Miles Davis - A Tribute To Jack Johnson (LP)

2020 Stereophile Magazine Record to Die For

Miles Davis' A Tribute to Jack Johnson is the best jazz-record ever made. Equally inspired by the leader's desire to assemble the "greatest rock and roll band you have ever heard" as well as his adoration of championship boxer Johnson, Davis created a hard-hitting set that spills over with excitement, intensity, majesty, and power. Bridging the electric fusion he'd pursued on earlier efforts with a funkier, dirtier rhythmic approach, Davis zeroes in on concepts of spontaneity, freedom, and identity seldom achieved in the studio.

If you have never experienced this staggeringly creative moment in Miles Davis's (and producer Teo Macero's) art played loud, with absolute clarity and unfettered transient-prowess, you might have only a partial understanding of what a god-walking-the-earth Miles Davis was. I am currently obsessed with this delirious musical construction because it reminds me that in order to make art at the highest levels, one must first give oneself permission to emancipate and explore the uncharted.