Journal Entry 139: Cecil Miller

There's a certain moment where everyone in the auditorium is brought into the same groove. I found it on a number of bootleg recordings. You can actually hear the moment on these tapes … poor quality and all. I don't know if it's possible with all bands, but it is very clear with the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead, and The Doors. About a minute after the drum solo there is a part of "Mountain Jam" where Duane Allman and Dickey Betts are trading licks and the band is building to a crescendo of sorts when something just happens. It's like you are being vaulted out of your own thoughts, you're taken away for a moment — kind of like those Zen monks who claim to be able to levitate. It's just for a moment — at least I think it is — but it's there. You get pulled up and out of your thoughts into what, I don't know. It's like perfect harmony or something.

I talked to a woman who had been there during Mt. Jam, at that concert at the Fillmore in New York City. March 13, 1971. She's dead now, I think. She said she began to feel something about halfway through "Whipping Post"; that her sense of self was disappearing and that the music was taking over. The feeling began to grow in intensity as the band came out of the quiet part. She says it was hard to remember what happened, but as the song — which has just one long ending crescendo — moved forward it felt like everyone in the Fillmore was with her. And just as she was feeling the song end with the final chords, the drums started into Mt. Jam and she felt herself pulled back in, only this time it was hypnotic. The counterpoint between the two guitars, the play and rhythm of bass and drums, and the murmuring sonic envelope of the organ swept her away.

I found it again on a bootleg of the Grateful Dead doing Shakedown Street at the Oakland Coliseum in 1978. The recording is dreadful. Unlike the ones captured in later years that often came right off the mixing board, this one was made in the middle of the audience. The concert itself was lively and energetic. That comes through on the tape regardless of quality, but you also hear crowd noise during the sets. There is a most annoying girl who must have been close to the taper. Every measure and a half or so she lets loose with a high-pitched, shrieking yodel lasting anywhere from two to ten seconds. It is more than a little distracting. So you have to work very hard to pay attention to the music. And that may be a blessing in disguise, because the same kind of moment occurs in the middle of an extended Garcia solo. Since you have to work harder at listening, you hear it. Again, the guitars and audience reaction come together and you feel this very subtle shift in your emotions, almost like you were there, like something has just clicked into place.

I remember it as well during a weekend jazz festival I attended one summer. The headliner on Saturday night was a group I'd never heard of before: The Chicago Art Ensemble, fronted by a guy named Lester Bowie on trumpet. In just under five hours they played three songs — three very long, incomprehensible songs. For the most part, the nine-piece combo was confusing, dissonant, seemingly out of synch, interminable, and loud. They were playing chaos to us and it was having, on me anyway, a profoundly negative impact. But near the end of the last song something happened. Out of nowhere the whole group came together. There was a very short pause and I could feel something shift inside me. The musicians all looked to Lester Bowie and he took two steps forward then launched into a lyrical, thought-melting trumpet solo. It was like Sergei Nakariakov on acid playing Bach. I didn't know what was happening for maybe three minutes. And then, just like that, the group pulled away and dove back into agonizing chaos. They ended the concert blasting the final stanzas of Ornette Coleman's "Race Face" and I left wondering if the Art Ensemble knew something we didn't.

A similar thing happened the next night with Sun Ra and His Universal Arkestra. Sun Ra was the buzz act for the whole festival. He had just come out of retirement. It was a decade before his death. I had never heard a note of his music in my life
We were prepared for something strange when we saw that the Arkestra was made up of some 37 musicians. From my sixth row seat I could tell that several of the Art Ensemble's percussionists were sitting in with the Arkestra.

Sun Ra went dancing with chaos. If I hadn't been somewhat initiated the night before, I probably would have left. In my state of mind, having dropped 350 mg of EGG-68, the volume and intensity of noise was disorienting. A strong sense of vertigo took hold of me before the end of the first song. Two hours later, as they finished the second composition, I was seasick. But several minutes into the third piece it happened again. This time I could feel it coming several minutes before. Even more importantly, I heard the sound: as if someone was whispering to me, then a very low-decibel popping noise. At that point a small, cream-colored African guy with a goatee and bright silver hair takes two steps forward, raises his golden soprano sax to the audience, and begins to play what to this day is indisputably the most moving and profound instrumental solo I have ever heard. It was otherworldly. Each note sparkled and glistened with a thousand different ideas, as if everyone in the room was thinking about their life together. He played it for several minutes. When he was done, he bowed and smiled, then stepped back, disappearing into the horde of musicians. I never saw him again for the rest of the evening.