Go Ahead John The recording has a strong groove and was titled by Davis as an exhortation to his guitar player John McLaughlin. Recorded on March 7, 1970, Go Ahead John is an outtake from Daviss Jack Johnson sessions. The recording is a riff and groove-based, with a relatively sparser line-up of Steve Grossman on soprano saxophone, Dave Holland on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and John McLaughlin on guitar with wah-wah pedal. It was one of the rare occasions in which Davis recorded without a keyboard. It was recorded in five sections, ranging from three to 13 minutes, which producer Teo Macero subsequently assembled in post-production four years later for Big Fun. DeJohnette provides a funky, complex groove, Holland plays bass with one constant note repeated, and McLaughlin plays in a staccato style with blues and funk elements. According to one music writer, the tracks bass parts has a trancelike drone that maintains the predominantly Eastern vibe of the album. Daviss trumpet and McLaughlins guitar parts were heavily overdubbed for the recording. The overdubbing effect was created by superimposing part of Daviss trumpet solo onto other parts of it, through something Teo Macero calls a recording loop. Macero later said of this production technique, You hear the two parts and its only two parts, but the two parts become four and they become eight parts. This was done over in the editing room and it just adds something to the music [...] I called [Davis] in and I said, Come in, I think weve got something youll like. Well try it on and if you like it youve got it. He came in and flipped out. He said it was one of the greatest things he ever heard. DeJohnettes drums were also manipulated by Macero, who used an automatic switcher to have them rattle back and forth between the left and right speakers on the recording.[3] In his book Running the Voodoo Down: The Electric Music of Miles Davis, Davis-biographer Phil Freeman describes this technique as 100 percent Macero and writes of its significance to the track as a whole, stating: This doesnt create the effect of two drummers. Its just disorienting, throwing the ear off balance in a way that forces the listener to pay close attention. The drums cease to perform their traditional function. Jack DeJohnettes beats, funky and propulsive on the session tapes, are so chopped up that their timekeeping utility is virtually nil. Macero has diced the rhythm so adroitly that we are not even permitted to hear an entire drum hit or hi-hat crash. All that remains are clicks and whooshes, barely identifiable as drums and, again, practically useless as rhythmic indicators. Thus, the pace is maintained by Dave Hollands one-note throb and the occasional descending blues progression he plays. The feeling one gets from Go Ahead John becomes one of floating in space. —Phil Freeman https://youtube/watch?v=oo0OTOr4sbc
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 01:36:00 +0000
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