Nine To The Universe - History

History

Nine to the Universe is the third posthumous, compilation Hendrix release produced by Alan Douglas. He had previously wiped almost all of the backing musicians from the original recordings and replaced them with session musicians on Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning and heavily edited (even significantly changing the tempo in some cases), overdubbing extended rhythm guitar, female backing singers, etc. on occasion. During his pre-release promo interviews/released statements, for his first release Crash Landing, Douglas strongly hinted that he intended to release the jam session that Hendrix recorded with John McLaughlin, which would justify his loud claims that Hendrix intended embarking on a "new" jazz direction. But whether McLaughlin refused permission or not, it was never released officially and never could be as, when the jam was finally bootlegged, it proved that McLaughlin's semi-acoustic guitar's pickup was faulty and was nothing more that a rough jam. It was recorded during a later part of the session on March 25, that also featured Dave Holland (an English jazz musician who was then mostly known as Miles Davis' regular acoustic and electric bass player and his contribution to Davis' seminal post-bop/fusion albums between 1968 and 1970 - e.g. "Filles de Kilimanjaro", "In a Silent Way" and "Bitches' Brew") and Buddy Miles on drums. Instead, Douglas heavily edited, and released a number of disparate jam sessions (removing over 50% from each jam, apart from "Drone Blues" - which only lost a third - one of Hendrix' very first, new recordings with Billy Cox, who hadn't played with Jimi in three years and some young 'pop' musicians recruited from a club. ) recorded between March and August 1969, (mostly) retaining the original backing tracks and musicians.