Something a lot of people miss, is that Jimi was heading into jazz. I've read several articles in jazz-oriented magazines that point to "Third Stone From The Sun" as being the song that marked his intended course. His work with Buddy Miles (a jazz drummer) in Band Of Gypsys was a big step in that direction. One of my favourite tracks doesn't have a name. At Woodstock, after he did a bunch of his trademark musical pyrotechnics (which even then, sounded mostly like noise), he suddenly broke into this lovely, smooth, jazz riff! One of the nice things about the late 60's & early 70's was the absence of boundaries between musical styles.

... but I digress... often... :)