By Christopher Bussmann - Bop and Beyond

What Miles Davis began on In A Silent Way got deep with Bitches Brew and exploded into A Tribute To Jack Johnson - a knock upside the head of stuffy jazz conservatism. By this point, 1970, legions of jazz fans had fled. Bitches Brew had scared them, and Miles, knowing they wouldn't be returning, decided to forge on ahead without them. Assembling a sharp team of openminded jazz, funk, and rock players, Miles blazed onward. No longer tenative, A Tribute To Jack Johnson is, much like the boxer that inspired it, an energetic assault on the staid conventions of genre. This is Miles Davis playing with new found fire as John McLaughlin unleashes crazy power chords and dynamic riffing over Michael Henderson's Motown low-end bass grooves. The results are extraordinary: two tracks, fifty-two minutes, genius.