After loving Sketches of Spain, I thought my relationship with Miles Davis was beginning to blossom in a positive direction, but I’m brought back down with how cold—or hell, aggravated—A Tribute to Jack Johnson made me feel. Combined with my perfectly lukewarm reception towards In a Silent Way, it would seem Davis’ jazz fusion isn’t for me.

How should I put it? For starters, I hate the sound of McLaughlin’s electric guitar here. It has an awful, flat twang to it, and when many chords are played together, it sounds like someone strumming on a steel rubber band. It’s downright obnoxious and grating. The brash thumping and plodding of the bass and organ aren’t much better. There are also many moments where the band’s unity falls apart and they play off each other poorly, seemingly only paying attention to themselves. Billy Cobham is particularly overzealous and could do with some modesty. The only moments that stand out to me are the few spacey, ambient segments (mainly the ones near the beginning and the end of “Yesternow.”) A Tribute to Jack Johnson is a time-honored precursor to the future of funk music, but a dull, lumbering, clinking and clanking slog to me nonetheless.