Thursday, July 24, 2008

Miles Davis, Bitches Brew (Columbia)


It's been hot as hell and you just don't know if you're going to take it any more. The air's so thick with humidity that you have to cut it with a butter knife just to open your refrigerator door. Not that you need anything in there, it's just the only reasonably cool place to lay your head. But you can't do that forever, the machine would inevitably break down that way and you'd look like a fool standing there all day in your boxer shorts bowed down with your head stuck in your refrigerator. So you sit on the couch hoping not to melt. Then for some reason (voodoo? magnetism?) the air changes. Cold wind blows in from the north and hits the hot air of summer. Black clouds roll in and press down on the earth. Day turns to night during the day. When the rain starts it doesn't fall so much scream from heaven and slap the earth. The sheets of rain descend at such an angle against the ground grass pavement trees cars people, all polyphony and polyrhythm you've never quite heard that way. It's getting so dark now you can barely see out your living room window. Then suddenly. Silverwhite electric flash. Thunderroll, calling for all the colors of the prism to fill the sky once again.

Suggested Wine Pairing: Probably more conducive to smoking than drinking. (Check Bennie Maupin's bass clarinet.) In any case, all indications are that Oxumaré's preferred drink is mineral water.

No comments: