Pharaoh’s Dance

Miles recorded Pharaoh’s Dance in three days, in the middle of a New York summer in 1969, when jazz no longer wanted to stay still. It wasn’t just another album: it was the leap into the void he had been cooking since In a Silent Way, but this time with his hands full of borrowed cables and amplifiers. Columbia B studio smelled of fresh magnetic tape and cold coffee; producer Teo Macero wasn’t looking for clean cuts, but layers that breathed. The result sounds as if someone had left the door ajar for the wind of rock and the dust of unfinished rehearsals to slip in.