Music Arcades: Miles Davis: A Tribute to Jack Johnson

Do you ever get the impression that I take this all too seriously? Rhetorical question.

Back when I was living five minutes from the Barbican (sigh!), I'd take a chance on any of their events that looked even vaguely interesting, just because I could. A lot of their events were a bit hit and miss, especially in the Only Connect series, but I don't regret going to any of them. In fact, I wish I'd gone to more.

One such event involved Jack DeJohnette, who played with Miles around the same time as A Tribute to Jack Johnson (though not on the album itself), playing with some young British jazzers as a live soundtrack to the original Jack Johnson film. A Tribute to A Tribute to Jack Johnson, in fact. Being a fan of late '60s/early '70s Miles, but not having the Jack Johnson album, I bought it a few weeks before the gig as a kind of 'prep' so I would get more out of the event. Everyone does prep for gigs, don't they? Don't they?

I'm not sure how much it helped. The evening was a bit of a curio. Being far from an expert or insider, I might have preferred a more conservative approach that relied more heavily on the old music. The fact that I was in the second or third row, so that I had to crane my neck to see the film, probably didn't help. The bit I enjoyed most by far — and which predictably got the most audience response — was when they came back for an encore without the film and played some old Miles.

I found this review of the gig, which tells me the encore piece was What I Say. The reviewer, clearly much more informed and fully steeped in this music, is more positive about the whole evening. "It works," he declares.

Meanwhile my memento of the evening is some music that they didn't play.

MusicBrainz entry for this album