Jimi Hendrix - Morning Symphony Ideas (Dagger)

Drummer Buddy Miles passed away on Tuesday. I never followed his solo career all that closely, preferring instead his protean work with the Band of Gypsys. Both Miles and bassist Buddy Cox were in obvious awe of Hendrix and that dynamic made for a very different relationship than with the guitarist’s flagship band, The Experience. No clashing egos… just three friends making music, jamming as it were. Hendrix reciprocated the respect by readily absorbing several of Miles’ songs into the band repertoire.

This Dagger Records compilation (posthumous by almost three decades) exudes that easy rapport and colloquial camaraderie. Cox is largely absent, appearing only on the comparatively concise but superlatively funky “Strato Strut”. The liners celebrate “Scorpio Woman”, a twenty-odd minute solo medley by the guitarist, as the set centerpiece. To my ears the opening “Keep On Groovin’” holds that distinction. Hendrix and Miles cycle through a succession of riffs and song fragments too numerous to conveniently catalog. Pieces of “Power of Soul”, “Steppin’ Stone”, “Cherokee Mist” and “Catfish Blues” are a handful that lodges in my head, but there are a litany of others. Throughout, Miles reminds me of another Buddy, one answering to the surname Rich. Like Rich, he had his limitations --an occasional rigidity in his rhythms and a bag of stock beats that he regularly pulled from-- but he was also a near ideal accompanist for Hendrix.

He listens intently to the guitarist’s lead and calibrates speed and direction depending upon often split second dictation. Over such a protracted duration there’s some necessary treading water, but the hit to miss ratio is still remarkably high. Miles made his mark at the helm several years later. Many of the hallmarks that would carry him through a nearly four decade career are already in evidence here.