Electric Miles: A Conversation
On Feb. 18, 1969, at CBS’ 30th Street Studio in New York, Miles Davis definitively went in the direction that he’d already been leaning toward for a year or so: full electricity. The album that emerged from that fateful recording session, In a Silent Way, established a new jazz-rock path that would be further cemented by the double-disc Bitches Brew, cut later that same year and released in 1970. Miles’ days of working within a traditional acoustic format were over, and jazz would never be the same.
All of the above facts are indisputable. Yet even now, opinions diverge on what Miles was trying to achieve by going electric, and on what lasting significance his radical stylistic shift has had on jazz, and on music in general. And so it seemed appropriate, 50 years on, to bring up those subjects and more with some of the musicians who worked with Miles during his electric years. Seven of those players—drummer Lenny White, bassist Michael Henderson, saxophonists Dave Liebman and Gary Bartz, percussionist Mtume (born James Forman), drummer (and Miles’ nephew) Vince Wilburn, Jr., and trumpeter Wallace Roney—gathered in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room during the second annual Jazz Congress this past January for a discussion moderated by journalist and broadcaster Mark Ruffin. An edited transcript of that conversation follows.
MARK RUFFIN: Going chronologically, which would make Lenny first, I’d like for folks to tell how they got with Miles.
LENNY WHITE: My mentor, who I call “God Drums,” Tony Williams, played with Miles. Miles had heard Tony’s band, Lifetime, and he wanted to have the band be his band—“Miles Davis Presents Tony Williams’ Lifetime”—and Tony wasn’t having that. So they had a rift. When Miles was going to do Bitches Brew, he wanted to have Jack DeJohnette and Tony play on it, but Tony said he wasn’t going to play with Miles anymore, and I believe that he gave a recommendation for me. I had played with Jackie McLean, Tony had played with Jackie McLean, Jack had played with Jackie McLean, so everybody said, “Now you’re going to play with Miles Davis!” And I said, “Yeah, right.” But that actually did happen.
I got a call to go to Miles’ house and rehearse for this. And he said, “Be there at 10 a.m., Columbia Studios.” I was there at 9:30, the cleaning lady let me in. I’m setting up my stuff and everybody’s starting to come in now. I set up right next to Jack and was testing my drums out, and Miles comes in and over the talkback he says, “Hey, Jack!” Jack says, “Yeah, Miles?” He says, “Tell that young drummer to shut up.” And that’s the way the session started.
