Johnson knocks out Jim Jeffries,
"The Great White Hope", in Nevada, 1910.
Eventually, other musicians enter the mix: Herbie Hancock on the organ, and Steve Grossman on the soprano sax. But it was the opening to "Right Off", featuring Miles, backed by Cobham, Henderson and McLaughlin--surely as great a power trio as ever played--that made Jack Johnson, as "Downbeat" magazine once called it, a motherf***er. And who'd want to argue with them?

Lots of Jams, Lots of Edits

Of course, as with all other works of art, reaching those heights didn't just come spontaneously. Columbia's new The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions box set, with its five CDs of jams, outtakes, false-starts and extended cuts, shows just how much effort went into the 50 minutes or so of the original Jack Johnson album. Some of these jams are quite interesting, but how desirable the entire five CD package would be depends on how much of a fan of Miles and this period of his career you are.

They do show how radically Miles' recording methods changed over the years, though. In the late 1950s, he relied frequently on arranger Gil Evans to conduct lush jazz symphonies as beds for his playing. But by the time of In A Silent Way, and especially Bitches Brew, he had adopted a much more technological approach: he and his sidemen would jam endlessly, often around just a skeletal sketch of a tune. Teo Macero, Miles' longtime producer, would record everything, and then edit it down to a surprisingly finely structured piece of music, bringing order to what must have seemed frequently, during the sessions, as chaos.

It's the third disc in the box set where the bulk of music that dominated the original Jack Johnson came from, including the above session. Despite all the editing, the first 11 minutes of the album was apparently recorded live, without overdubs, a testament to the chops of Miles and his sidemen, and a stark contrast to today's endless digital manipulations.

Seeking a New Audience

Unlike the epochal Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson's sales were apparently somewhat flat during its initial release, and Jack Johnson, The Big Fights, quickly vanished without a trace, despite being nominated for an Oscar for best documentary of 1971 (it lost to Woodstock). To the best of my knowledge, it's not available on videotape or DVD, and has rarely been shown since its initial release, with the exception of a few clips included in Sony's recent biographical DVD of Miles.

Hopefully Sony's new box set will introduce new listeners to this seminal Miles Davis album. And if jazz/rock fusion ever wanted to make a comeback, the earthy, hard rocking sound that Miles, McLaughlin, Cobham, Henderson and Hancock made would be a great foundation to build (or rebuild) on.