“Brand new thing”: The funk album that inspired Miles Davis’ classic ‘On the Corner’
‘Genius’ is a word that gets bandied around a lot within the music world, particularly when talking about the enigmatic landscape of jazz, but there doesn’t seem to be any other way to properly encapsulate the trailblazing and earth-shattering work of Miles Davis.
From his ‘Birth of Cool’ era recordings during the late 1940s to the expansive psychedelic jazz mastery of an album like Bitches Brew, Davis was never an artist to stay in one place for too long. Rather than resting on the laurels of his many incredible grooves, the trumpeter chose instead to look to the future, repeatedly reinventing himself and his sound. In turn, Davis holds an improbable influence over jazz to this day, with thousands of devotees and fellow musicians trying their darndest to follow in his footsteps.
To his credit, Davis didn’t let his position on the upper echelon of jazz expression go to his head. A formidable interviewee, always aware of his musical quality, but he wasn’t above taking notice of what other artists were doing. Whereas another musician of his stature might have buried their head in the sand or committed themselves to an echo chamber, Davis found it important to keep on top of all aural innovation. It is no surprise, therefore, that Funkadelic tickled his appreciation.
George Clinton’s legendary outfit formed the cornerstone of the American funk scene back in the 1970s, elevating the style from its R&B roots into something far more expansive and endearingly psychedelic. With era-defining records like Maggot Brain in 1971, the group carved out a totally unique sound that audiences had never witnessed before and haven’t truly been matched since.
As such, it was something of an inevitability that Funkadelic would arrive on the radar of Miles Davis sooner or later, but even still, the impact that Clinton’s outfit had on the jazz master is pretty colossal. After the revolutionary release of Bitches Brew in 1970, Davis witnessed renewed interest in his work but was keen to keep the inventive juices flowing, rather than sticking with the avant-jazz psychedelia which he had perfected on the record. As it turns out, that spark that ignited his next musical move came in the form of Maggot Brain.
A core element of that album’s appeal, as with any half-decent funk record, came with the percussion laid down by Tiki Fulwood. The beating rhythm of tracks like ‘Wars of Armageddon’ was essential in creating the group’s distinctive funk-psychedelia sound, and Fulwood’s quality immediately stood out to Davis.
“He actually came and hired our drummer [Tiki Fulwood] after we did that record,” George Clinton recalled to Songfacts, explaining, “Listen to his record, On the Corner, and then listen to ‘Wars of Armageddon’. When we did ‘Free Your Mind’, ‘Wars of Armageddon’, and ‘Maggot Brain’, that sound, Miles said he thought that was the brand new thing.”
In the grand scheme of things, Fulwood’s time with Davis was fairly brief, but the inspiration he provided on those Maggot Brain recordings was essential in inspiring the latter’s magnificent 1972 record On the Corner. Seeing the jazz icon move towards an experimental avant-funk sound, the record reaffirmed the trumpeter’s penchant for reinvention, but without Funkadelic, it might never have happened.
