In 1973, Miles Davis reshaped his band. Gone were the strings, sitars and keyboards of his early-1970s experiments. In their place: raw electricity, funk rhythms, and a guitar sound unlike anything heard before. At the centre of that transformation was Pete Cosey — a Chicago-born guitarist whose fearless use of effects, unconventional tunings and sheer sonic boldness turned the guitar into a new kind of instrument.
The video below captures one of the first public hearings of this new band. In that performance, Pete Cosey’s guitar doesn’t just accompany: it charges, disrupts, colours, and reshapes the space around the band. It’s not a solo — it’s a statement of purpose.
Who was Pete Cosey — and why he fit Miles’ vision?
By 1973, Cosey had already lived many musical lives. He had roots in Chicago’s blues and avant-garde scenes, had worked as a session musician for Chess Records (playing with greats such as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Etta James), and had absorbed jazz, funk, blues and experimental music alike.
He wasn’t a conventional guitarist. Pete Cosey used unusual tunings, treated his guitar as a multi-textured sound source, and embraced effects, synths and distortion in a way few jazz musicians dared.
For Miles, that was exactly what was needed. As Miles himself later said, he wanted a guitarist who could give him “that Jimi Hendrix and Muddy Waters sound.” Cosey gave him something even more radical: a guitar that didn’t just solo over jazz chords, but reshaped the foundation of the band’s electrified sound.
What changed in the 1973 band setup
When Cosey joined the group, Miles reorganised the band’s instrumentation — removing sitar and tabla, cutting keyboards (Miles handled them when needed), and emphasising a leaner, harder-edged electric setup.
The core lineup included electric bass (Michael Henderson), drums (Al Foster), percussion (Mtume), saxophone/flute (Dave Liebman), and two or three electric guitars — Pete Cosey often taking lead.
The resulting sound: dense grooves, electronic noise, funk-rock rhythms, heavy distortion, free-form improvisation. It wasn’t jazz in the 1960s sense. It was more: a sonic experiment — a kind of organised chaos.
The “three directions” from Miles to Cosey
Cosey recalled in a 1990s interview with TheLastMiles.com that when Miles brought him into the band, he gave him three instructions: move to the front of the stage, turn up his volume, and “sit there and look Black.”
These weren’t just technical suggestions — they were aesthetic demands. They told Cosey: be visible, be loud, be proud. On a political and cultural level, it anchored the band in Black expression; musically, it liberated the guitar from restraint.
In the live 1973 Ife, you can hear what that meant: the guitar isn’t a background instrument — it is a force. It doesn’t just fill space; it dominates it.
What came out of it: Dark Magus, Agharta, Pangaea (and beyond)
The fruits of this era of Miles and Cosey were captured on live albums that remain some of the rawest, most aggressive statements in jazz history:
- Dark Magus (recorded March 1974, released 1977) — an electric-funk-jungle assault with Cosey and Reggie Lucas on guitars, Mtume on percussion, Michael Henderson grooving deep, and Miles waxing wild on trumpet and organ.
- Agharta (1975) and Pangaea (1976) — documentation of Miles’ 1975 Japan tour, with Cosey’s guitar weaving dense, hypnotic layers around rock-steady funk and percussion.
These albums didn’t just extend jazz — they changed it, influencing a generation of experimental funk, noise-rock, ambient, and even early hip-hop producers.
Why Ife 1973 matters
Watching the 1973 Ife video is like seeing the blueprint for what would follow: the shift to electric funk-fusion, the radical rearrangement of ensemble roles, the embrace of distortion and volume as artistic tools.
It isn’t a clean “song performance” — it’s a snapshot of a transitional moment, raw and slightly ragged, but full of creative electricity. Cosey’s playing there isn’t about melody or chords. It’s about colour, pressure, weight, tension. His guitar isn’t a voice — it’s a sound mass.
If old jazz fans balked at it, younger listeners — punk, funk, rock — heard something new. Something powerful.
Let’s not forget the galvanic third guitarist Dominique Gaumont on “Dark Magus.”