Freedom Jazz Dance, part 1

But while the music they played was markedly different from the music of their peers, what really set the Second Great Quintet apart – as you'll find to be the case with any great group of musicians in any genre – was the way they played this music. By the time the group reached its final state in 1965, free jazz and its advocates had already been on the scene for at least five years. Ornette Coleman's prophetically titled album The Shape of Jazz to Come was released in 1959, and Eric Dolphy's late masterpiece Out to Lunch – which featured Tony Williams on the drum set – came out in 1964, a year before the Quintet's first release, E.S.P. The effects of this musical revolution were numerous and far-reaching, but in short, it worked to level the roles of the individuals in a jazz combo; roles that were largely secondary – the bass and drums for instance – began to push their way forward in the ensemble, interacting more freely with the soloists and quite simply just playing more and louder than they had in the past. As early as 1961, pianist Bill Evans was implementing these ideas in his piano trio, creating a more fluid and organic music that still centered around traditional repertoire.

Miles Davis's position on free jazz was considerably more complex than the other musicians of the day. He publicly denounced musicians like Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor, even criticized the later music of John Coltrane, a person whom he held in only the highest regards. But it's also clear that he wasn't on the same side as the critics that were attacking these musicians in all of the jazz publications of the day. It's important to remember that, first and foremost, Davis was a professional, popular musician, and while he always attested to his artistic integrity (and rightly so), the mind of the audience was always accounted for in his musical visions. On some level, this means that Davis must reconsider the use of musical new musical devices before he uses them in his music, finding a suitable way to fuse the progressive and the traditional, meaning that some delay in adoption of new techniques would be reasonable. At the same time though, the ethos of free jazz had always been present in the music of Davis: he always had the most bombastic drummers around and structured his groups around the sound of these players. Similarly, his love of country blues added a certain flexibility to his music, both rhythmically and tonally. Still, the music of the Second Great Quintet differs greatly from the rough, bluesy music of the First Quintet.

In 1965, Davis found himself surrounded by musicians of a generation that followed his own, the youngest being his freakishly talented drummer who maintained an obsession with the experimental. To these players, free jazz was not a music that came to replace their style, but the music which they came of age in. Consequently, that their playing referred to a freer style was the result of their own emerging musical voice, not a personal transition. This meant that if Davis wanted to have the best players on the scene in his group, he'd have to both accept their personal styles and learn to adapt to them. And, as can be seen in the music they made, he was apparently quite happy to do so. His own lines became far more chromatic, and while he more or less continued to play to the chords, the paths he began to take from chord tone to chord tone became far more complex. Throughout his autobiography, he speaks enthusiastically about this band, highlighting the talents and playing of all its members. Whatever prejudices Davis had against free jazz obviously didn't apply to his own group.