For some time now, cer­tain fans of Queen have sought the elu­sive answer to the ques­tion “what made Fred­die Mer­cury such an incred­i­ble singer?” That he was an incred­i­ble singer—one of the great­est in terms of vocal range, emo­tive pow­er, stage pres­ence, song­writ­ing, etc.—is hard­ly a fact in dis­pute. Or it shouldn’t be. You don’t need to love Queen’s music to acknowl­edge its bril­liance, and mar­vel at its frontman’s seem­ing­ly super­hu­man pow­er and sta­mi­na. The expla­na­tions for it are mul­ti­ple and have become far more sophis­ti­cat­ed in recent years.

Sci­en­tif­ic research has exam­ined the pos­si­ble phys­i­o­log­i­cal struc­ture of Mercury’s vocal chords, and con­clud­ed that he was able to vibrate sev­er­al vocal folds at once, cre­at­ing sub­har­mon­ics and a vibra­to faster than that of any oth­er singer. It’s a com­pelling the­o­ry, albeit a lit­tle gross. Who wants to lis­ten to “Some­body to Love”’s glo­ri­ous, swoop­ing soul­ful vers­es and Broad­way show­stop­per cho­rus­es and pic­ture vibrat­ing vocal folds? Mer­cury was a show­man, not a singing machine—and his unique inflec­tions derived not only from biol­o­gy but also—argues Rudi Dolezal, direc­tor of Fred­die Mer­cury: The Untold Sto­ry—from cul­ture.

Mercury’s for­ma­tive expe­ri­ences as a child in Zanz­ibar and India, and the “cul­ture shock” of his move to Lon­don as a teenag­er, may have con­tributed to his expan­sive vocal prowess: “it was mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism that was com­bined in Fred­die Mer­cury,” says Dolezal, sug­gest­ing that Mercury’s voice went places no one else’s did in part because he com­bined the strengths of East­ern and West­ern music. Maybe. Mer­cury grew up emu­lat­ing Eng­lish and Amer­i­can artists like Cliff Richard and Lit­tle Richard, but one of his biggest influ­ences was Bol­ly­wood super­star Lata Mangeshkar.

Mer­cury him­self had his own unusu­al the­o­ry, believ­ing that his dis­tinc­tive over­bite some­how played a part in his singing abil­i­ty, which is why he nev­er had his teeth straight­ened despite a life­time of self-con­scious­ness about them. Maybe the most hon­est fan answer to the ques­tion might be, “who cares?” Just enjoy it—over-analysis of the parts takes away from the expe­ri­ence of Queen’s bom­bas­tic the­atri­cal whole. That’s fair enough, I sup­pose, but if there’s any voice worth obsess­ing over it’s Mercury’s.

If you’re still in doubt about why, lis­ten to the iso­lat­ed vocal track at the top for “Some­body to Love” from start to fin­ish. You’ll hear a singer who sounds capa­ble of doing pret­ty much any­thing that it’s pos­si­ble to do with the human voice except sing off-key. Yes, of course, it’s impres­sive in con­text, with the band’s vocal har­monies lift­ing Mercury’s voice like a great pair of wings. Take them away, how­ev­er, and strip away all of the song’s instru­men­ta­tion, and Mercury’s vocal seems to soar even high­er. I’d kind of like to know how he did that.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Made Fred­die Mer­cury the Great­est Vocal­ist in Rock His­to­ry? The Secrets Revealed in a Short Video Essay

Sci­en­tif­ic Study Reveals What Made Fred­die Mercury’s Voice One of a Kind; Hear It in All of Its A Cap­pel­la Splen­dor

Fred­die Mer­cury: The Untold Sto­ry of the Singer’s Jour­ney From Zanz­ibar to Star­dom

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

When Miles Davis attend­ed a White House din­ner in 1987, he was asked what he had done to deserve to be there. No mod­est man, Davis, he respond­ed “Well, I’ve changed music five or six times.”
Is it brag­ging when it’s absolute­ly true? In this recent Spo­ti­fy playlist, Steve Hen­ry takes on the Miles Davis discog­ra­phy in rough­ly a chrono­log­i­cal order, a stun­ning 569 songs and 65 hours of music. That makes that, what, over 90 tracks per rev­o­lu­tion in music?

Tech­ni­cal­ly, Davis’ first record­ed appear­ance was as a mem­ber of Char­lie Parker’s quin­tet in 1944, and his first as a leader was a 1946 78rpm record­ing of “Mile­stones” on the Savoy label. But this playlist starts with the 1951 Pres­tige album The New Sounds (which lat­er made up the first side of Con­cep­tion). By this time, Davis had tak­en the jaun­ty bebop of men­tor and idol Park­er and helped cre­ate a more relaxed style, a “cool” jazz that would come to dom­i­nate the 1950s. Pri­vate­ly he swung between extremes: a health nut who got into box­ing, or a hero­in addict and hustler/pimp, and he would oscil­late between health and ill­ness for the rest of his life.

Dur­ing the 1950s how­ev­er, he also cre­at­ed some of his most stun­ning clas­sics, first for Pres­tige and Blue Note, where he devel­oped the style to be known as “hard bop; then for Colum­bia, a label rela­tion­ship that would result in some of his most rev­o­lu­tion­ary music. (Note: to get out of his Pres­tige con­tract that want­ed four more albums out of him, Davis and his Quin­tet booked two ses­sion dates and record­ed four albums worth of mate­r­i­al, the Cookin’ Relax­in’ Workin’ and Steamin’ albums that in no way sounds like an oblig­a­tion.)

At Colum­bia, Davis made his­to­ry with 1959’s Kind of Blue, con­sid­ered by many as one of the great­est jazz albums of all time, along with his col­lab­o­ra­tions with arranger Gil Evans (Sketch­es of Spain, Por­gy and Bess, Miles Ahead). After a lull in the mid-‘60s where the music press expect­ed either a resur­gence or a trag­ic end, Davis returned with sec­ond quin­tet (Wayne Short­er, Her­bie Han­cock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams) for anoth­er run of albums in his then “time, no changes” free jazz style, includ­ing Miles Smiles, Sor­cer­er, and Filles de Kil­i­man­jaro.

But none of those pre­pared any­body for the giant leap beyond jazz itself into pro­to-ambi­ent with In a Silent Way and the men­ac­ing mis­te­rioso-funk of Bitch­es Brew of 1970. Davis had watched rock and funk go from teenag­er pop music at the begin­ning of the decade to lit­er­al­ly chang­ing the world. He respond­ed by cre­at­ing one of the dens­est, weird­est albums which both owed some of its sound to rock and at the same time refut­ed almost every­thing about the genre (as well as the his­to­ry of jazz). He was 44 years old.

His band mem­bers went on to shape jazz in the ‘70s: Wayne Short­er and Joe Zaw­in­ul formed Weath­er Report; John McLaugh­lin formed the Mahav­ish­nu Orches­tra; Her­bie Han­cock, although already estab­lished as a solo artist, brought forth the Head­hunters album; Chick Corea helped form Return to For­ev­er.

As for Davis, he delved deep­er into funk and fusion with a series of albums, includ­ing On the Cor­ner, that would go unap­pre­ci­at­ed at the time, but are now seen as influ­en­tial in the world of hip hop and beyond. By the ‘80s, after a few years where he just dis­ap­peared into reclu­sion, he returned with some final albums that are all over the map: cov­er­ing pop hits by Cyn­di Lau­per and Michael Jack­son much in the same way that Coltrane cov­ered The Sound of Music; exper­i­men­tal sound­tracks; and exper­i­ment­ing with loops, sequencers, beats, and hip hop. Hav­ing strug­gled with ill­ness and addic­tion all his life, he passed away at 65 years old in 1991, leav­ing behind this stun­ning discog­ra­phy, still offer­ing up sur­pris­es to those look­ing to explore his lega­cy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Paint­ings of Miles Davis

Miles Davis Dish­es Dirt on His Fel­low Jazz Musi­cians: “The Trom­bone Play­er Should be Shot”; That Ornette is “F‑ing Up the Trum­pet”

The Night When Miles Davis Opened for the Grate­ful Dead in 1970: Hear the Com­plete Record­ings

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.

When punk rock began to wend its way out of the three-chord gui­tar attack and into a new gen­er­a­tion of man­ner­isms, it tend­ed to be bass play­ers who led the way. Joy Division’s Peter Hook, Pub­lic Image Ltd’s Jah Wob­ble, The Cure’s Simon Gallup, Bauhaus’s David J. With their moody takes on dub reg­gae, chord-dri­ven melod­i­cism, and lead lines on the upper frets, these were inno­v­a­tive play­ers, but they still embraced the rel­a­tive sim­plic­i­ty of punk at their core. Across the pond, then across the con­ti­nent, how­ev­er, in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, punk bass took a much more ani­mat­ed, vir­tu­osic char­ac­ter, thanks to jazz and funk-inspired leg­ends like Min­ute­men’s Mike Watt and the Red Hot Chili Pep­pers’ Flea, who has become, since his ear­ly 80s begin­nings one of the most famous rock musi­cians in the world for his speed and unpar­al­leled tech­nique.

The shirt­less won­der, who comes across both onstage and off as incred­i­bly gre­gar­i­ous, yet hum­ble, was once vot­ed by Rolling Stone read­ers as the sec­ond best bassist of all time, and it’s not hard to see why, for exam­ple, in the mind-blow­ing video just above. But it is hard to see how. How does he do it? And what exact­ly is “it,” that incom­pa­ra­ble Flea style? Where did it come from?

The Poly­phon­ic video at the top breaks it down for us, the com­bi­na­tion of funk slap­ping and pop­ping and punk speed and aggres­sion, com­bined with a melod­i­cism Flea devel­oped as a coun­ter­point to John Frusciante’s rhyth­mic gui­tar lines. Flea’s incred­i­bly detailed attacks stand out for their nov­el­ty and pre­ci­sion, but it’s his ear for melody that makes his play­ing so dis­tinc­tive­ly musi­cal, even when pared down and slowed down in RHCP’s bal­lads.

Some bassists weave lines around gui­tars and vocals, some most­ly syn­chro­nize with the drummer’s kicks and hits—Flea does both, shift­ing from style to style with­in songs, and some­times sound­ing like he’s play­ing two bass­es at once. His syn­co­pat­ed slap bass hits, cour­tesy of Sly Stone’s Lar­ry Gra­ham, cre­ate a sec­ondary back­beat slight­ly ahead or behind Chad Smith’s drum­ming; his use of strummed chords, wild leaps around the neck, and beau­ti­ful­ly melod­ic voic­ing make his bass play­ing an essen­tial ele­ment of every song, rather than a just a low-end har­mon­ic under­pin­ning for more notice­able instru­men­ta­tion. Funk music has always been bass-dri­ven, and the Chili Pep­pers’ funki­est tracks, and most excel­lent cov­ers, fol­low the tra­di­tion. But in rock the bass can feel “like an after­thought.”

In Flea’s more than capa­ble hands, a sim­ple rock bass riff, as in “Snow,” just above, can sud­den­ly become a thing of won­der (check it out at 1:51), even on its own and unac­com­pa­nied. Per­haps no bassist since Paul McCart­ney or John Paul Jones has done as much to turn rock bass into a lead instru­ment or has writ­ten as many mem­o­rable bass lines, only Flea can play them ten times faster while leap­ing sev­er­al feet in the air. His “astound­ing instru­men­tal­ism” has always been amaz­ing to behold, and not easy to imi­tate, to say the least. But why try? Bass play­ers can learn a lot from watch­ing Flea and incor­po­rat­ing his expres­sive tech­niques into their reper­toire. But even Flea him­self, per­haps the most rec­og­niz­able bass play­er in rock, under­stands the instru­ment first and fore­most as a sup­port­ing play­er. His best advice? Play in the “spir­it of giv­ing­ness,” as he says in his video les­son below, and lis­ten to the sub­tleties of the oth­er musi­cians’ play­ing. “You want to make every­one else sound good.” Hey, if it’s good enough for Flea.…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Genius of Paul McCartney’s Bass Play­ing in 7 Iso­lat­ed Tracks

What Makes John Bon­ham Such a Good Drum­mer? A New Video Essay Breaks Down His Inim­itable Style

The Neu­ro­science of Bass: New Study Explains Why Bass Instru­ments Are Fun­da­men­tal to Music

Watch the Evo­lu­tion of Ringo Starr, Dave Grohl, Tré Cool & 19 Oth­er Drum­mers in Short 5‑Minute Videos

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