# The Girls of Kilimanjaro: Others sensed that something significant was happening: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2025/12/28/the-girls-of-kilimanjaro-others-sensed-that-something-significant-was-happening-video-photos/
- Published: 2025-12-28T11:48:39+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Miles’s history-making albums are numerous, but today we’re focusing on a title
that’s unfairly considered minor, but which, upon closer listening, reveals itself
to be full of gems. Personally, it’s my favorite Miles album.**

When discussing Miles Davis’s electric turn, the conversation usually immediately
jumps to In a Silent Way or Bitches Brew. These are the seminal albums, the ones
that redefined jazz and sparked endless debate.

But if you want to hear the precise moment when acoustic post-bop begins to blend
into a new language, the album is truly Filles de Kilimanjaro. It’s the hinge: the
final breath of the Second Great Quintet and the first glimpse of Miles’s electric
vision.

Recorded in June and September 1968 at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York
and released between 1968 and 1969, Filles de Kilimanjaro sits somewhere between
Miles in the Sky and In a Silent Way.

![](https://i0.wp.com/traccedijazz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/tumblr_0151a25c2afb7dd2412fe0fc25aad2be_161b6525_1280.
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It feels like a band in transition: still rooted in the conversational post-bop 
the quintet had perfected, but now colored by electric instruments, new rhythmic
ideas, and a different sense of space. Nothing here feels like a sudden break with
the past—but nothing is entirely recognizable by the old definitions, either. For
anyone interested in how jazz evolves, this tension is part of its magic.

By the time of these sessions, the Second Great Quintet—Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter,
Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams—had already transformed modern small-
group jazz through a series of albums ranging from E.S.P. to Miles Smiles, Nefertiti,
and Miles in the Sky.

The telepathy between the musicians was almost an instrument in itself. Filles de
Kilimanjaro captures the same chemistry, but with two crucial changes: electric 
piano and electric bass appear for the first time in a sustained manner, and the
rhythm section begins to change.

The album was recorded in two blocks. In June 1968, Miles, Shorter, Hancock, Carter,
and Williams created the first material, with Hancock on electric piano and Carter
on electric bass. By the time the project resumed in September, Chick Corea had 
replaced Hancock, and Dave Holland had taken over for Carter, returning to acoustic
bass but with a different timbral approach.

This means a single album documents two distinct rhythm sections: the original Hancock-
Carter combination and the more recent Corea-Holland duo that would back the first
electric groups. It’s a rare opportunity to hear the future unfold in real time.

The title—translated from French as “Girls of Kilimanjaro”—has been linked to Miles’
involvement in Kilimanjaro African Coffee, a Tanzanian coffee company he co-owned,
as well as his interest in African imagery at the time.

![](https://i0.wp.com/traccedijazz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/cs584903-01a-big.
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But what immediately catches your eye is the cover: the photograph is of Betty Mabry,
the young singer and songwriter who would briefly become Miles’ wife, and who later
recorded groundbreaking funk albums under the name Betty Davis. Her presence isn’t
just visual decoration. There’s a personal and musical connection that runs through
the album.

In his autobiography, Miles describes how Betty introduced him to the new music 
exploding in the late 1960s, particularly Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone,
and James Brown. It wasn’t a one-way influence—they were part of the same scene 
in New York, as fashion, art, and black music collided and influenced each other.
But Miles makes it clear that it was she who opened his ears to sounds beyond the
world of jazz.

![](https://i0.wp.com/traccedijazz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/tumblr_1de53e297388fe8c2bd21927992ee65b_3ad632d5_1280.
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Betty and Miles Davis. Isle of Wight Festival, 1970. Photo by Jim Marshall.

That influence is most clearly reflected in the album’s final track, “Mademoiselle
Mabry (Miss Mabry),” which takes its harmonic foundation from Hendrix’s “The Wind
Cries Mary.” It’s both a recollection and a true hybrid: jazz musicians reinterpreting
the language of rock through their own vocabulary.

Filles de Kilimanjaro is composed of five extended compositions:

“Frelon Brun”
 “Tout de suite,” “Petits Machins” “Filles de Kilimanjaro” “Mademoiselle
Mabry.”

Rather than acting like five unrelated pieces, they feel like variations within 
a single, evolving landscape. Melodic ideas stretch across long forms, rhythmic 
patterns slowly shift, and the album as a whole feels like a long narrative arc.

There are moments of dense interplay that could sit comfortably alongside earlier
quintet recordings, and others where the music opens up into a freer groove that
hints at rock and funk without ever copying anyone.

![](https://i0.wp.com/traccedijazz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/filles-de-kilimanjaro.
png?w=640&ssl=1)

The instruments themselves change the shape of the music. Herbie Hancock’s early
experiments with electric piano create a more sustained texture and allow the harmony
to float in the air rather than bouncing rhythmically like an acoustic piano.

When Chick Corea joins the project, he moves freely between acoustic and electric
textures, and Dave Holland brings a very different sound and bass phrasing than 
Ron Carter.

But Tony Williams remains the winning force: his drumming propels the group forward
with a restless intensity, breaking time into fragments and reassembling the rhythm
in a way that drives the music without relying on a rigid pattern. It’s fascinating
to hear him push the quintet’s rhythmic language in a new direction, without ever
abandoning the inventiveness that made his previous work so important.

**Critical Reception**

Upon its release, Filles de Kilimanjaro received a mixture of curiosity and admiration.
Some jazz critics were unsure of the album’s electric elements and the way it eschewed
traditional swing in favor of repeated figures and spacious rhythms. Others sensed
that something significant was happening. Publications looking beyond the jazz world
recognized the album’s connection to broader shifts in black music and culture, 
noting that the album functioned almost as a continuous suite rather than a collection
of isolated pieces.

Today, in hindsight, it’s easier to see what listeners sensed at the time: the music
was opening up to a new idea of ​​what a jazz band could be.

In the decades since, music critics have consistently returned to Filles de Kilimanjaro
as the starting point of Miles’s electric journey. If In a Silent Way is the door
and Bitches Brew the explosion, Filles is the moment the handle turns. It documents
the end of the Second Great Quintet’s acoustic language, the arrival of new ideas
and musicians, and the personal influence of Betty Mabry as Miles began to seriously
absorb the new wave of funk, rock, and amplified black music.

The album still feels exploratory rather than declarative—but that’s precisely what
makes it so engaging. It’s not a finished theory. It’s a laboratory.

For today’s listeners, this makes Filles de Kilimanjaro one of the richest albums
in Miles Davis’s catalog. You can hear the old and the new in the same breath. The
quintet’s intimacy is intact, but the atmosphere has changed. The music moves in
longer lines, with a different weight and a new relationship to rhythm. And there’s
something human at its heart: a portrait on the cover, a name on the tracklist, 
and an invisible conversation between Betty’s record collection and Miles’s imagination.

If you’ve always approached the electric period through Miles Davis’s most famous
albums, revisiting Filles de Kilimanjaro reveals a different story. Innovation rarely
happens in a single moment. It comes in stages. This album captures one of the most
important stages of modern jazz.

![](https://i0.wp.com/traccedijazz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/image.png?w=640&
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