Tuesday is Blues Day (#6)

Typically, blues music is pretty straight-forward. It's a simple musical style, with its roots firmly planted in unsophisticated poverty and oppression. As such, there's not much complex theory or experimental atmosphere at play. There are, however, instances where blues musicians take their simple formula and put it to work in unusual ways. Today, I'm going to give you one such example.

The song "Murder" is a drifting, directionless, almost surreal exercise in open space and dark jazz atmosphere. It was a collaborative effort between the legendary blues man John Lee Hooker and the even more legendary jazz master Miles Davis. This is not a song I've heard other blues fans mention, and I can understand why. Typically I like my music to feel like it's going somewhere, and if this is even moving at all, it's not toward any particular destination. Still, I'm so entranced by the mood it creates that I can't help but love it. Enjoy.