MAPPING THE SONIC FUTURE IN A SILENT WAY

In the midst of all this full-blown industry overkill of the 40th anniversary of this or the expanded deluxe edition commemorating 25 years of that, one anniversary somehow seems to have slipped by this year unnoticed.
Fitting enough, one supposes, since the record in question is Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way. Granted it already received the Complete Sessions reissue treatment early this decade as part of Columbia/Sony’s first deluxe repackaging of the trumpeter’s legacy, it still remains something of an afterthought, overshadowed by Bitches Brew in the transition-to-electric Miles catalogue. But you can make a strong case that listening to Silent Way amounts to hearing a pretty sweeping blueprint for styles that would become an integral part of the music landscape in the four decades since its release.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve made this particular argument. That came 25 years ago in the context of trying to channel to Silent Way some of the attention being lavished on Brian Eno for trailblazing the concept of ambient music via his ‘70s solo albums and series of music for airports and other public places. Nothing against Eno, but I never felt any need to listen to those records because In A Silent Way so perfectly fit the definition of ambient music for me. It created ambiance and atmosphere, filling the space you were in with music that was substantial and offered subtle, rhythmically compelling variations on themes that were simple to grasp and totally involving without beating you over the head about it. The music still does that for me today and has never failed to any time I’ve pulled it out over the past 40 years.
It wasn’t the first Davis LP I bought (number two, after Bitches Brew) and you know how often that can colour your impression, but it was one of the first 20-odd jazz albums I ever heard. As the Complete Silent Way Sessions shows, the music was part of a six-month burst of inspiration and invention, a phase left behind just as rapidly as it appeared as Miles went forging on but the original release stands alone for its directness and simplicity. I never did psychedelics of any generation (mea culpa, mea culpa, street cred in tatters, I hang my head in shame) but I always thought it would be the perfect music to come down from tripping to—rhythm groove with simple catchy riffs anchored by Dave Holland’s bass to lock into and ground you, plenty of soothing but stimulating atmospheric touches and a few final bursts of color for the final soft landing.
Crucially, it’s not music you need have any advanced understanding of jazz to grasp what’s going on—I certainly didn’t when it first captured me.
This is Davis and Wayne Shorter soloing spare and elegant, flowing and peaceful.
This is John McLaughlin en route to joining the Tony Williams Lifetime, stepping directly off a plane from the UK into the studio and jazz lore, playing yearning bluesy lines and atmospheric chords with plenty of space that would disappear once those supersonic Mahavisnu scale runs kicked in.
This is Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock filling the midrange with melodic burbles and tone colors from twin Fender Rhodes, master musicians exploring a new sound toy and tonalities in pre-synthesizer times.
This is Josef Zawinul adding mood misterioso organ slashes during his brief passage through the Davis lineup to pick up Shorter and venture off into Weather Report, contributing compositions that did as much to shape the nature of this short-lived strain in Davis’ music as they later did in making Weather Report the one consistently creative force amongst those fusion offspring.
And this is Tony Williams, on the way out the door headed for the ferocious high-energy onslaught of his own group, providing an absolutely relentless rhythmic push. He accomplishes this on the original “Shhh/Peaceful” track by playing only high-hat cymbal patterns (aggressive high-hat say the notes in the Complete Sessions package—no shit) and on “In A Silent Way/It’s About That Time” by using a simple snare rim click. Over the 38 minutes of the original album, Williams plays his full kit for all of 42 seconds (between 13:10 and 13:52 of the latter and obviously yes, I did time it) and the amount of propulsion and forward drive he generates from minimal means is absolutely ridiculous. The momentum never flags.
So many elements and sounds which developed in the modern music world sound are foreshadowed here. Traces of chill, trance, trip hop, acid jazz, even the ambient mood music that led to so much new age ‘80s vapidity (I know, I know, almost all outdated concepts, but you lose track of all the current micro-categories) are all there. I think that Zawinul strain leads straight into the dub mentality, the whole concept of dropping elements in and out to incrementally craft and create new music, whether through live improvisation or using the studio board as was developing simultaneously in Jamaica.
In that sense, the music on Silent Way ushered in the era of treating the song as a completely malleable form, where the performance could be technically manipulated, altered and transformed in the service of arriving at an organic composition. While the pieces here are based on collective studio performances, not assembled track by track and using overdubs, they aren’t complete or edited-just-for-length performances. Producer Teo Macero created them as compositions using strategic tape edits to repeat passages of the performance, most clearly by looping the opening melody section of “In A Silent Way” to serve as the closing coda for “It’s About That Time”. The studio itself as a creative element, again referencing dub mentality and starting down the trail to the 12” re-mix and beyond–hell, it’s not the most outlandish claim to call Tony Williams the forerunner of the drum machine here.
Except that drum machine rhythms tend toward the static and Williams and the music on In A Silent Way are anything but static. The dynamics constantly ebb and flow, throwing different elements up in sharp relief, music that always rewards and commands but does not force itself on your attention—your mind can drift in and out, just following the flow and using it as background music yet always finding something compelling no matter whenever and wherever you choose to concentrate. It had that effect on me the first time I heard it 40 years ago, has never failed to do so since, and I can’t see any good reason why it will not remain an endlessly fascinating album that never grows boring for 40 more years and beyond.