Wednesday, January 16, 2008

time

oh man, via wayne, please watch and worship with me this vintage live vid of a Miles Davis rendition of "Time After Time" from the mid-80s, which sr. wax had previously posted an mp3 of on his blog (I think it's the same version anyway...?) some months/years (who knows anymore??) ago. I loved it then but the vid adds some extremely heavy layers!

so much to say here... I liked the 'original' song OK before but this is really some other level of emotional reality than that cyndi lauper bullshit (sorry I love cyndi lauper obv). obv wardrobe = fucking amazing, miles's blood red trumpet (!) and intensely sequined black smoking jacket (!!) with the Japanese characters and a fucking dragon on the back (!!!), powerful sunglasses, Miles himself looking hunched over, balding, sweaty and busted as shit, his tone corroded but still fucking expressive as shit, every judiciously chosen note really fucking sings, and it's just devastatingly... yearningly... achingly... bitter? am I imagining this? or otherwise being overly influenced by the unbelievably intense vibes of the man and the outfit and the staging and the lighting and the vintage 80s filmstock? does it even make sense to talk about being 'overly' influenced by a vibe? plz check out the quietly heartwrenching bit about 6:20 in or so when he starts walking off to the side of the stage, away from the band, slowly gliding between the chairs and video cameras and the spotlights etc, so fucking alone in this thing... seriously, some of these close-up shots of him all by himself up there, glittering faintly in the night just like the dying star he basically was, are just so fucking epic, watching this makes me feel like I am learning some great secret about life and living and dying and eternity etc -

on a more comical note, check out the amazing guitar face during the solo at 5:30, it seriously helps me 'get' the solo to see how he is so fucking into it that he can hardly bear to touch these notes etc! do like serious jazz/miles davis fans find this period like depressing or bad or whatever? I don't know anything about this stuff but am really fillin it

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