'It sounded like the future': behind Miles Davis's greatest album |

"Davis was curious, too, about the new sound of psychedelia. “He was asking me about Jimi [Hendrix],” McLaughlin said. “We had played together and I loved Jimi. Miles had never seen him. So, I took him to this art movie theater downtown to see the film Monterey Pop where Jimi ended by squirting lighter fluid on his guitar, setting it on fire. Miles was next to me saying: ‘Fuuck!’ He was enchanted.”

“Miles was being influenced by everything around him,” Troupe said. “He was trying to move his music forward.”

He was motivated, too, by the changing taste of the public. “1969 was the year jazz seemed to be withering on the vine,” Davis said in his official biography. “We played to a lot of half empty clubs. That told me something. I started realizing that most rock musicians didn’t know anything about music. I figured if they could sell all those records without knowing what they were really doing, I could too – only better.”"

article by Jim Farber

'It sounded like the future': behind Miles Davis's greatest album | Music | The Guardian