The Albion Beatnik Bookstore website (or how to change a light bulb in a tight space on a ladder)

The web page of the Albion Beatnik Bookstore, based once in Oxford, then Sibiu, always neo-bankrupt, now closed for business: atavistic and very analogue, its musings and misspells on books and stuff.

Category Archives: Miles Davis

Miles as Musical High Wire Artist

If any one track sums up Miles Davis, it might be Circle, recorded in October 1966 for the album Miles Smiles, by his quintet of the time – Wayne Shorter, … Continue reading

2nd March 2018 · Leave a comment

Spiritual Synaesthesia: John Coltrane at Ninety

In a brief and urgent career, John Coltrane transformed jazz and became a beacon for much else; he died aged only forty in 1967. A spiritual awakening in 1957 removed from him … Continue reading

25th September 2016 · Leave a comment

Miles and Muhammad Ali: the Momentum of the Moment

The personas of Miles Davis and Muhammad Ali have fascinated the world always. Both men are iconic: you would expect to see them in any poster shop in any far-flung corner of the world … Continue reading

1st August 2016 · Leave a comment

Miles, Boxing & Jack Johnson

“Boxing’s got style like music’s got style,” said Miles Davis. “Joe Louis had a style… and Sugar Ray Robinson had his style – as did Muhammad Ali… But you’ve got … Continue reading

31st July 2016 · Leave a comment

Call It Anything: Miles at the Isle of Wight

The third Isle of Wight Festival took place in August 1970. With Bob Dylan as headline act the previous year (returning from voluntary exile and turning his back on America’s … Continue reading

2nd July 2016 · 1 Comment

Miles as Engine Driver

Miles Davis battled various physical ailments throughout the last twenty years of his life until his death in 1991. He had spent five years sidelined in the late 1970s, holed up … Continue reading

10th November 2015 · Leave a comment

A Chameleon Chasing an Audience: the Musical Life of Miles Davis

“I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning . . . Every day I find something creative to do with my life.” Born in 1926, … Continue reading

23rd February 2015 · Leave a comment

Bernard O’Donoghue’s Connolly’s Bookshop

Barbara Pym’s Excellent Women