10/18/1970

The spiritual bishop of rock and roll, the man who united the streams of R+B, blues, funk and rock into such a fantastic animal, died today. Jimi leaves in his wake his final record. Released just five months ago, Band of gypsies documents one of Jimi's classic moments on stage at the Fillmore East in New York City on New Year's Eve, 1970. Though it serves now as a requiem, the album started its life as the promise of birth. Jimi had grown tired of his poppier arrangements and was ready to thrust himself into a new experimentatal stage with his two-man band of Buddy Miles and Billy Cox abreast. The Fillmore East performances suggested that Jimi was moving into new territories. He had established a platinum reputation, and the only thing left to hold him back was his own imagination. Band of Gypsies shows us how far that imagination may have gone, had it not been so hastily ripped from our presence.

Band of Gypsies is a tremendously organic, moody creature to invite into the ears. Going from intense, climactic moments of intensity to distorted, minimal suspense, Gypsies runs the gamut far, far away from Jimi's more wry, gritty material like "Hey Joe" or "Highway Chile." As if the social tumult of racial strife and an unwilling war had been swallowed by Jimi's guitar and released again by his fingertips, Gypsies' atmosphere is introspective, regretful, frustrated, and angry. The cries of protest from a man whose words were his music.

Perhaps the most fantastic aspect of this record is the crowd. Though the tempo often changes to silence only excepting a lightly tapped hi-hat or tremblingly picked guitar, the silence in the rapt Fillmore East captures the power of the performance. If silence is golden, the crowd has paid Jimi, Buddy and Billy the highest ransom to express themselves to the fullest, and the favor is returned. Remember him, my brothers and sisters. Amen.

-James P. Wisdom