The Rock Explosion

At the end of the sixties, strengthened by his quintet's experiments, Miles Davis was ripe for bringing himself before rock and its immense audience.

Miles Davis as a Rocker?

A fusion of country music and black rock and roll (derived from boogie), rock was created by white artists in the mid-fifties. Over the next decade, it adopted the effective rhythm sections of rhythm and blues and profited by carrying soul and other types of American music forward. At the same time it received support from new recording and production methods and made use of the electric instruments that had appeared with the urban blues.

Jimi Hendrix onstage, Woodstock 1969

Instrumental performances became increasingly important not only with rock - leading to the appearance of 'guitar heroes' - but also with the transformation of musical forms. In the late sixties, 'rockers' invaded realms hitherto reserved for better-informed kinds of music, such as classical, jazz and certain types of traditional non-European music.

After this point rock could be played for extended periods, and huge sound systems were installed, making enormous outdoor concerts possible.

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