This Week: Miles' shelf-clearing exercise and Punjabi MC filtered hip hop
Miles Davis
The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions (Columbia/Legacy)
Tucked in at the end of this five-CD set is the Tribute to Jack Johnson album proper, a cut-and-paste soundtrack of rousing rock and tense funk that stands as one of Miles' strongest electric works. Johnson was a heavyweight champ of the early 20th century with whom Davis (the amateur boxer and successful minority) understandably felt a certain kinship. Hendrix and Sly Stone were on Miles' mind as well, as the vague draperies of Silent Way and Bitches Brew gave way to overt backbeats, snarling guitars, and pop-chart bass lines. Apologists of Miles' electric era claim he was still playing the same fetching jazz phrases over new backdrops, but his Jack Johnson trumpet begs to differ, targeting and teasing the pulse in pure rock and R&B fashion. The other heroes behind the record were guitarist John McLaughlin—who brought riffs and raunch aplenty—and producer Teo Macero, whose splicing savvy gave form to Miles' laissez-faire jams.
The rest of the set presents not only the raw materials of Jack Johnson but several other sessions from 1970, excerpts of which were shoehorned into albums like Big Fun and Get Up With It. Aside from some ghostly sketches made with Hermeto Pascoal, this music aims for the gut—dense, vamp-based workouts that could be boring as sin were it not for the players involved. McLaughlin features heavily, along with some of the usual suspects (Hancock, Grossman, Holland, etc.). The blues pops up in a couple of places, as does a hint of reggae ("Ali"), and the ominous atmosphere of "The Mask Pt. 2" dodges any category at all. All of which expands but doesn't really deepen Davis' fusion legacy. This is a shelf-clearing exercise—the good, the bad, and the ugly. But what the music lacks in formality and challenge, it more than makes up for in being big fun to listen to.
The strict chronology of the box means repetition—disc 1 begins with six stabs at the "Willie Nelson" groove alone. Completists won't mind using the forward button, while casual fans will want to wait for the eventual reissue of the Jack Johnson album itself. (Where surely some of the better bonus material will make an appearance.) The repetition is echoed in Bill Milkowski's three (!) largely redundant essays, wherein the "proto-punk" descriptions get a little tired. But literature isn't the selling point here.
—Chris Mitchell
Panjabi MC
Beware (Sequence Records)
It never ceases to be amazing how foreigners re-craft, adopt, and soak themselves in Black America's musical vernacular, thereby contributing hybrids that pay homage to, and that also root themselves in, its musical traditions and innovations. The borrowing of African-Americans' musical syntax has long been the practice for a countless music lovers/practitioners from around the world; Martin Scorcese's recent Blues Series on PBS all-too-poignantly attests to this fact. That having been said, a beautiful manifestation of the aforementioned phenomenon comes in the form of Beware, Panjabi MC's debut release in the United States.
Adulterated at the beginning by a tagged-on, "five & dime" rhyme by one of hip-hop's trump cards, Beware redeems itself immediately thereafter through a succession of vivacious and vivid songs. There is a trajectory into finesse past the languid delivery by Jay-Z on track one. Beware is a spicy musical alphabet soup. It is akin to an encounter between a hip-hop playa and a Bhangra beauty under the twirling lights of a dance floor.
Beware is ripe with voluptuous songs. Track four, for example, is the embodiment of absolute sonic beauty. "Sweeter" is a musical promenade that sports a reggae-esque platform and that is distinguished by an accordion sway and a tabla-marked sashay. It is bejeweled with tambourine sparkles and accessorized with a non-fussy falsetto vocal delivery. It is sweetness, pure and simple. Track five perfectly struts behind the aforementioned song, as it marked by a cocky musical trot. Decked out in a rap, this tune comes off being both debonair and intrepid. Familiar riffs turn up on a couple of Beware's tunes while others are populated with bona fide Bhangra ingredients that tout their glorious selves.
Musical curves abound throughout Beware's tenure. This release runs the gamut; at once, it is gloriously garish and elegantly spare. Simply put, Beware has a tantalizing musical persona that invites your approach.
—Ekem Amonoo Lartson
October 30, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 44
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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