section_path: Post-war jazz/Jazz fusion/Miles Davis' new directions
section_name: Miles Davis' new directions
paragraph_text: Miles Davis' new directions
  
  In 1969, Davis fully embraced the electric instrument approach to jazz with In a Silent Way, which can be considered his first fusion album. Composed of two side-long suites edited heavily by producer Teo Macero, this quiet, static album would be equally influential to the development of ambient music.
  
  As Davis recalls:
  
  The music I was really listening to in 1968 was James Brown, the great guitar player Jimi Hendrix, and a new group who had just come out with a hit record, " Dance to the Music ", Sly and the Family Stone... I wanted to make it more like rock. When we recorded In a Silent Way I just threw out all the chord sheets and told everyone to play off of that.
  
  Two contributors to In a Silent Way also joined organist Larry Young to create one of the early acclaimed fusion albums: Emergency! (1969) by The Tony Williams Lifetime.