Every week, a different FADER editor compiles a playlist to highlight a new release and give you a guide to that artist’s web of influences and peers. These Staff Selects live in our Spotify app, alongside GEN Fs from our archives and playlists for each issue. This week, it’s photo editor Geordie Wood on Miles Davis and early electric jazz.
Six years ago my late friend John Pike gave me Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way, a dark, two-track record that preceded Bitches Brew by six months. That album stuck with me and led to years of listening to the early recordings of electric jazz and the small family among which the sound evolved, including John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Tony Williams and Billy Cobham, who would define the landscape of the genere for decades. As photo editor at The FADER I don't claim expertise on the cutting edge of contemporary music like my colleagues, though I do follow and enjoy their picks. That said, when I put on my headphones in the office for a few hours in Photoshop editing a drill rap feature story, I'm probably listening to Miles.
Staff Selects: Miles Davis and the Quiet Beginnings of Electric Jazz