jazz festival was my own band playing the Long Beach Jazz festival this year.
Really very cool and high energy at the same time! Thank you so much! O. PS: Do not think that Russians were allowed to travel at all during the cold war, and certainly not to avant-garde shows like that!
Haha! "They were openly smoking joints in the airplane cabin - bags of cocaine were being passed around the aisle, and so on". A real Smoke-in as the bands and crews were flying across the Atlantic...eight miles high, for sure! :) And this is on a regular passenger jet. :) I wonder what the Air India crew thought of it.
I’ve been on flights like that. The ‘airline’ was in fact the Argentinian Air Force. We hired them for a stretch of a tour and carried our equipment in the same plane tightly strapped to pallets. Three of us went climbing in the pallets for a place to smoke. While quite buzzed, an officer suddenly popped his head up. Prepared to apologize profusely, at the perfect moment he asked if we wanted anything from the bar. Brought wine and cheese to our little redoubt and we took this to mean all was good. Later flights were very casual, the most enjoyable time in a ‘commercial’ aircraft.
I wore my new miles TShirt today to Bethel woods site of Woodstock 69 festival the year before this set the stage to double the audience in 1 year Dylan showed up epic Isle of Wight The Who
Great words from Bartz. Here's the whole set I believe: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qyJooHmRcdc.html These guys were on fire. What a band!
The music wasn't about anything. This was around the time Miles was using drugs. Any good college school jazz group could have played better music. Miles lost his touch after the 60's. Chic Corea, Herbie Handcock and Tony Williams liked playing with Miles because Miles, like them hated playing the same music every night. The problem with that mentality was that jazz fans wanted to here straight ahead jazz. This is part of what killed jazz. Miles was never a great trumpet player like Dizzy Gillespie, or Freddie Hubbard. He had great side men during the 1960's, they made Miles look better than he was. People kept saying how great Miles was. The reality was, THE Emperor's New Clothes. In other words, this concert, if you want to call it that was bullshit on a stick. If you want great jazz, listen kenny Burrell's version of GIRL Talk, or Wes Montgomery doing four on six, or even his version of Going out of my head.
I could not appreciate and come to enjoy "Bitches Brew" until maybe the 30th time through. I would just put it on while working and it did its thing subconciously as I was not judging. That record opened me up musically and thus philosophically in a very positive way.
