Them Changes (r.i.p. Buddy Miles)

give the drummer some

Memorial posts seem to come in pairs. Two years ago I did a Ray Baretto memorial piece on the heals of a Dilla tribute. Then Billy Preston died less than two weeks after we lost Desmond Dekker. And late last summer Max Roach passed within a week or so of Hilly Kristal's death (then Joe Zawinul died just a few weeks after that).

And it's happened again. Teo Macero died two weeks ago (see this great piece at Destination: OUT and Darcy's take). I didn't have time to do a Teo tribute post then, but had this vague sense of dread that another shoe was in the air. And sure enough, late last week I received an email from my brother in Omaha with a subject line "Omaha news for your blog: Buddy Miles." Oh crap, I thought. Although I was hoping that Buddy was alive and well and doing a benefit gig back in his old hometown or something, I knew I was fooling myself.

Of course my brother's news was that the great Buddy Miles had just died. He'd been in marginal health, suffering from congestive heart failure. He was only 60 years old.

Buddy Miles was born George Miles Jr. in Omaha in 1947. He was a child prodigy and earned his nickname on account of his love of Buddy Rich's drumming. At age twelve, Miles started playing drums with Omaha group The Bebops -- his father's jazz band. (As wikipedia notes, Buddy's dad George Miles had played bass with the likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon.) While a teenager, Buddy played with the touring bands for the Ink Spots, the Delfonics and Wilson Pickett.

At age 21, Miles relocated from Omaha to Chicago and hooked up with guitarist Mike Bloomfield to form the Electric Flag -- one of the first mixed race, blues-based, horn driven rock and soul bands. After Bloomfield left and The Electric Flag broke up, Buddy formed the Buddy Miles Express using the Flag's horn section.

Buddy Miles and his big ass fro

The Buddy Miles Express' two albums, Expressway to Your Skull, and Electric Church, both released in 1969, were produced by Jimi Hendrix, who also wrote the liner notes for Skull. Buddy played on Hendrix's classic Electric Ladyland album. After that, Jimi, Buddy, and Billy Cox formed the Band of Gypsys, Hendrix's all-black and much more soulful, but short-lived project. Buddy brought the soul, his sweet but gutsy vocals, and, of course, his fat, commanding, and incredibly powerful drumming.

Shortly after Hendrix's death, Buddy released what would become his best known album under his own name. In Them Changes, Buddy fused funk, soul, jazz-rock, blues, and even a bit of gospel. Such amalgamations are commonplace these days, but in the late 1960s -- not so much. Buddy's music was too back and soulful for many white rock fans of Hendrix and Santana. And yet his rock and jazz-rock bent didn't fit the format of many black radio stations at the time. Of course such factors and concerns didn't prevent Sly Stone's soulful, psychedelic funk-rock or WAR's fusion of jazz, funk, Latin, and soul from reaching the masses and scoring big hits. But Buddy's heavier, bluesy, gut-bucket soul and funky jazz rock sound had a harder time breaking through. He never became a big star on his own or had a significant chart success with his own bands after Them Changes.

Except when he hooked-up and toured with Carlos Santana in 1972. The live album that tour produced Santana & Buddy Miles! Live!, went gold and includes a ferocious, uptempo, extended version of "Them Changes," along with a 25 minute jam titled "Free Form Funkified Filth" (!)

Buddy struggled with drug problems and spent much of the late 70's and early '80s locked-up on narcotics charges. In the mid-1980s, he hit it big once again. This time as the lead singer for the California Raisins -- an R&B group of claymation raisins decked-out in Raybans singing "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" (clever, huh?) in a series of televisions commercials for the California Raisin Growers Council (or some such). Although the claymation figures smacked of racist cartoon caricatures and ceramic figurines from the 1930s and 1940s and thus left a bad taste in some folks' mouths (including mine), the singing and dancing and jiving Raisins were wildly popular, spinning off from the commercial campaign to release four albums, a cartoon, an X-mas special, toys, and a bunch of other crap. At least they made Buddy a chunk of change.

According to Jon Pareless' obit in the New York Times, during the course of his career, Buddy Miles played on over 70 albums, working with (in addition to Bloomfield, Hendrix, and Santana) everyone from George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and Stevie Wonder, to David Bowie, John McLaughlin and Barry White.

Even if you've never heard of Buddy Miles, or even if you have but don't think you know any of his material, well, you have heard his signature joint "Them Changes." Trust me. Here's a sample (a bit more than half of the track) to convince you:

Them Changes (edit) -- Buddy Miles: Them Changes (1970)

In 1994, Buddy reformed the Buddy Miles Express and released the aptly titled Hell and Back (see drug problems and Raisins, above). The album was produced by by Bill Laswell and is full of good, solid material. Although largely hewed from the same stock as Buddy's late 60s and early 70s material (right down to the throw-back cover art!), the album is a somewhat fresh and open attempt to update that sound. And it comes off as though he had a blast pulling it together. In all those regards, it reminds me a bit of WAR's "comeback album," Peace Sign, from around the same time. Check out the jazz-rock-funk track "The Decision," below, which sounds almost like a mid-late 1970s Tower of Power instrumental.

The Decision -- Buddy Miles Express: Hell and Back (1994)

On Buddy's website, his attorney and friend, Geoffrey Menin, noted that, just two nights before Buddy passed, he:

had the chance to phone him from Madison Square Garden so he and Sherrilae could hear Winwood and Clapton as they laid down yet another version of his song, "Them Changes" to thunderous acclaim. As his niece said when I was in Austin recently: "Uncle Buddy, you're not from this planet. Your people put you here, and now they're coming to take you back home." I think she was right. I think he's at peace now that he's home. Surely he left us with many treasures evidencing his visit to earth. We will miss him dearly.

Rest easy, Buddy. I'm sure you and Jimi have some catching up to do.

UPDATE: Although Buddy had been living in Austin Texas for the past few years, I was sent a link to the obit in the Omaha World Herald which noted that Miles spent the mid-nineties playing drums and singing with Omaha band the Mighty Jailbreakers. In 2004, Buddy performed at the Omaha Riverfront Jazz & Blues Festival and was inducted into the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame in 2005.

UPDATE 2: Austin-based journalist, blogger, and radio host Thomas Fawcett had a chance to interview Buddy back in October for a cool piece he produced for Austin station KVRX -- which you can hear at his great Miles tribute post here.

p.s. I know it's been a while since I last posted. Very busy at work. And very busy in my spare time volunteering for the Obama campaign (and blogging a bit at barackobama.com to boot). Be back soon. GOBAMA !
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