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It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record
Here is quite simply one of the most original books about a jazz musician ever published--a biography-cum-discography that focuses in turn on fourteen major albums recorded by Miles Davis, using them as a jumping off point for an illuminating discussion of the turbulent life and work of the "Evil Genius of Jazz."
Richard Cook, a veteran writer respected throughout the jazz world, looks at such landmark recordings as Birth of the Cool, Miles Ahead, Kind of Blue, The Complete Live at The Plugged Nickel, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew , and Live at Montreux . Each of these recordings is considered in detail, illuminating their contribution to Davis's development as instrumentalist, group leader, and composer. But Cook goes well beyond these fourteen albums, evaluating all the trumpeter's recordings (official and bootleg), and relating them to events in Miles's life as well as to wider currents in contemporary music. Cook helps us disentangle Miles the legendary figure from the music itself, to re-hear and reconsider this marvelous body of work ranging over four exhilarating decades. The author also highlights the indispensable contributions of sidemen such as John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, John Scofield, and many others, as well as calling for a reassessment
of the importance of such "satellite" figures as Gil Evans, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams and Chick Corea in the development of Miles's music.
A comprehensive and rigorous guide to the music and life of Miles Davis, It's About That Time is a stunning book that burns away the fog of myth that surrounds its complex and contrary subject.
Richard Cook, a veteran writer respected throughout the jazz world, looks at such landmark recordings as Birth of the Cool, Miles Ahead, Kind of Blue, The Complete Live at The Plugged Nickel, In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew , and Live at Montreux . Each of these recordings is considered in detail, illuminating their contribution to Davis's development as instrumentalist, group leader, and composer. But Cook goes well beyond these fourteen albums, evaluating all the trumpeter's recordings (official and bootleg), and relating them to events in Miles's life as well as to wider currents in contemporary music. Cook helps us disentangle Miles the legendary figure from the music itself, to re-hear and reconsider this marvelous body of work ranging over four exhilarating decades. The author also highlights the indispensable contributions of sidemen such as John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, John Scofield, and many others, as well as calling for a reassessment
of the importance of such "satellite" figures as Gil Evans, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams and Chick Corea in the development of Miles's music.
A comprehensive and rigorous guide to the music and life of Miles Davis, It's About That Time is a stunning book that burns away the fog of myth that surrounds its complex and contrary subject.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 17, 2022
This was a well-written, interesting & enjoyable analysis of the recording career of Miles Davis. I already knew that Richard Cook was a talented and knowledgeable writer on Jazz, as I had already read his excellent history of Blue Note Records (Blue Note Records: The Biography); however, on page 235 Mr. Cook made a statement that I cannot let by without comment. What he said was: "[Michael] Henderson was cut more from the cloth that made the great Motown bassist James Jamerson, than in the tradition of Ray Brown and Paul Chambers.". While that statement is not necessarily offensive, it posits a dichotomy between the playing styles of Chambers & Jamerson which, in my view, does not exist.
Detroit has a longstanding tradition of producing great bass players, and in my own opinion (being myself a Detroit bass player) as well as that of others, there is a definite "Detroit style" of bass playing. For starters, a partial list of great Detroit bassists would include not only Chambers & Jamerson, but also Doug Watkins, Ron Carter, Al McKibbon, Major Holley, Herman Wright, Ralphe Armstrong, Fernando Saunders, Nate Watts and Jaribu Shahid (as well as James Jamerson Jr., who followed in his father's footsteps). In addition, although Bob Babbitt and Michael Henderson were born and raised elsewhere (according to at least one source, Henderson did in fact grow up in Detroit), both spent the formative parts of their careers living & working in Detroit. Watkins (born 1934), Chambers (born 1935), and Carter (born 1937) followed one another through the legendary music program at Cass Technical High School in Detroit, while Jamerson (born 1936) attended Northwestern H.S. a few miles away (on Grand Boulevard near Linwood, down the street from the old Motown Records building). Those four, being contemporaries, were well aware of one another as they all began playing gigs around Detroit at roughly the same time. As working musicians who supported themselves on their income from gigs & recording sessions, they could not afford to be elitist in terms of what style of music they would be willing to play. To use Jamerson as an example, he did not play only R & B, nor did he exclusively play electric bass; among the many jazz musicians with whom he played gigs and/or recorded were Yusef Lateef, Stanley Turrentine (who also recorded at least one record with Bob Babbitt on bass), and Houston Person. On one of the CDs included with the book 'Standing In The Shadows Of Motown: The Life And Music Of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson' by Allan Slutsky (a.k.a. Dr. Licks) Disc One, Track 18 consists primarily of a recording of James Jamerson sitting in with guitarist Dennis Coffey (and probably Melvin Davis on drums) at the well known Detroit jazz club Baker's Keyboard Lounge, apparently as a substitute for organist Lyman Woodard. Jamerson also played the blues on occasion, notably with John Lee Hooker.
The "Detroit style" of bass playing is, generally speaking, noticeably more aggressive & "busy" than most contemporary approaches to the instrument within any given era or genre of music; it is also characterised by the frequent use of 5ths & octaves as accents or as punctuation. It is quite possible to trace these stylistic tendencies within Detroit music all the way from the aforementioned bassists working within Jazz, Blues and R & B in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s right down to those of us who were active in the Detroit rock'n'roll scene in the 1990s. I have already noted that the earlier generation had a commonality of experience & shared stylistic base, and an equally obvious influence on each other. In the late 1960s & 1970s, as rock'n'roll became more important, their collective influence, and particularly that of James Jamerson, became apparent in the playing of not only his Motown label mate John Persh (Rare Earth), but also that of Michael Davis (MC5, Destroy All Monsters), Ron Asheton (the Stooges), Greg Arama (Amboy Dukes), Gary Rasmussen (the Up, Sonic's Rendezvous Band), Suzi Quatro, Tony Sales (Iggy Pop, Tin Machine), and Don Was (Was (Not Was)). By the late 1980s/early 1990s the influence of many of the above had, obviously, spread far beyond the confines of the Detroit area. Those influences were still apparent, however, in the music scene that myself and my contemporaries were a part of in Detroit at that time. "Pistol Pete" Midtgard (A.L.D., Twistin' Tarantulas) is a living link between at least two generations of Detroit bass players, due to his having begun his career during the mid-1970s; like James Jamerson, he has played and recorded on both electric & upright bass. Pistol Pete also played at least a few gigs doing Motown cover versions while he was coming up, as did John "Sabre" Bartels (Happy Death Men, Pains, Dirt Merchants, Bomb Pops). Bartels, Toni Romeo (Trash Brats, Easy Action), the late Eric "Feisty" Haskins (Feisty Cadavers, Shock Therapy), myself (Poets & Murder), and occasionally Brad Hales (Chutes & Ladders, Nathaniel Mayer, Easy Action) and/or assorted others spent a great deal of time hanging out at various bars & parties, discussing (among other things, of course!) various aspects of music and watching one anothers' bands play*. Although none of us were aware at that time how far back the tradition went, we were quite cognizant of how much we all owed (in varying degrees) stylistically to Jamerson & Babbitt particularly (and for me anyway, Paul Chambers as well), and also to those who followed during the intervening two decades. One comment which several of us heard in various forms from bandmates and/or other musicians was to the effect that we had an approach to playing that contained a much more pronounced jazz element than was typical of most rock'n'roll bassists contemporary with us. As I was probably the only one involved in our little group who listened to any jazz at all, this tendency had to have come from somewhere (or rather someone) else- James Jamerson. Jamerson revolutionised the role of the bass in popular music, in part because rather than stringing together one or more ostinatos or "licks", with little or no variation throughout the song, he instead played pop/r & b numbers as though he was playing jazz changes; he tended to dance around the beat, so to speak, rather than merely emphasizing and accentuating the rhythm set by the drummer. His influence not only on bass players, but on popular music as a whole, worldwide, can be clearly heard in such diverse settings as Fela Kuti's afro-beat records of the 1970s, Aston Barrett's work on Bob Marley's 1977 'Exodus' album or Duff McKagan's work with Guns n' Roses (particularly their 1987 debut LP, 'Appetite For Destruction') in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For bassists working in any of the many & various forms of popular music during the last three decades, the influence of James Jamerson, and through him the Detroit style of bass playing, has been inescapable. In my own case, this became apparent when my band began covering the Stooges' 'I Got A Right', which was arguably Ron Asheton's finest work on the bass guitar. The more familiar I became with that bass line, the more obvious were the stylistic echoes of Motown, particularly with reference to the playing of Jamerson's Motown colleague Bob Babbitt. As I became more aware of the history of Detroit musicians and their music, I began to see the outlines of this tradition, and became curious to find out more... I will remain proud to have been a part of it, albeit a small one, until the day I die.
*Another great Detroit bass player & rough contemporary of ours whom I forgot to mention when I initially wrote this is Kevin Perri (Junk Monkeys); he did not socialise with the rest of us quite as much during that time, primarily because his band had a record deal & were frequently out of town, but he is one of the best bassists to come out of that time & place. Check out the Junk Monkeys' 'Bliss' to hear his work.
*I have just belatedly realised that I also neglected to mention the three bass players of one of my favourite bands, the Laughing Hyenas. First was Kevin Munro (a.k.a. Kevin Strickland), who along with his Laughing Hyenas band-mate, drummer Jim Kimball, went on to play in Mule; both Kevin & Jim can be heard on 'You Can't Pray A Lie' & 'Life Of Crime'. Next was Kevin Ries, who had previously played with the Necros; his playing can be heard on the 'Crawl' EP. Last, but certainly not least, was Ron Sakowski, who had also previously played with the Necros; his playing can be heard on 'Hard Times'.
[Note: I will be adding a short discography to this review in the near future...]
If you would like to read more about Detroit music & musicians, you may find the following books to be of interest:
Detroit has a longstanding tradition of producing great bass players, and in my own opinion (being myself a Detroit bass player) as well as that of others, there is a definite "Detroit style" of bass playing. For starters, a partial list of great Detroit bassists would include not only Chambers & Jamerson, but also Doug Watkins, Ron Carter, Al McKibbon, Major Holley, Herman Wright, Ralphe Armstrong, Fernando Saunders, Nate Watts and Jaribu Shahid (as well as James Jamerson Jr., who followed in his father's footsteps). In addition, although Bob Babbitt and Michael Henderson were born and raised elsewhere (according to at least one source, Henderson did in fact grow up in Detroit), both spent the formative parts of their careers living & working in Detroit. Watkins (born 1934), Chambers (born 1935), and Carter (born 1937) followed one another through the legendary music program at Cass Technical High School in Detroit, while Jamerson (born 1936) attended Northwestern H.S. a few miles away (on Grand Boulevard near Linwood, down the street from the old Motown Records building). Those four, being contemporaries, were well aware of one another as they all began playing gigs around Detroit at roughly the same time. As working musicians who supported themselves on their income from gigs & recording sessions, they could not afford to be elitist in terms of what style of music they would be willing to play. To use Jamerson as an example, he did not play only R & B, nor did he exclusively play electric bass; among the many jazz musicians with whom he played gigs and/or recorded were Yusef Lateef, Stanley Turrentine (who also recorded at least one record with Bob Babbitt on bass), and Houston Person. On one of the CDs included with the book 'Standing In The Shadows Of Motown: The Life And Music Of Legendary Bassist James Jamerson' by Allan Slutsky (a.k.a. Dr. Licks) Disc One, Track 18 consists primarily of a recording of James Jamerson sitting in with guitarist Dennis Coffey (and probably Melvin Davis on drums) at the well known Detroit jazz club Baker's Keyboard Lounge, apparently as a substitute for organist Lyman Woodard. Jamerson also played the blues on occasion, notably with John Lee Hooker.
The "Detroit style" of bass playing is, generally speaking, noticeably more aggressive & "busy" than most contemporary approaches to the instrument within any given era or genre of music; it is also characterised by the frequent use of 5ths & octaves as accents or as punctuation. It is quite possible to trace these stylistic tendencies within Detroit music all the way from the aforementioned bassists working within Jazz, Blues and R & B in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s right down to those of us who were active in the Detroit rock'n'roll scene in the 1990s. I have already noted that the earlier generation had a commonality of experience & shared stylistic base, and an equally obvious influence on each other. In the late 1960s & 1970s, as rock'n'roll became more important, their collective influence, and particularly that of James Jamerson, became apparent in the playing of not only his Motown label mate John Persh (Rare Earth), but also that of Michael Davis (MC5, Destroy All Monsters), Ron Asheton (the Stooges), Greg Arama (Amboy Dukes), Gary Rasmussen (the Up, Sonic's Rendezvous Band), Suzi Quatro, Tony Sales (Iggy Pop, Tin Machine), and Don Was (Was (Not Was)). By the late 1980s/early 1990s the influence of many of the above had, obviously, spread far beyond the confines of the Detroit area. Those influences were still apparent, however, in the music scene that myself and my contemporaries were a part of in Detroit at that time. "Pistol Pete" Midtgard (A.L.D., Twistin' Tarantulas) is a living link between at least two generations of Detroit bass players, due to his having begun his career during the mid-1970s; like James Jamerson, he has played and recorded on both electric & upright bass. Pistol Pete also played at least a few gigs doing Motown cover versions while he was coming up, as did John "Sabre" Bartels (Happy Death Men, Pains, Dirt Merchants, Bomb Pops). Bartels, Toni Romeo (Trash Brats, Easy Action), the late Eric "Feisty" Haskins (Feisty Cadavers, Shock Therapy), myself (Poets & Murder), and occasionally Brad Hales (Chutes & Ladders, Nathaniel Mayer, Easy Action) and/or assorted others spent a great deal of time hanging out at various bars & parties, discussing (among other things, of course!) various aspects of music and watching one anothers' bands play*. Although none of us were aware at that time how far back the tradition went, we were quite cognizant of how much we all owed (in varying degrees) stylistically to Jamerson & Babbitt particularly (and for me anyway, Paul Chambers as well), and also to those who followed during the intervening two decades. One comment which several of us heard in various forms from bandmates and/or other musicians was to the effect that we had an approach to playing that contained a much more pronounced jazz element than was typical of most rock'n'roll bassists contemporary with us. As I was probably the only one involved in our little group who listened to any jazz at all, this tendency had to have come from somewhere (or rather someone) else- James Jamerson. Jamerson revolutionised the role of the bass in popular music, in part because rather than stringing together one or more ostinatos or "licks", with little or no variation throughout the song, he instead played pop/r & b numbers as though he was playing jazz changes; he tended to dance around the beat, so to speak, rather than merely emphasizing and accentuating the rhythm set by the drummer. His influence not only on bass players, but on popular music as a whole, worldwide, can be clearly heard in such diverse settings as Fela Kuti's afro-beat records of the 1970s, Aston Barrett's work on Bob Marley's 1977 'Exodus' album or Duff McKagan's work with Guns n' Roses (particularly their 1987 debut LP, 'Appetite For Destruction') in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For bassists working in any of the many & various forms of popular music during the last three decades, the influence of James Jamerson, and through him the Detroit style of bass playing, has been inescapable. In my own case, this became apparent when my band began covering the Stooges' 'I Got A Right', which was arguably Ron Asheton's finest work on the bass guitar. The more familiar I became with that bass line, the more obvious were the stylistic echoes of Motown, particularly with reference to the playing of Jamerson's Motown colleague Bob Babbitt. As I became more aware of the history of Detroit musicians and their music, I began to see the outlines of this tradition, and became curious to find out more... I will remain proud to have been a part of it, albeit a small one, until the day I die.
*Another great Detroit bass player & rough contemporary of ours whom I forgot to mention when I initially wrote this is Kevin Perri (Junk Monkeys); he did not socialise with the rest of us quite as much during that time, primarily because his band had a record deal & were frequently out of town, but he is one of the best bassists to come out of that time & place. Check out the Junk Monkeys' 'Bliss' to hear his work.
*I have just belatedly realised that I also neglected to mention the three bass players of one of my favourite bands, the Laughing Hyenas. First was Kevin Munro (a.k.a. Kevin Strickland), who along with his Laughing Hyenas band-mate, drummer Jim Kimball, went on to play in Mule; both Kevin & Jim can be heard on 'You Can't Pray A Lie' & 'Life Of Crime'. Next was Kevin Ries, who had previously played with the Necros; his playing can be heard on the 'Crawl' EP. Last, but certainly not least, was Ron Sakowski, who had also previously played with the Necros; his playing can be heard on 'Hard Times'.
[Note: I will be adding a short discography to this review in the near future...]
If you would like to read more about Detroit music & musicians, you may find the following books to be of interest:
February 6, 2025
This book has been described as a "biography/discography" of Miles Davis. It seems that for anyone interested in the biographical material (as I was), the level of detail concerning Miles's recordings and the composition of his many different groups is a bit mind-numbing. On the other hand, I suspect that anyone looking for such an in-depth compilation of discographic minutia is probably already thoroughly familiar with the Miles Davis biography and would therefore find those portions of the book uninteresting.
I was going to rate this book 2 stars, but because I enjoyed the biographical portions of it and I recognize the value of a (very!) thorough discography to other readers, I've settled on a 3-star rating.
I was going to rate this book 2 stars, but because I enjoyed the biographical portions of it and I recognize the value of a (very!) thorough discography to other readers, I've settled on a 3-star rating.
May 13, 2008
I found Richard Cook via the Penguin Guide to Jazz. He's also written a history of Blue Note Records that I began and then put down. This biography of Miles Davis's recordings is more like it. There's a lot to digest from the prolific and important Davis, and Cook notes *something* about every record the guy made. I like his writing style: he makes somewhat bold pronouncements and seems to carry the authority to do so. It's just nice to uncover the mystery of at least one musician's very complex career -- to a degree.
March 8, 2008
A read for Miles Davis fans only. He thodically takes us through each album and gives insights into the strengths and weaknesses of each. I liked it a great deal--but again, I'm obsessed with all things MD.
July 19, 2016
While well written. It was very hard for me to enjoy this book. Not because of it's subject/content but because I lack to much in musical knowledge. I would therefore not recommend this book to the moderate jazz afficionado or casual listener such as myself.
December 26, 2007
cut the crab, this book shows Miles' biography from point of view of his important recording. Not about his life as general. Very orginal considering many copy cat books about Miles Davis.
February 6, 2013
Extremely dry chronicle of Miles' studio sessions. Reads like liner notes, except it's 350 pages long.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews