In this episode our 50 years ago in the avant-garde feature casts its spotlight on Miles Davis for the last time in a while, with a look at the final recordings of his electric period, captured in February 1975 at its most guitar-centric extreme. We contrast its strain of “funk with an experimental edge” to a pair of contemporaneous albums by Oliver Lake and Leroy Jenkins (the latter featuring the Jazz Composers Orchestra in its final recording) that represent a competing flavor of free jazz which, like fusion music, evolved from post-WW2 bebop. Moving to the present time, we embark on a spiritual journey led by David Lang and The Crossing, with stops in Europe (via Edward Cowie, Francisco Coll, Age Veeroos and Freya Waley-Cohen) and Chicago (c/o Timothy Daisy and Erez Dessel). Some enchanted East-meets-West from Xiaogang Ye and the Fidelio Trio rounds out the playlist. Creative and improvised music from the Northwest and around the world with host Michael Schell.
