Another kind of music I’m listening to during pandemic is a personal rediscovery of Miles Davis’ second great quintet, and specifically, Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro, which are both from 1968 sessions. Repeated listenings of these sessions make In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew not quite as surprising or radical as they are usually portrayed. Electric instrumentation was introduced, and Tony Williams’ drumming seems to be the driving force behind a changing sound.

But the facts and the musical context don’t explain why this music, now. Here’s the best I can explain: the music’s compelling beauty comes from its tensions—resolved and not resolved—created by a top-drawer ensemble of like-minded musicians who are directed by a restless, enigmatic genius searching for a way to push out of conventional expectations. And, at a time of uncertainty and change and suffering, this music offers undiminished demonstration of the human spirit’s capacity to be both responsive and propulsive.