Taken strictly on its own terms, Jimi Hendrix’ Band of Gypsys album (released 3/25/70) is arguably the least innovative of the records he released during his lifetime (it turned out to be the last). From the perspective of fifty-five years, however, this finite collection has had a momentous influence on successive generations of music lovers and musicians.
Band Of Gypsys came about due to a misconceived contractual obligation to which Hendrix agreed early in his career. Impending legalities moved the iconic guitarist to offer recordings from the late 1969-70 concerts as fulfillment of terms. Jimi then began preparations for the appearances, with former Army comrade Billy Cox in tow to play bass. At the same time, Buddy Miles took a seat at the drum kit and occasional vocal microphone.
Such preparations were not wholly distinct from the new material Hendrix had been working on, but only a smattering made it to the original BOG. Two decades later, 1999’s Live At The Fillmore East and the Songs For Groovy Children box set expand upon the initial six-track sequence culled from two nights of shows at the late Bill Graham’s Fillmore East.
Miles’ originals unfortunately undermined the musical value of that single LP. The former sideman of Wilson Pickett and member of Michael Bloomfield’s Electric Flag levied an overbearing vocal presence “Them Changes” and “We Got To Live Together” and while those two numbers admittedly hearken to both Miles’ and Hendrix’s R&B roots (the latter as sideman with the Isley Brothers), they are only superficially of a piece with Jimi’s soul-inflected originals like “Power of Love” and “Message to Love.”
Still, there’s a particular joy in the loose approach BOG brings to “Who Knows,” which comes only from musicians having pure, unadulterated fun playing together. But “Machine Gun” is something else again, a marked and logical extension of the visionary guitar work by which Hendrix had begun making a name for himself with 1967’s Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold As Love later that same year, plus 1968’s ambitious double album Electric Ladyland.
Jimi utilized the titanic, primarily instrumental piece to commingle themes of latent violence and civil unrest worlds apart from the conciliatory themes in the aforementioned pair of originals. With the hindsight of a half-century plus, it’s clear how the coexistence of those perspectives accurately reflected the times in which they appeared.
But implicit contradictions of a different sort also permeated the original formation of the Gypsys a few months prior. It was a tenuous democratic bond that gave way in an abrupt dissolution of the trio after a truncated Madison Square Garden performance near the end of January ’70.
In the wake of that debacle, the much-ballyhooed reunion of the original three-piece Experience ended up a non-event too, but the drummer from that ensemble, Mitch Mitchell, would return to forge a formidable bond with Hendrix and Cox for both studio and stage work until the guitar icon’s untimely passing in September of ’70.
In the meantime, the release of Band Of Gypsys not only consolidated the Hendrix audience but also began to expand it exponentially. Similar reverberations have continued ever since, taking the form of the adventuresome (and socially conscious) likes of Living Color and Rage Against The Machine.
But even as Band Of Gypsys’ influence on rap and hip-hop culture is indisputable–see Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest to name just two–so too is the title’s impact on modern jazz undeniable. Miles Davis’ latter-day work beginning with Jack Johnson and the chameleonic persona of Soulive ratify this one-of-a-kind Jimi Hendrix record as a watershed moment of continuing cultural resonance.
