Who­ev­er Bob Mar­ley was singing for, it could sound like he’s singing for all of us. Of course, this is received opin­ion, on the oth­er side of almost 50 years of Mar­ley wor­ship since the Wail­ers crossed over to a rock audi­ence with Catch a Fire and Clapton’s cov­er of “I Shot the Sher­iff.” Call­ing Mar­ley an icon is per­haps iron­i­cal­ly accu­rate in ways he would nev­er con­done. In death he has become a brand.

Though he wrote some beau­ti­ful love songs, Mar­ley also didn’t water down his mes­sage to Rasta­far­i­an true believ­ers, nor tem­per his pan-African­ism for scores of new white fans when fame struck. Like the waves of reg­gae bands that broke into the inter­na­tion­al scene in the 70s, the cul­tur­al par­tic­u­lar­i­ties of Marley’s reli­gion and pol­i­tics didn’t seem much hin­drance to his wide appeal.

Proof is in the lis­ten­ing, and no song in the Mar­ley oeu­vre seems more point­ed­ly direct­ed to the his­toric black experience—even quot­ing Mar­cus Garvey—while also appeal­ing to uni­ver­sal sen­ti­ments, than “Redemp­tion Song.” (To very dif­fer­ent emo­tion­al effect, U2’s “Sun­day Bloody Sun­day” comes to mind as accom­plish­ing a sim­i­lar feat.)

The song telegraphs a kind of wise but ten­der strength, announces its inten­tions with con­fi­dent can­dor, and invites its lis­ten­ers, all of them, to join in. The ref­er­ences may not be part of your expe­ri­ence, but if this can be redeemed, Mar­ley sug­gests, maybe every­thing can.

In its essen­tials, “Redemp­tion Song” is clas­sic Marley—tough-minded but gen­tle, hope­ful but real, and pure melod­ic genius. But musi­cal­ly, it’s a sig­nif­i­cant depar­ture, and per­haps a know­ing farewell to the world, as the last song to appear on the Wail­ers’ twelfth and final album, 1980’s Upris­ing,

“While there’s no indi­ca­tion that Mar­ley knew for sure that the song would be his last record­ed doc­u­ment,” writes Jim Beviglia at Amer­i­can Song­writer, “the con­tem­pla­tive mood of Upris­ing and the fact that he had been bat­tling the can­cer for years seems to sug­gest that he knew the end was near.”

The song’s “empa­thet­ic strains and social con­cerns, along with its camp­fire sing-along qual­i­ty,” has made it a favorite to cov­er almost since its release. Now, in its 40th year anniver­sary, it’s final­ly got a prop­er video, thanks to French artists Octave Marsal and Theo De Guelt­zl. The “breath­tak­ing ani­ma­tion,” notes Twist­ed Sifter, fea­tures “2,747 orig­i­nal draw­ings” and “uses pow­er­ful sym­bols to ampli­fy the mag­ni­tude of the song’s time­less lyrics and impor­tance in today’s world.”

Its black and white imagery direct­ly ref­er­ences the Rasta­far­i­an themes and Mid­dle Pas­sage expe­ri­ence in Marley’s lyrics, but pulls back now and then to show his sta­di­um-sized crowds, and the whole Earth, as if to say, “this is a glob­al sto­ry.” The video is the first in a year-long cel­e­bra­tion of Marley’s 75th birth­day, which would have been Feb­ru­ary 6th, 2020. Learn more about upcom­ing events here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John­ny Cash & Joe Strum­mer Sing Bob Marley’s “Redemp­tion Song” (2002)

Bob Mar­ley, The Leg­end, Live in San­ta Bar­bara: Watch the Com­plete 1979 Con­cert

Watch a Young Bob Mar­ley and The Wail­ers Per­form Live in Eng­land (1973): For His 70th Birth­day Today

Video: Bob Mar­ley Plays a Big Soc­cer Match in Brazil, 1980

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

In 1968, the Viet­nam War was not a cat­a­lyst for protests but a sort of nexus for all oth­er injustices–the part con­tained ele­ments of the whole: racism, class war, cap­i­tal­ist prof­i­teer­ing, impe­ri­al­ism. It was symp­tom and cause, much like cli­mate change feels today. In April of that year, one inflec­tion point hap­pened on New York’s Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus.

The Uni­ver­si­ty want­ed to build a mil­i­tary gym, not on cam­pus, but in Morn­ing­side Park, a pub­lic space that bor­dered on Harlem. The stu­dent body imme­di­ate­ly protest­ed the con­struc­tion. For one thing, it was planned to fea­ture one entrance for stu­dents and fac­ul­ty, and anoth­er entrance in the base­ment for Harlem’s most­ly African-Amer­i­can res­i­dents. Pro­tes­tors saw this, and the dis­place­ment of black res­i­dents from their neigh­bor­hood park, as racist. The Stu­dent Afro-Amer­i­can Soci­ety (SAS) of the Uni­ver­si­ty nick­named it “Gym Crow.” At the same time, anoth­er activist group, the Stu­dents for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Soci­ety, dis­cov­ered links between the Uni­ver­si­ty and the Depart­ment of Defense. The two events were sep­a­rate, but stood for a big­ger prob­lem.

Stu­dents staged protests, sit-ins, and gen­er­al­ly dis­rupt­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty, vow­ing to con­tin­ue until their demands were met–specifically divest­ment in the war machine and halt­ing con­struc­tion of the gym. Things got so bad, with some 148 injuries and 372 reports of police bru­tal­i­ty from New York’s Finest, that the Uni­ver­si­ty went into lock­down.

That was April. On May 3, enter the Grate­ful Dead. Still a young band, the Dead were com­par­a­tive­ly unknown on the East Coast, but set out to sup­port the stu­dents with a free con­cert. What you see above is one of the few reels of footage of the ille­gal gig, with music from ear­li­er gigs used over the silent footage. No sound record­ing exists of this event, but the uploader seems to think “The Eleven” was part of the set.

Mick­ey Hart, who had only recent­ly joined the band as a sec­ond drum­mer, recalled how they made their way onto the cam­pus:

[Grate­ful Dead man­ag­er] Rock [Scul­ly] reached out to the strike orga­niz­ers and offered to do a free show for the stu­dents. Always up for an adven­ture, we of course, went right along. Since the police and guards were clos­ing off access to the major­i­ty of the cam­pus – we were “smug­gled” on cam­pus to Low Library Plaza in the back of a bread deliv­ery truck. Equip­ment and all. We were already jam­ming away before the secu­ri­ty and police could to stop us.

This oth­er footage shows more context–shots of Morn­ing­side Park, the protests, the police response, the sit-ins, a chalk notice­board fea­tur­ing mes­sages from the out­side to the students–all tru­ly a time cap­sule. One YouTube com­menter says he was there:

They set up on the porch of Fer­ris Booth Hall, which was the stu­dent union, in effect. A small crowd gath­ered; the Dead were not wide­ly known yet in New York. I had a nice chat with Gar­cia [while] they were set­ting up. They start­ed to play, but some­one from the admin­is­tra­tion cut the pow­er, which was not received favor­ably by the stu­dents. After some brief nego­ti­at­ing — some­one point­ed out that legal­ly Fer­ris Booth Hall was owned by the stu­dents and does the uni­ver­si­ty real­ly need anoth­er riot — the pow­er was turned back on and the show con­tin­ued.

In the end, the stu­dent protests con­tin­ued right through graduation–students held their own cer­e­mo­ny off campus–but they worked. The gym was not built and the Uni­ver­si­ty broke off its work with the DoD.

Flash for­ward to 2019 and it’s all com­ing around again: stu­dents and fac­ul­ty demand­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty divest from all fos­sil fuels, in sup­port of the Extinc­tion Rebel­lion hunger strik­ers. As of this writ­ing (Feb­ru­ary 2020), the Uni­ver­si­ty is still mulling it over. (No free con­certs have been announced either…yet.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Take a Long, Strange Trip and Stream a 346-Hour Chrono­log­i­cal Playlist of Live Grate­ful Dead Per­for­mances (1966–1995)

The Longest of the Grate­ful Dead’s Epic Long Jams: “Dark Star” (1972), “The Oth­er One” (1972) and “Play­ing in The Band” (1974)

How the Grate­ful Dead’s “Wall of Sound”–a Mon­ster, 600-Speak­er Sound System–Changed Rock Con­certs & Live Music For­ev­er

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

After the release of Bitch­es Brew in 1970, Colum­bia Records pushed Miles Davis to play a series of dates at the Fill­more West and East sup­port­ing major rock bands like Neil Young and Crazy Horse, the Grate­ful Dead, and the Steve Miller Band. Miles “went nuts,” Columbia’s Clive Davis lat­er remem­bered. “He told me he had no inter­est in play­ing for ‘those fuck­ing long-haired kids.’”

The reac­tion does not reflect Miles’ atti­tude toward all the music enjoyed by long-haired kids, especially—it should go with­out saying—the psych rock he embraced and trans­formed in the ear­ly sev­en­ties. Miles admired a hand­ful of rock musi­cians, and none more so than Jimi Hen­drix, whom he dis­cov­ered, notes the short excerpt from The Miles Davis Sto­ry above, through gui­tarist John McLaugh­lin.

As McLaugh­lin tells it, Davis was dumb­found­ed when he first saw Hen­drix play on film in D.A. Pennebaker’s doc­u­men­tary Mon­terey Pop. “As the 70s dawned,” Tim Cum­ming writes at The Guardian, Hen­drix had his Band of Gyp­sys, and Davis was in the audi­ence for their leg­endary new-year set at Fill­more East, mar­veling at Machine Gun and the pow­er­ful drum­ming of Bud­dy Miles.”

Miles’ appre­ci­a­tion of Hen­drix, James Brown, and Sly Stone birthed the album Jack John­son in 1971, a “con­cen­trat­ed take on rock and funk that defies cat­e­go­riza­tion.” As you can hear in “Right Off, Pt. 1” above, it was also a return to the blues, a lega­cy he shared with Hen­drix. “Jimi… came from the blues, like me,” Davis wrote in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy. “We under­stood each oth­er right away because of that. He was a great blues gui­tarist.”

In the year before Hendrix’s death, the two jammed at Davis’ house and planned to record an album, though it nev­er came to pass. The idea remains an impos­si­bly com­pelling musi­cal what-if. (So does the time Hen­drix invit­ed Paul McCart­ney to cre­ate a super group with Miles Davis.) “Some things are sim­ply beyond con­cep­tion,” writes Kol­lib­ri Terre Son­nen­blume in an appre­ci­a­tion of Live-Evil, Miles’ most direct chan­nel­ing of Hen­drix. As Davis him­self lat­er wrote, “By now I was using the wah-wah on my trum­pet all the time so I could get clos­er to that voice Jimi had when he used a wah-wah on his gui­tar.”

Davis “lift­ed musi­cal ele­ments from Hendrix’s oeu­vre,” notes Son­nen­blume, point­ing out the many spe­cif­ic ref­er­ences through­out the album’s four live and four stu­dio tracks. The first song on the album, “Sivad,” kicks things off with an aggres­sive solo almost right off the mark:

First-time lis­ten­ers often mis­tak­en­ly assume they are hear­ing a gui­tar com­ing in at the 49 sec­ond mark, but they’re wrong. That squeal­ing, dis­tort­ed sound, chat­ter­ing with rabid feroc­i­ty, lung­ing like a rabid dog and cir­cling like a dervish – com­plete with what sounds for all the world like a pick-glis­san­do – is com­ing out of Davis’ horn, not McLaughlin’s gui­tar. 

Hendrix’s death upset Miles deeply. “He was so young and had so much ahead of him,” he wrote. It’s hard even to imag­ine what might have lay ahead for both of them in the stu­dio, but Davis’ take on Jim­i’s musi­cal per­son­al­i­ty might give us a good idea of where they were headed—into ter­ri­to­ry far beyond the blues, jazz, rock, world-funk, and any oth­er genre label you might care to name.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In 1969 Telegram, Jimi Hen­drix Invites Paul McCart­ney to Join a Super Group with Miles Davis

Lis­ten to The Night When Miles Davis Opened for the Grate­ful Dead in 1970

When Jazz Leg­end Ornette Cole­man Joined the Grate­ful Dead Onstage for Some Epic Impro­vi­sa­tion­al Jams: Hear a 1993 Record­ing

Jimi Hen­drix Arrives in Lon­don in 1966, Asks to Get Onstage with Cream, and Blows Eric Clap­ton Away: “You Nev­er Told Me He Was That F‑ing Good”

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Jazz instru­men­tal­ists who “play the changes” have learned to make impro­vi­sa­tion look easy. In live per­for­mance, the audi­ence shouldn’t see the years of study and prac­tice behind what Willie Thomas calls at Jazz Every­one, “a sys­tem that com­bines the basic jazz lan­guage with the impor­tant music the­o­ry con­cepts” and at the same time “allows a play­er to focus on how the music fits the tune and not the chord sym­bols and scales that often incum­ber per­for­mance.”

That may seem like a wordy expla­na­tion, but Thomas is care­ful to expli­cate the cliché “play the changes” for max­i­mum mean­ing, draw­ing on over forty years of expe­ri­ence him­self learn­ing the prin­ci­ple as a “use­ful tool for self expres­sion through jazz music.” The idea of play­ing to the tune may seem fun­da­men­tal­ly obvi­ous, but the more one devel­ops as a stu­dent, the far­ther away one can get from lived expe­ri­ence.

How might musi­cians apply ideals about ensem­ble play­ing to actu­al ensem­ble play­ing? For answers to this ques­tion, we might turn to jazz leg­end Chick Corea, mem­ber of Miles Davis’s band dur­ing the path­break­ing In a Silent Way and Bitch­es Brew ses­sions; play­er in and leader of more Gram­my-win­ning ensem­bles than per­haps any­one else (he’s col­lect­ed 23 awards so far); and “one of the jazz world’s most thought­ful and lucid cham­pi­ons.”

This descrip­tion comes from a Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor write-up of Corea’s appear­ance in a two-hour Q&A ses­sion at Berklee Col­lege of Music in 1985, where the pianist and jazz fusion key­board mas­ter had stu­dents pick up the typed hand­out above at the door. He begins with the sim­plest, but most impor­tant advice, “Play only what you hear,” then elab­o­rates in 16 rules which you can read in full below.

Corea’s pri­ma­ry metaphor is architectural—performance, he says, is about cre­at­ing spaces and taste­ful­ly fill­ing them. Doing this well requires seri­ous study and prac­tice. Then it requires remem­ber­ing some basic rules, or Chick Corea’s “Cheap But Good Advice for Play­ing Music in a Group.” My favorite: “always release what­ev­er ten­sion you cre­ate.” Like much of you we find here, it’s good all-around advice for every endeav­or.

1. Play only what you hear.
2. If you don’t hear any­thing, don’t play any­thing.
3. Don’t let your fin­gers and limbs just wander—place these inten­tion­al­ly.
4. Don’t impro­vise on endlessly—play some­thing with inten­tion, devel­op it or not, but then end off, take a break.
5. Leave space—create space—intentionally cre­ate places where you don’t play.
6. Make your sound blend. Lis­ten to your sound and adjust it to the rest of the band and the room.
7. If you play more than one instru­ment at a time—like a drum kit or mul­ti­ple keyboards—make sure that they are bal­anced with one anoth­er.
8. Don’t make any of your music mechan­i­cal­ly or just through pat­terns of habit. Cre­ate each sound, phrase, and piece with choice—deliberately.
9. Guide your choice of what to play by what you like—not by what some­one else will think.
10. Use con­trast and bal­ance the ele­ments: high/low, fast/slow, loud/soft, tense/relaxed, dense/sparse.
11. Play to make the oth­er musi­cians sound good. Play things that will make the over­all music sound good.
12. Play with a relaxed body. Always release what­ev­er ten­sion you cre­ate.
13. Cre­ate space—begin, devel­op, and end phras­es with inten­tion.
14. Nev­er beat or pound your instrument—play it eas­i­ly and grace­ful­ly.
15. Cre­ate space—then place some­thing in it.
16. Use mim­ic­ry sparsely—mostly cre­ate phras­es that con­trast with and devel­op the phras­es of the oth­er play­ers.

via Nate Chi­nen

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Thelo­nious Monk’s 25 Tips for Musi­cians (1960)

Wyn­ton Marsalis Gives 12 Tips on How to Prac­tice: For Musi­cians, Ath­letes, or Any­one Who Wants to Learn Some­thing New

John Coltrane Draws a Pic­ture Illus­trat­ing the Math­e­mat­ics of Music

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness