1968, Part III. This is where Miles Davis was by 1968, playing with his second great quintet, quite possibly the greatest band ever ensembled (no exaggeration - Miles on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and the incomparable Tony Williams on drums). The only possibly competition would be Miles' classic quintet of the 1950s that had the immortal John Coltrane on sax, Paul Chambers on bass, Red Garland on piano, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.
This was the last recording by that 60s quintet and Miles' last "traditional" jazz album - after this he went electric with In A Silent Way, psychedelic with Bitches Brew, and then full-on funk with On The Corner (to the OCD collectors out there, yes, I know I'm skipping over Jack Johnson and Live/Evil, but I'm just trying to touch on the major milestones here) (and to the OCDers out there inclined toward puns, yes, I recognize that Milestones was an earlier Miles LP by the classic quintet, with the addition of Cannonball Adderley on alto).
Anyway, it's not that this song, Tout de Suite, doesn't have it's own psychedelic elements - the way one can so easily get lost in the different layers of music in this song and the almost dub-like way that instruments fade in and fade out and appear and then disappear mimics the marijuana experience of losing one's attention in the minute details otherwise missed while "straight."
Alas, I wasn't listening to this in 1968. I don't think I discovered this LP until 1974 or 1975, and didn't fully appreciate it until I bought it on CD in the 90s. But nowadays I love this music and I love this album and I love this song. So yeah, it does sorta support the 1968 theorem.
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