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It also came at a time when the Beatles were falling apart due to business and artistic conflicts that likely would have been exacerbated by McCartney appearing on a record with Hendrix and Davis. McCartney was also still bound by a songwriting partnership with John Lennon that might have further complicated the release of any McCartney-Hendrix-Davis compositions. And then there is the question of what the proposed group would have sounded like. Davis was moving away from his jazz roots toward a fusion-based sound. He said in his autobiography that by 1968 he was listening primarily to James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone and, particularly, Hendrix
-- musicians joined by a love of syncopated funk not found on Beatles tracks. It is not clear either how McCartney's melodic, subtle bass playing would have made its presence felt in a band that included Hendrix' guitar and Davis' trumpet. "At first, though, it sounds really weird and off the wall. But on second thought it makes perfect, Hendrix-type sense to chuck in someone who's a great musician but comes from a different tradition," said Hendrix biographer Charles Shaar Murray. "I regret this never actually took place. ... it would have been magnificent." McCartney is the only one of the four musicians who is still alive. His spokesman, Stuart Bell, said the former Beatle is too busy on his world tour to comb his memory for his thoughts about a telegram sent more than four decades ago. In his autobiography, Davis said he and Hendrix occasionally jammed together at his apartment in New York City and tried to get into the studio to record but were hampered by financial matters and by their busy schedules. Murray and others maintain that Davis wanted $50,000 upfront to attend the session. The Juilliard-trained trumpeter Davis described Hendrix, who learned his chops backing up the Isley Brothers and others, as a self-taught "natural musician" who could not read music but was able to pick up complicated pieces in the blink of an eye. Davis says in the book that he and arranger Gil Evans were in Europe planning to record with Hendrix at the time of his death in London. "What I didn't understand is why nobody told him not to mix alcohol and sleeping pills," Davis wrote. Hendrix's death dashed their plans to record together, with or without McCartney. Eddie Kramer, the engineer who produced most of Hendrix's music, said there will always be speculation about what might have been. "I think it would have been phenomenal," Kramer said. "Lord knows where it may have gone; those huge egos in the studio at the same time! I would have loved to have done that one. But it was not to be."
[Associated
Press;
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