Extrasensory perception is about the only thing that explains this kind of cohesiveness

And I thought it was difficult to write rap reviews. Coming up with an assessment of Common or Wu-Tang Clan ain’t a fraction as difficult as this proved to be.

I’m an outsider to the world of jazz. I never really gave it much thought and generally regarded it as boring instrumental junk for people who took music far too seriously. Music for musicians basically, and while I myself am a reasonably adept multi-instrumentalist, I never wanted to be nearly as passionate about playing as those guys are. Jazz to me has always been about spending an awful lot of time rehearsing, time that could be better spent onstage impressing the groupies in the audience. Who has sex with jazz musicians?

I apologize if that sounded shallow and crude, but I was possessed by the spirit of Nikki Sixx while writing it. Jazz is alright, I suppose. My father swears by it (it’s his copy of E.S.P. that inspired this review), and some of the bands I dig (King Crimson and Kansas leap to mind, KISS does not) let it seep into their music in an entertaining way. Because the lyrical power of rock n’ roll was always important to me, I kind of avoided jazz, yet recognized that it’s one of the more sophisticated genres. Some of those cats can play to an almost absurdly impressive degree.

One of those artists would have to be the late great Miles Davis, who’s often cited as an influence by musicians of many stripes. I don’t know enough about him to attempt a biography yet, but what I do know is that the guy played the trumpet the way that the Reverend Al Sharpton plays the race card- often and loudly. The difference, of course, is that I could get used to the sound of what Davis did for a living; I’d rather bend over and accept the amorous exertions of a medium-sized draft horse than look at or listen to Al again.

E.S.P. is an album that Miles and his then quartet of hired guns (the only one I’d heard of was pianist Herbie Hancock, but here’s a weird bit of trivia I just learned- drummer Tony Williams played on several Public Image Limited songs in the 1980’s, including that lame tune Rise) released in 1965. It consists of seven songs that blew my mind and made me thankful that I took up teaching for a living; I’d never want to be responsible for holding down parts as unbelievably complex as the stuff I heard on here. No one should have to work that hard, except for maybe homeland security types and prostitutes.

Most of these tracks are five minutes plus (R.J. is the shortest at three minutes fifty-six) and consist entirely of Hancock doing his bizarre chordal jabbing while Williams gives his ride cymbal and hi-hat a serious work-out (check out his little solo bit in the beginning of Agitation- wow). Tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter and Davis take turns showing off their inhuman skills, and sometimes bring it together in beautiful harmonization (Little One has a really impressive passage where the two play together). And then there’s the bass lines- that Ron Carter must’ve had tarantulas for hands.

The mood of this material is subtly gloomy much of the time, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. The percussion is rarely more than a frenzied patter in the background, and in its wilder moments (the title track, Eighty-One), the album sounds like bedlam going down at the coffeehouse, or a shelf-stocking frenzy at Barnes & Noble. However, the more peaceful items, such as the gently grooving Iris, the relaxing yet somber Mood (I love how Shorter makes his sax “talk” in this one), and the slightly dissonant and dreamily unsettled Little One, allow the listener to collect his or her thoughts before the next onslaught of virtuosity.

What impresses me most about the material on E.S.P. is how structured it all is, regardless of the fact that everybody seems to be completely off on their own tangent. Despite the numerous fluctuations in rhythm and tempo, the frequent dynamic shifts, and the jaw-smashing spotlight moments by all concerned, the stuff is as cohesive as any pop music. As I said, maybe half of the album is dominated by a vaguely depressing feel, but maybe that’s my melancholy mind just making things that way. One thing is unquestionably for certain- this stuff ain’t for everybody, and most definitely not for anybody who thought that Limp Bizkit was talented.

Jazz aficionados will hopefully steer you in the right direction in my comments section, but I found E.S.P. to be a powerful listening experience. You don’t even have to sit and listen to it intently to feel its effect- Miles and the fellas practically jump out of the speakers and remind you that they’re still in there working their insane magic. I look forward to investigating more of Miles’ stuff, and will definitely feel like a pathetic underachiever when I show up at band practice tomorrow afternoon.