David Bowie’s rela­tion­ship with Amer­i­ca has typ­i­fied the outsider’s view: an ambiva­lence rang­ing from fas­ci­na­tion to fear that he expressed in a reply to his first let­ter from a U.S. fan in 1967 (click to read in large for­mat). The fan, intre­pid 14-year-old San­dra Dodd, had got­ten her hands on an advance copy of Bowie’s first album and writ­ten him to praise his work and offer to start a fan club for him state­side. Bowie’s response is very inter­est­ing. We’ve writ­ten before about his rise from obscure R&B and folk singer to Zig­gy Star­dust, which required him to shake off a nat­ur­al shy­ness to inhab­it his break­out per­sona. In the let­ter, the 20-year-old Bowie ini­tial­ly comes off as a naïve, slight­ly self-involved young pop singer. Then, after answer­ing the usu­al fan queries—what’s his real name, birth­day, height—he turns to the sub­ject of the U.S., a coun­try he had yet to vis­it. Bowie writes:

I hope one day to get to Amer­i­ca. My man­ag­er tells me lots about it as he has been there many times with oth­er acts he man­ages. I was watch­ing an old film on TV the oth­er night called “No Down Pay­ment” a great film, but rather depress­ing if it is a true reflec­tion of The Amer­i­can Way Of Life. How­ev­er, short­ly after that they showed a doc­u­men­tary about Robert Frost the Amer­i­can poet, filmed main­ly at his home in Ver­mont, and that evened the score. I am sure that that is near­er the real Amer­i­ca.

Draw­ing his impres­sions from movies, Bowie ref­er­ences two views. The first, Mar­tin Ritt’s 1957 No Down Pay­ment, is full of the banal­i­ty and melo­dra­ma we’ve come to expect from Mad Men, mak­ing inci­sive cri­tiques of mid-50s cul­tur­al prob­lems sim­mer­ing under the sur­face of the sub­urbs like alco­holism, racism, and infi­deli­ty. As one fan writes, the film depict­ed what “no one want­ed to see… a soiled Amer­i­can Dream,” or what Bowie cap­i­tal­izes as “The Amer­i­can Way Of Life.”

The oth­er view Bowie takes of the States comes from a film on Robert Frost—most like­ly 1963’s Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quar­rel With the World. Lit­tle won­der this film “evened the score” for the lyri­cal young song­writer, who choos­es in his let­ter to believe it rep­re­sents the “real Amer­i­ca,” a sen­ti­ment he would not hold for long.

Flash for­ward to 1984, and Bowie is an inter­na­tion­al pop star. Most fans would argue his best work was far behind him, but the 80s saw him break out into more main­stream film roles in The Ele­phant Man and Labyrinth that kept him at the fore­front of Amer­i­can pop cul­ture. His sound­track work was mem­o­rable as well, although the track below “This is Not Amer­i­ca,” writ­ten with Pat Methe­ny for The Fal­con and the Snow­man doesn’t get much atten­tion these days. Bowie’s impres­sion­is­tic lyrics–which Methe­ny called “pro­found and meaningful”–show him in mourn­ing for the coun­try that puz­zled his younger self:

A lit­tle piece of you
The lit­tle peace in me
Will die
For this is not Amer­i­ca

Blos­som fails to bloom
This sea­son
Promise not to stare
Too long
For this is not a mir­a­cle

And again, move for­ward to 1997, thir­ty years after Bowie’s let­ter above, and we find him in a jaun­diced mood in “I’m Afraid of Amer­i­cans” from his album Earth­ling (the song orig­i­nal­ly appeared on what may be one of the most cyn­i­cal films ever made, Show­girls). Bowie explained the gen­e­sis of the song in a press release:

I’m Afraid of Amer­i­cans’ was writ­ten by myself and Eno. It’s not as tru­ly hos­tile about Amer­i­cans as say “Born in the USA”: it’s mere­ly sar­don­ic. I was trav­el­ing in Java when the first McDon­alds went up: it was like, “for fuck­’s sake.” The inva­sion by any homog­e­nized cul­ture is so depress­ing, the erec­tion of anoth­er Dis­ney World in, say, Umbria, Italy, more so. It stran­gles the indige­nous cul­ture and nar­rows expres­sion of life.

The cul­tur­al homog­e­niza­tion that so depressed the young Bowie in No Down Pay­ment is now a glob­al phe­nom­e­non, and the well-trav­eled, world­ly Bowie seems to har­bor few illu­sions when he sings:

John­ny’s in Amer­i­ca
No tricks at the wheel
No one needs any­one
They don’t even just pre­tend

In the award-win­ning video, Trent Reznor plays a Travis Bick­le-like fig­ure, a men­ac­ing crea­ture of alien­ation and unpro­voked, ran­dom vio­lence and Bowie a para­noid out­sider run­ning from what he per­ceives as cit­i­zens attack­ing each oth­er on every street­corner. Stripped of the 50s veneer, it’s a coun­try where peo­ple “don’t even pre­tend”; the vio­lence and mis­an­thropy are now on full dis­play. It’s a view of Amer­i­ca that hasn’t dimmed since the mid-nineties. It’s sim­ply moved out of the city and spilled out into the once self-con­tained sub­urbs. These three arti­facts show Bowie’s evo­lu­tion in rela­tion to a coun­try that he hoped to find the best in, that near­ly always embraced him, and that came to freak him out and piss him off in lat­er years.

via Let­ters of Note

Josh Jones is a writer and schol­ar cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing a dis­ser­ta­tion on land­scape, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.

Bil­lie Hol­i­day Sings ‘Strange Fruit,’ 1959:

Last week we brought you a post titled “Miles Davis and His ‘Sec­ond Great Quin­tet,’ Filmed Live in Europe, 1967,” fea­tur­ing Her­bie Han­cock and Wayne Short­er. The response was enthu­si­as­tic, and it remind­ed us that a great many of you share our love of jazz. It got us think­ing: Why not gath­er the mate­r­i­al from our favorite jazz posts into one place? So today we’re hap­py to bring you ten great per­for­mances from ten leg­endary artists.

We begin with Bil­lie Hol­i­day (above) singing her painful sig­na­ture song of racism and mur­der, “Strange Fruit.” The song was writ­ten by teacher and union­ist Abel Meeropol, who was hor­ri­fied when he saw a 1930 pho­to­graph of two black men hang­ing from a tree in Indi­ana, vic­tims of a lynch mob. Hol­i­day first record­ed “Strange Fruit” in 1939 and con­tin­ued to sing it, despite some resis­tance, for the rest of her life. The per­for­mance above was taped in Lon­don for the Grana­da TV pro­gram Chelsea at Nine in Feb­ru­ary of 1959, just five months before Hol­i­day’s untime­ly death at the age of 44.

Dave Brubeck Per­forms ‘Take Five,’ 1961:

The leg­endary pianist Dave Brubeck died ear­li­er this month, just one day short of his 92nd birth­day. To remem­ber him on that day we post­ed the clip above from a 1961 episode of the Amer­i­can pub­lic tele­vi­sion pro­gram Jazz Casu­al, with Brubeck and his quar­tet per­form­ing the clas­sic song “Take Five” from their influ­en­tial 1959 album, Time Out. The musi­cians are: Brubeck on piano, Eugene Wright on bass, Joe Morel­lo on drums, and Paul Desmond (who wrote “Take Five”) on alto sax­o­phone. For more on Brubeck, includ­ing a delight­ful clip of the elder­ly mas­ter impro­vis­ing with a young Russ­ian vio­lin­ist at the Moscow Con­ser­va­to­ry, see our Dec. 5 post, “Remem­ber­ing Jazz Leg­end Dave Brubeck with a Very Touch­ing Musi­cal Moment.”

Chet Bak­er Per­forms ‘Time After Time,’ 1964:

Last Decem­ber we fea­tured the clip above of Chet Bak­er play­ing the Sam­my Cahn and Jule Styne stan­dard, “Time After Time,” on Bel­gian tele­vi­sion in 1964. Bak­er is joined by the Bel­gian flautist Jacques Pelz­er, French pianist Rene Urtreger and an Ital­ian rhythm sec­tion of Lui­gi Trussar­di on bass and Fran­co Manzec­chi on drums. Bak­er sings and plays the flugel­horn. For more of Bak­er’s music and a poignant look at his trou­bled life, be sure to see our 2011 post, Let’s Get Lost: Bruce Weber’s Sad Film of Jazz Leg­end Chet Bak­er.

Duke Elling­ton on the Côte d’Azur, 1966:

On a beau­ti­ful sum­mer day in 1966, two of the 20th cen­tu­ry’s great artists–Duke Elling­ton and Joan Miró–met at a muse­um in the medieval French vil­lage of St. Paul de Vence, high in the hills over­look­ing the Côte d’Azur. Nei­ther one under­stood a word the oth­er said, but Miró showed Elling­ton his sculp­ture and Elling­ton played music for Miró. In the scene above, nar­rat­ed by the great jazz impres­sario Nor­man Granz, Elling­ton and his trio play a new song that would even­tu­al­ly be named “The Shep­herd (Who Watch­es Over His Flock).” The trio is made up of Elling­ton on Piano, John Lamb on Bass and Sam Wood­yard on drums. To learn more about that day, includ­ing rec­ol­lec­tions from the only sur­viv­ing mem­ber of Elling­ton’s trio, see our May 10 post, “Duke Elling­ton Plays for Joan Miró in the South of France, 1966: Bassist John Lamb Looks Back on the Day.”

Djan­go Rein­hardt Per­forms ‘J’at­tendrai,’ 1938:

With only two good fret­ting fin­gers on his left hand, gyp­sy gui­tarist Djan­go Rein­hardt cre­at­ed one of the most dis­tinc­tive instru­men­tal styles in 20th cen­tu­ry music. The clip above is from the 1938 short film Jazz “Hot”, which fea­tures Rein­hardt, along with vio­lin­ist Stéphane Grap­pel­li and the Quin­tette du Hot Club de France, per­fom­ing a swing ver­sion of the pop­u­lar song “J’at­tendrai.” (“J’at­tendrai” means “I will wait.”) To learn about Rein­hardt and the fire that cost him the use of most of his left hand, be sure to see our Aug. 10 post, “Djan­go Rein­hardt and the Inspir­ing Sto­ry Behind His Gui­tar Tech­nique.”

John Coltrane Plays Mate­r­i­al From A Love Supreme, 1965:

In Decem­ber of 1964 the John Coltrane Quar­tet record­ed its mas­ter­piece, A Love Supreme, in one ses­sion. A high­ly orig­i­nal blend­ing of hard bop and free jazz with spir­i­tu­al over­tones, the album is rec­og­nized as a land­mark in jazz his­to­ry. The Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion declared it a nation­al trea­sure. But Coltrane report­ed­ly played the mate­r­i­al only once in pub­lic, at a 1965 con­cert in Antibes, France. You can see a por­tion of that per­for­mance above, as Coltrane and his quar­tet play  “Part 1: Acknowl­edge­ment” from the four-part com­po­si­tion. The quar­tet is com­posed of Coltrane on tenor sax­o­phone, McCoy Tyn­er on Piano, Jim­my Gar­ri­son on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. To watch and lis­ten as the band plays “Part 2: Res­o­lu­tion,” see our 2011 post, John Coltrane Plays Only Live Per­for­mance of A Love Supreme.

Miles Davis on The Robert Her­ridge The­ater, 1959:

Most of the great per­for­mances on this page were pre­served by gov­ern­ment-fund­ed broad­cast­ing com­pa­nies, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Europe. Left to its own devices, the “invis­i­ble hand” of the tele­vi­sion mar­ket­place was fair­ly con­tent to ignore jazz and allow its great artists to pass unno­ticed and unrecord­ed. A notable excep­tion to this trend was made by the CBS pro­duc­er Robert Her­ridge, who had the vision and fore­sight to orga­nize an episode of The Robert Her­ridge The­ater–a pro­gram nor­mal­ly devot­ed to the sto­ry­telling arts–around the music of Miles Davis. In an extra­or­di­nary 26-minute broad­cast, shown above in its entire­ty, Davis per­forms with mem­bers of his “first great quin­tet” (John Coltrane on tenor and alto sax­o­phone, Wyn­ton Kel­ly on piano, Paul Cham­bers on bass and Jim­my Cobb on drums) and with the Gil Evans Orches­tra.  A sixth mem­ber of the small­er com­bo (by that time it had grown to a sex­tet), alto sax­o­phon­ist Julian “Can­non­ball” Adder­ly, can be seen briefly but does­n’t play due to a split­ting migraine headache. The broad­cast took place between record­ing ses­sions for Davis’s land­mark album, Kind of Blue.  The set list is: “So What,” “The Duke,” “Blues for Pablo,” “New Rhum­ba” and a reprise of “So What.”

Thelo­nious Monk in Copen­hagen, 1966:

Here’s a great half-hour set by Thelo­nious Monk and his quar­tet, record­ed by Dan­ish tele­vi­sion on April 17, 1966. The line­up includes Monk on piano, Char­lie Rouse on tenor sax­o­phone, Lar­ry Gales on Bass and Ben Riley on Drums. They play three songs–“Lulu’s Back in Town,” “Don’t Blame Me” and “Epistrophy”–with Monk giv­ing the oth­ers plen­ty of room to solo as he gets up from the piano to do his stiff, idio­syn­crat­ic dance. For more on Monk, see our 2011 post on the extra­or­di­nary doc­u­men­tary film, Thelo­nious Monk: Straight No Chas­er.

Bill Evans on the Jazz 625 show, 1965:

In March of 1965 the Bill Evans Trio vis­it­ed the BBC stu­dios in Lon­don to play a pair of sets on Jazz 625, host­ed by British trum­peter Humphrey Lyt­tel­ton. The two 35-minute pro­grams are shown above, back-to-back. The trio fea­tures Evans on piano, Chuck Israels on bass and Lar­ry Bunker on drums. To read the set list for both shows, see our May 31 post, “The Bill Evans Trio in Lon­don, 1965: Two Sets by the Leg­endary Com­bo.” And for a fas­ci­nat­ing intro­duc­tion to the great jazz pianist’s phi­los­o­phy of music, don’t miss our April 5 post, “The Uni­ver­sal Mind of Bill Evans: Advice on Learn­ing to Play Jazz and the Cre­ative Process.”

Charles Min­gus in Bel­gium, 1964:

In April of 1964 the great bassist and com­pos­er Charles Min­gus and his exper­i­men­tal com­bo, The Jazz Work­shop, embarked on a three-week tour of Europe that is remem­bered as one of the high-water marks in Min­gus’s career. The per­for­mance above was record­ed by Bel­gian tele­vi­sion on Sun­day, April 19, 1964 at the Palais des Con­grés in Liège, Bel­gium. Min­gus and the band play three songs: “So Long Eric,” “Peg­gy’s Blue Sky­light” and “Med­i­ta­tions on Inte­gra­tion.”  The group fea­tures Min­gus on bass, Dan­nie Rich­mond on drums, Jaki Byard on piano, Clif­ford Jor­dan on tenor sax­o­phone and Eric Dol­phy on alto sax­o­phone, flute and bass clar­inet. A sixth mem­ber, trum­peter John­ny Coles, was forced to drop out of the band after he col­lapsed onstage two nights ear­li­er. For more of Min­gus’s music and a look at his trou­bled life, see our Aug. 2 post, “Charles Min­gus and His Evic­tion From His New York City Loft, Cap­tured in Mov­ing 1968 Film.”

Fans are always eager to find out what dri­ves their favorite artist to cre­ate. Hid­den tor­ment? Secret pas­sion? The pub­lic­i­ty-shy singer-song­writer Joni Mitchell has dropped more than a few lyri­cal cues over the last half cen­tu­ry. Things became infi­nite­ly more overt dur­ing the infor­mal por­tion of a 2008 inter­view with Char­lie Rose.

Want to know what spurs Joni? Cig­a­rettes!

She’s been hus­tling to finance her habit since she took them up at nine. What, you think she active­ly want­ed to be a singer-song­writer? No man, play­ing folk songs in the Cana­di­an cof­fee­house scene for fif­teen bucks a night meant finan­cial health, and finan­cial health meant she could smoke for­ev­er! Mod­ern audi­ences might expect such a sen­ti­ment from the rau­cous and now-dead Janis Joplin, but isn’t Joni more of a demure Ladies of the Canyon type?

Bob Dylan would like­ly say no.

These days Joni is tak­ing the straight­for­ward approach, no more peek­ing out from behind care­ful­ly-ren­dered poet­ic veils. Frankly, Grand­ma Mitchell seems unlike­ly to give a damn if her unqual­i­fied romance with tobac­co shocks. (It seems like­ly to, though per­haps not so much as some of her oth­er can­did­ly expressed views.)

Below, you can catch Joni dur­ing those free­wheel­in’ ear­ly days, play­ing a 3o minute set on British TV in 1970.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day wish­es she could find the tape of the tape of the Joni Mitchell-James Tay­lor Uncon­cert that a friend’s friend taped off of WXRT back in the day.

Even­tu­al­ly some­one had to do it.

Michael David Mur­phy cre­at­ed Tun­ing ’77, a “seam­less audio super­cut of an entire year of the Grate­ful Dead tun­ing their instru­ments, live on stage.” The mix uses every pub­licly avail­able record­ing from 1977, and it’s real­ly all a pre­lude to this: 8,976 Free Grate­ful Dead Con­cert Record­ings in the Inter­net Archive. You can lis­ten to Tun­ing ’77 here or below. It runs 92 min­utes.

via Boing­Bo­ing

Here’s an amaz­ing film that cap­tures the excite­ment and raw ener­gy of James Brown in his prime.

The footage was tak­en on March 8, 1971, dur­ing a series of con­certs Brown and his band gave at the Olympia the­ater in Paris. It offers a rare glimpse of the orig­i­nal line­up of the J.B.‘s, the group Brown formed in 1970, about two years after the breakup of the Famous Flames.

The line­up includes William “Boot­sy” Collins on bass and his old­er broth­er Phelps “Cat­fish” Collins on lead gui­tar, both of whom would leave the band a few months lat­er. Famous Flames founder Bob­by Byrd, who essen­tial­ly dis­cov­ered Brown in 1952, serves as organ­ist, back­up singer and mas­ter of cer­e­monies. The rest of the band are: Hear­lon “Cheese” Mar­tin on gui­tar, St. Clair Pinck­ney on tenor sax­o­phone, Dar­ryl “Hasaan” Jami­son and Clay­ton “Chick­en” Gun­nells on trum­pet, Fred Wes­ley on trom­bone, and John “Jabo” Starks and Don Juan “Tiger” Mar­tin on drums.

The film was appar­ent­ly shot dur­ing one per­for­mance, even though Brown is intro­duced twice and wears dif­fer­ent cloth­ing. Accord­ing to reports, Brown took a break between “Sun­ny” and “It’s a New Day” while Byrd’s wife, Vic­ki Ander­son, sang two songs that were cut from the film. Audio from the con­cert was released in 1992 as Love Pow­er Peace: Live at the Olympia, Paris 1971. Here’s the set list from the film ver­sion, which dif­fers slight­ly from the LP:

1. Intro­duc­tion
2. Broth­er Rapp
3. Ain’t It Funky Now
4. Geor­gia On My Mind
5. Sun­ny
6. It’s a New Day
7. Bewil­dered
8. Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine
9. Try Me
10. Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag/I Got You (I Feel Good)/I Got the Feel­in’ (med­ley)
11. Give It Up or Turn It a Loose
12. It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World
13. Please, Please, Please
14. Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine (reprise)
15. Super Bad
16. Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved
17. Soul Pow­er
18. Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved (finale)

h/t Ryan Jet­ten

Relat­ed con­tent:

Clas­sic Ray Charles Per­for­mance: ‘What’d I Say’ Live in Paris, 1968

The Queen of Soul Con­quers Europe: Aretha Franklin in Ams­ter­dam, 1968

D.A. Pen­nebak­er’s ciné­ma vérité doc­u­men­tary Dont Look Back [sic] fol­lowed Bob Dylan on his cel­e­brat­ed 1965 tour through Eng­land, let­ting view­ers see what hap­pened along the way — the good, the bad and every­thing between. Today, it’s con­sid­ered both a clas­sic doc­u­men­tary and a pop-cul­tur­al arti­fact, some­thing Dylan fans can’t afford to miss.

The same can’t be said for Eat the Doc­u­ment, Pen­nebak­er’s fol­low-up doc­u­men­tary that cap­tured Dylan’s return to the UK in 1966. The premise had promise. Bob Dylan had just gone elec­tric and boos fol­lowed him wher­ev­er he went. In Man­ches­ter, they famous­ly called him “Judas.” That could have made for an intrigu­ing film. But, accord­ing to Dylan’s most recent biog­ra­ph­er Daniel Mark Epstein, the singer-song­writer was per­son­al­ly unrav­el­ing. He had toured to the point of exhaus­tion, and tak­en far too many amphet­a­mines. Dur­ing one moment filmed by Pen­nebak­er, Dylan shared an inco­her­ent taxi ride with John Lennon. Their ram­bling con­ver­sa­tion touched on John­ny Cash, The Mamas & the Papas, Dylan’s home­sick­ness, and how the Thames Riv­er sup­pos­ed­ly saved Britain from Hitler. And, once we get 20 min­utes into the footage, we find Dylan slumped for­ward in the back­seat, seem­ing­ly staving off nau­sea.

Dylan per­son­al­ly edit­ed the film and gave ABC tele­vi­sion the option to air it. The net­work declined, say­ing it would­n’t be com­pre­hen­si­ble to a main­stream audi­ence. Because the film was nev­er released, it has been passed around in var­i­ous boot­legged ver­sions. You can watch a 52-minute ver­sion on Dylan­Tube.

As a quick foot­note, it’s worth men­tion­ing that, accord­ing to Epstein’s biog­ra­phy, Lennon lat­er told Rolling Stone mag­a­zine that he and Dylan were doing “junk” (aka hero­in) that day, and that Lennon thought Dylan was close to OD’ing. It’s all dis­cussed in The Bal­lad of Bob Dylan: A Por­trait.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The 1969 Bob Dylan-John­ny Cash Ses­sions: Twelve Rare Record­ings

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

John Lennon’s Vic­to­ri­an Cir­cus Poster Lov­ing­ly Remade by Artists and Engravers

In the mid 1960s Miles Davis respond­ed to the form-break­ing influ­ence of free jazz by sur­round­ing him­self with a group of bril­liant young musi­cians and encour­ag­ing them to push him in new direc­tions.

The group was Davis’s last with all acoustic instru­ments, and came to be known as his “sec­ond great quin­tet.” It fea­tured Davis on trum­pet, Wayne Short­er on sax­o­phone, Her­bie Han­cock on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums. Between 1964 and 1968 the quin­tet record­ed a string of inno­v­a­tive albums, includ­ing E.S.P., Sor­cer­er and the tran­si­tion­al Miles in the Sky, in which Han­cock intro­duces the elec­tric Fend­er Rhodes piano.

For Guardian jazz crit­ic John Ford­ham, the sec­ond great quin­tet was Davis’s best group ever. “Their solos were fresh and orig­i­nal, and their indi­vid­ual styles fused with a spon­ta­neous flu­en­cy that was sim­ply aston­ish­ing,” writes Ford­ham in a 2010 arti­cle. “The quin­tet’s method came to be dubbed ‘time, no changes’ because of their empha­sis on strong rhyth­mic grooves with­out the dic­ta­to­r­i­al pat­terns of song-form chords. At times they veered close to free-impro­vi­sa­tion, but the pieces were as thrilling and hyp­not­i­cal­ly sen­su­ous as any­thing the band’s open-mind­ed leader had record­ed before.”

You can hear for your­self in these two con­certs, shown back-to-back, record­ed for tele­vi­sion dur­ing the quin­tet’s 1967 tour of Europe. The first con­cert was record­ed on Octo­ber 31, 1967 at the Kon­serthuset in Stock­holm, Swe­den. Here’s the set list:

1. Agi­ta­tion (Miles Davis)
2. Foot­prints (Wayne Short­er)
3. ‘Round Mid­night (Thelo­nius Monk)
4. Gin­ger­bread Boy (Jim­my Heath)
5. Theme (Miles Davis)

The next con­cert was record­ed one week lat­er, on Novem­ber 7, 1967, at the Stad­halle in Karl­sruhe, Ger­many:

1. Agi­ta­tion (Miles Davis)
2. Foot­prints (Wayne Short­er)
3. I Fall in Love Too Eas­i­ly (Sam­my Cahn/Jule Styne)
4. Walkin’ (Richard Car­pen­ter)
5. Gin­ger­bread Boy (Jim­my Heath)
6. Theme (Miles Davis)

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Miles Davis Sto­ry, the Defin­i­tive Film Biog­ra­phy of a Jazz Leg­end

‘The Sound of Miles Davis’: Clas­sic 1959 Per­for­mance with John Coltrane

Mashup Duet: Miles Davis Impro­vis­ing on LCD Soundsys­tem

1963:

Every year from 1963 to 1969, the Bea­t­les record­ed a spe­cial Christ­mas greet­ing to their fans. It start­ed when “Beat­le­ma­nia” took off and the band found itself unable to answer all the fan mail.  “I’d love to reply per­son­al­ly to every­one,” says Lennon in the 1963 mes­sage, “but I just haven’t enough pens.” The first mes­sage was intend­ed to make their most loy­al fans feel appre­ci­at­ed. Like those that fol­lowed, the 1963 mes­sage was mailed as a paper-thin vinyl “flexi disc” to mem­bers of the Bea­t­les fan club. The record­ing fea­tures the Bea­t­les’ trade­mark wit and whim­sy, with a cho­rus of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Ringo” and a ver­sion of “Good King Wences­las” that refers to Bet­ty Grable. It was made on Octo­ber 17, 1963 at Abbey Road Stu­dios, just after the band record­ed “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1963 Mes­sage

1964:

The band record­ed their next hol­i­day greet­ing, Anoth­er Bea­t­les Christ­mas Record, on Octo­ber 26, 1964, the same day they record­ed the song “Hon­ey Don’t.” Lennon’s rebel­lious nature begins to show, as he pokes fun at the pre­pared script: “It’s some­body’s bad hand wrot­er.”

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1964 Mes­sage

1965:

Record­ed on Novem­ber 8, 1965 dur­ing the Rub­ber Soul ses­sions at Abbey Road, the 1965 mes­sage fea­tures a re-work­ing of “Yes­ter­day,” with the refrain “Oh I believe on Christ­mas Day.” The band’s gift for free-asso­ci­a­tion­al role play­ing is becom­ing more appar­ent. One piece of dia­logue near the end was even­tu­al­ly re-used by pro­duc­er George Mar­tin and his son Giles at the end of the re-mixed ver­sion of “All You Need is Love” on the 2006 album Love: “All right put the lights off. This is John­ny Rhythm say­ing good night to you all and God Bless­es.”

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1965 Mes­sage

1966:

You can sense the band’s cre­ative pow­ers grow­ing in the 1966 mes­sage, Pan­tomime: Every­where It’s Christ­mas. The record­ing was made at Abbey Road on Novem­ber 25, 1966, dur­ing a break from work­ing on “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er.” The Bea­t­les were just begin­ning work on Sgt. Pep­per’s Lone­ly Heart’s Club Band. Instead of sim­ply thank­ing their fans and recount­ing the events of the year, the Bea­t­les use sound effects and dia­logue to cre­ate a vaude­ville play based around a song that goes, “Every­where it’s Christ­mas, at the end of every year.” Paul McCart­ney designed the cov­er.

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1966 Mes­sage

1967:

This was the last Christ­mas mes­sage record­ed by the Bea­t­les all togeth­er in one place. Titled Christ­mas Time (Is Here Again), it reveals the group’s con­tin­u­ing exper­i­men­ta­tion with sound effects and sto­ry­telling. The sce­nario, writ­ten by the band ear­li­er on the day it was record­ed (Novem­ber 28, 1967), is about a group of peo­ple audi­tion­ing for a BBC radio play. Lennon and Ringo Starr designed the cov­er.

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1967 Mes­sage

1968:

By the Christ­mas sea­son of 1968, rela­tions with­in the Bea­t­les were becom­ing strained. The hol­i­day mes­sage was pro­duced around the time the “White Album” was released, in Novem­ber of 1968. The four mem­bers’ voic­es were record­ed sep­a­rate­ly, in var­i­ous loca­tions. There’s plen­ty of self-mock­ery. Per­haps the most strik­ing moment comes when the Amer­i­can singer Tiny Tim (invit­ed by George Har­ri­son) strums a ukulele and sings “Nowhere Man” in a high falset­to.

 Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1968 Mes­sage

1969:

The Bea­t­les were in the process of break­ing up when they record­ed (sep­a­rate­ly) their final Christ­mas mes­sage in Novem­ber and Decem­ber of 1969. A cou­ple of months ear­li­er, just before the release of Abbey Road, Lennon had announced to the oth­ers that he was leav­ing the group. Yoko Ono appears promi­nent­ly on the record­ing, singing and talk­ing with Lennon about peace. Fit­ting­ly, the 1969 mes­sage incor­po­rates a snip­pet from the Abbey Road record­ing of “The End.”

Lis­ten to the Bea­t­les’ 1969 Mes­sage