While I was with Miles
there was an incredible experience I had. The Isle of Wight. This huge
festival we played at on this small island in England. There were five
hundred thousand people there. It was bigger than Woodstock. I flew from Los
Angeles to New York to London and then we were driven by beautiful limousines
until we got to the ocean, where we took a ferry boat to the Island.
When we arrived on the island we couldn’t move. There were so many people
that there wasn’t any room. They had to send a helicopter to pick up the
band, and it set down right there to pick us up. They flew us over all the
people who were everywhere like ants, walking across everyone’s property. You
know, in England they have a law that you can walk across other peoples land.
Looking down from the helicopter was really amazing. There was a space backstage
to land the helicopter and we had about an hour before we played. Jimmy
Hendrix played at this festival and just before us I think was Joni Mitchell
and also Tiny Tim. Now he was a weird guy.
Anyway, everybody was playing at this thing. In the band with me was Wayne
Shorter, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, myself
and of course Miles. Plus the audience, the huge masses of people. It was
beyond anything I had ever seen before. This was not something that happens
very often. It was an ocean of people, as far as you could see.
We went on without a sound check and started playing. You know that all the
people were digging it. All the young people. Many of them were young, and
everyone was tripping on how great it was. While we were playing, one by one
the musicians were fading out and stopped playing, which was part of the act
that we did sometimes. All of a sudden I find myself playing, just me by
myself, and I was playing the Cuica.
The cuica is a strange sounding instrument from Brazil which is a drum with a
stick inside it. When you pull the stick it makes a kind of barking dog
sound. So here I was playing that, and I was tripping. When I realized that I
was the only one playing I looked around and everyone was looking at me,
including Miles, who was just looking back like to say “OK” So I looked out
at the people and again was hit by the sight of that ocean of people.
I started to play a rhythm and while I did that, the longer I did it, more
and more people started to wave their hands back and forth over their heads.
All of a sudden there were so many people waving their arms in time with me
that it really did become an ocean, an ocean waving back and forth.
That moment was one of my greatest moments, as far as emotion is concerned.
To have that many people together with you feeding from your energy, reacting
to everything I played. The whole thing lasted for only a minute, but for me
it was incredible. I felt like laughing and crying at the same time, all at
the same time. Then someone started playing rhythm with me and the band came
back in and we re-started everything. Oh, but that moment was really really
special and strong.
Miles was the only jazz
super star that ever existed. Of course, there is Louis Armstrong, and Duke
Ellington, that everyone knows, but you know Miles Davis was like the Elvis
Presley of Jazz. Just to get to him, to talk with Miles was like “Oh My God!” Here are some videos of
that amazing show:
