Record Reviews
📝 2096 reviews| Artist | Title | Review |
|---|---|---|
| Miles Davis | Filles De Kilimanjaro | <p>Since it's billed as "Directions in Music by Miles Davis," it should come as little surprise that Filles de Kilimanjaro is the beginning of a new phase for Miles, the place that he begins to dive headfirst into jazz-rock fusion. It also happens to be the swan song for his second classic quintet, arguably the finest collective of musicians he ever worked with, and what makes this album so fascinating is that it's possible to hear the breaking point -- though his quintet all followed him into fusion (three of his supporting players were on In a Silent Way), it's possible to hear them all break with the conventional notions of what constituted even adventurous jazz, turning into something new. According to Miles, the change in "direction" was as much inspired by a desire to return to something earthy and bluesy as it was to find new musical territory, and Filles de Kilimanjaro bears him out. Though the album sports inexplicable, rather ridiculous French song titles, this is music that is unpretentiously adventurous, grounded in driving, mildly funky rhythms and bluesy growls from Miles, graced with weird, colorful flourishes from the band. Where Miles in the Sky meandered a bit, this is considerably more focused, even on the three songs that run over ten minutes, yet it still feels transitional. Not tentative (which In the Sky was), but certainly the music that would spring full bloom on In a Silent Way was still in the gestation phase, and despite the rock-blues-n-funk touches here, the music doesn't fly and search the way that Nefertiti did. But that's not a bad thing -- this middle ground between the adventurous bop of the mid-'60s and the fusion of the late '60s is rewarding in its own right, since it's possible to hear great musicians find the foundation of a new form. For that alone, Filles de Kilimanjaro is necessary listening.</p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Miles In The Sky | <p>With the 1968 album Miles in the Sky, Miles Davis explicitly pushed his second great quintet away from conventional jazz, pushing them toward the jazz-rock hybrid that would later become known as fusion. Here, the music is still in its formative stages, and it's a little more earth-bound than you might expect, especially following on the heels of the shape-shifting, elusive Nefertiti. On Miles in the Sky, much of the rhythms are straightforward, picking up on the direct 4/4 beats of rock, and these are illuminated by Herbie Hancock's electric piano -- one of the very first sounds on the record, as a matter of fact -- and the guest appearance of guitarist George Benson on "Paraphernalia." All of these additions are tangible and identifiable, and they do result in intriguing music, but the form of the music itself is surprisingly direct, playing as extended grooves. This meanders considerable more than Nefertiti, even if it is significantly less elliptical in its form, because it's primarily four long jams. Intriguing, successful jams in many respects, but even with the notable additions of electric instruments, and with the deliberately noisy "Country Son," this is less visionary than its predecessor and feels like a transitional album -- and, like many transitional albums, it's intriguing and frustrating in equal measures.</p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | In A Silent Way | <p>Listening to Miles Davis' originally released version of In a Silent Way in light of the complete sessions released by Sony in 2001 (Columbia Legacy 65362) reveals just how strategic and dramatic a studio construction it was. If one listens to Joe Zawinul's original version of "In a Silent Way," it comes across as almost a folk song with a very pronounced melody. The version Miles Davis and Teo Macero assembled from the recording session in July of 1968 is anything but. There is no melody, not even a melodic frame. There are only vamps and solos, grooves layered on top of other grooves spiraling toward space but ending in silence. But even these don't begin until almost ten minutes into the piece. It's Miles and McLaughlin, sparely breathing and wending their way through a series of seemingly disconnected phrases until the groove monster kicks in. The solos are extended, digging deep into the heart of the ethereal groove, which was dark, smoky, and ashen. McLaughlin and Hancock are particularly brilliant, but Corea's solo on the Fender Rhodes is one of his most articulate and spiraling on the instrument ever. The A-side of the album, "Shhh/Peaceful," is even more so. With Tony Williams shimmering away on the cymbals in double time, Miles comes out slippery and slowly, playing over the top of the vamp, playing ostinato and moving off into more mysterious territory a moment at a time. With Zawinul's organ in the background offering the occasional swell of darkness and dimension, Miles could continue indefinitely. But McLaughlin is hovering, easing in, moving up against the organ and the trills by Hancock and Corea; Wayne Shorter hesitantly winds in and out of the mix on his soprano, filling space until it's his turn to solo. But John McLaughlin, playing solos and fills throughout (the piece is like one long dreamy solo for the guitarist), is what gives it its open quality, like a piece of music with no borders as he turns in and through the commingling keyboards as Holland paces everything along. When the first round of solos ends, Zawinul and McLaughlin and Williams usher it back in with painterly decoration and illumination from Corea and Hancock. Miles picks up on another riff created by Corea and slips in to bring back the ostinato "theme" of the work. He plays glissando right near the very end, which is the only place where the band swells and the tune moves above a whisper before Zawinul's organ fades it into silence. This disc holds up, and perhaps is even stronger because of the issue of the complete sessions. It is, along with Jack Johnson and Bitches Brew, a signature Miles Davis session from the electric era.</p><p>—<strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | In A Silent Way | <p>Listening to Miles Davis' originally released version of In a Silent Way in light of the complete sessions released by Sony in 2001 (Columbia Legacy 65362) reveals just how strategic and dramatic a studio construction it was. If one listens to Joe Zawinul's original version of "In a Silent Way," it comes across as almost a folk song with a very pronounced melody. The version Miles Davis and Teo Macero assembled from the recording session in July of 1968 is anything but. There is no melody, not even a melodic frame. There are only vamps and solos, grooves layered on top of other grooves spiraling toward space but ending in silence. But even these don't begin until almost ten minutes into the piece. It's Miles and McLaughlin, sparely breathing and wending their way through a series of seemingly disconnected phrases until the groove monster kicks in. The solos are extended, digging deep into the heart of the ethereal groove, which was dark, smoky, and ashen. McLaughlin and Hancock are particularly brilliant, but Corea's solo on the Fender Rhodes is one of his most articulate and spiraling on the instrument ever. The A-side of the album, "Shhh/Peaceful," is even more so. With Tony Williams shimmering away on the cymbals in double time, Miles comes out slippery and slowly, playing over the top of the vamp, playing ostinato and moving off into more mysterious territory a moment at a time. With Zawinul's organ in the background offering the occasional swell of darkness and dimension, Miles could continue indefinitely. But McLaughlin is hovering, easing in, moving up against the organ and the trills by Hancock and Corea; Wayne Shorter hesitantly winds in and out of the mix on his soprano, filling space until it's his turn to solo. But John McLaughlin, playing solos and fills throughout (the piece is like one long dreamy solo for the guitarist), is what gives it its open quality, like a piece of music with no borders as he turns in and through the commingling keyboards as Holland paces everything along. When the first round of solos ends, Zawinul and McLaughlin and Williams usher it back in with painterly decoration and illumination from Corea and Hancock. Miles picks up on another riff created by Corea and slips in to bring back the ostinato "theme" of the work. He plays glissando right near the very end, which is the only place where the band swells and the tune moves above a whisper before Zawinul's organ fades it into silence. This disc holds up, and perhaps is even stronger because of the issue of the complete sessions. It is, along with Jack Johnson and Bitches Brew, a signature Miles Davis session from the electric era.</p><p>—<strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Greatest Hits | <p>Like most jazz artists, Miles Davis isn't particularly well-served by a greatest-hits collection, since their brevity and haphazard sampling tends to obscure the scope and depth of his artistry. Nevertheless, Greatest Hits works better than expected, featuring such classics as "All Blues," "Someday My Prince Will Come," "Walkin'," "E.S.P.," "'Round Midnight," and "So What." These tracks might not fully capture the essence of Miles' Columbia records -- and it doesn't necessarily function as a good introductory sampler, since it's presented out of chronological order and his music works better in the context of its original session -- but the music itself is wonderful.</p><p>—<strong>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions | <p>Of all the recording sessions completed by Miles Davis with his various bands, the sessions surrounding In a Silent Way Sessions in 1968 and 1969 are easily the most mysterious and enigmatic. For starters, they signified the completion of his transformation from acoustic to electric sound, and secondly, they marked the complete dissolution of the "second" quintet of Davis, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, and Ron Carter that had begun on Filles de Kilimanjaro. The addition of Chick Corea as a second keyboard player and the replacement of Ron Carter with Dave Holland had changed the sound of the band's dynamic, textural, and rhythmic palettes. The final break with Davis' own previous musical sound happened when he added guitarist John McLaughlin and keyboardist/composer Joe Zawinul (for a temporary three-keyboard sound). The music on the In a Silent Way Sessions comes packaged three ways, all of it chronologically ordered: there is the material used to finish Filles de Kilimanjaro ("Mademoiselle Maby" and "Freon Brun"); material that has been, up until now, unissued in any form; session outtakes that appeared, in edited form, on Circle in the Round, Water Babies, and Directions; unissued and rejected takes; and finally, the music recorded for In a Silent Way itself as it was rehearsed, played, and finally, heavily edited into the released album, which also appears here.</p><p>This was an ambitious undertaking, even if it only covered six months in the recording life of Davis (September 1968 through February 1969), whose musical inspirations and directions were crisscrossing as they were changing direction. With the exception of one tune, Davis or Zawinul composed everything here. Zawinul, though a jazz veteran, was discovering new ways to write — particularly since the advent of the electric piano — and proved to be a profound influence on his employer. The other heavy influence on Davis during this volatile, fertile period was Tony Williams, who was soaking up the pop music of the day, from the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's album (via a girlfriend's suggestion) to the in-his-prime James Brown, to Jimi Hendrix. On Disc One, the set begins with the missing tracks from the quintet box set: "Mademoiselle Mabry" and "Frelon Brun." Hearing them in this context, as the first complete expressions of Davis' new sound, is revelatory. For the first time the three-chord vamp in "Mademoiselle Mabry" comes across as the fitting tribute to Hendrix it should have been, echoing the turnaround tags in "The Wind Cries Mary." These tracks mark the entrance of Dave Holland into the band and the first marked absence of Hancock. The contrast in styles, from Hancock's chunky, groove-laden chords and single-note runs and Corea's deep, cerebral spaciousness, is remarkable; it's a wonder they were issued on the same record at all. The simple, slow-jam riff the former tune evokes was, in some way, the cornerstone on which the material for these sessions would be built, while the latter provided the space and pace for its establishment.</p><p>The elegantly spaced-out "Two Faced" and "Dual Mr. Anthony Tillmon Williams Process" were recorded as a sextet with Hancock. Both tunes are a showcase for the interplay between both keyboardists and Holland, whose near-mystical lyricism was exactly what Davis was looking for in a bass player — one who could change the role of the instrument in an ensemble setting. The loose-jam feeling on these tunes could be heard by some as meandering, but it would be shortsighted to assume this for the entire picture. The various extrapolations on blues-feel and meter — moving them into modal settings and then deconstructing these for a streamlined, open music that allowed for both improvisation and direct musical interplay between various members — were integral and created in Davis' music a space that changed jazz forever. Disc One ends with the full version of "Splash" that appeared on Circle in the Round. Here, all of its four interludes are included after the unedited version of the tune. All of the interludes were recorded as scripted fragments with no improvisation, and featured Hancock playing electric harpsichord and Corea on organ. Lastly there is "Splashdown," the first Davis recording that features Zawinul and the three-keyboard lineup. Here too, the track was unissued, and one has to wonder why, because the dialogue between the three principals, and Holland and Williams, is remarkable — Davis is all but absent, but it hardly matters as Shorter covers his territory well. With two electric pianos and an organ, the tune is so psychedelic and fat; full of a kind of inherent funkiness brought by the rhythm section, and Shorter underscores the jazz element in his solo by taking two cues from Coltrane and turning them into modal paragraphs. Both interludes that follow the tune were also rejected.</p><p>Disc Two is where the In a Silent Way project begins in earnest. The next set is from the album issued in 1981 as Directions. The three tracks that comprise it reveal just how far Davis was willing to take the massive keyboard section. With slow, drifting, methodical improvisation concerned more with the development of sound and texture than riffs and intervals, the Davis group drifts through "Ascent," with Zawinul keeping the color hushed and silvery as Hancock improvises and Corea plays a series of modulated, though very subtle, changes. The most noticeable change is on the driving "Directions," both Pieces One and Two. Williams has been replaced, for this session at least, with Jack DeJohnette, and the driving, slippery force of DeJohnette's drumming with Shorter's precisely punctuated soprano solo is overwhelming in its glorious intensity. These are both unedited takes, recorded as they happened without studio trickery from Teo Macero. The second take is slower, more defined; the intimate speech that developed between Shorter and Zawinul here offers a first glimpse of the sound that would be the genesis of Weather Report a little over a year later. For the time being, largely due to the intuitive improvisation of DeJohnette's drumming, the sound of "Directions" was a rock sound with wild intervalic fanfare and slippery rhythms shifting under the explosive interplay between soloists and ensemble. From the middle to the end of Disc Two, the In a Silent Way project begins to take shape. The first version of "Shhh/Peaceful" rings with the presence of John McLaughlin's guitar. The first version is a bit faster from the jump than the one released later — and heavily edited. There is no chord structure to the tune; there's just a small groove figure with solo vamps appearing all over it. The bassline is doubled by Corea's electric piano; Hancock's silky piano accompaniment fills in the shapes. The hi-hat and McLaughlin's guitar shimmer colors and nuances as Davis enters with the only solo he could play to such beautiful accompaniment. There is an accented chordal passageway from the middle to the end where Zawinul enters, creating a series of overtones with his organ that lend a spectral, eerie presence to the proceedings. It dissolves eventually, only to give way to the intro to Zawinul's gorgeous "In a Silent Way/It's About That Time." The rehearsal version has a ton of chords compared to the way it was written; they were added as coloration devices to involve the instrumentalists in a deeper way. First, there is the reductionism of McLaughlin playing the melody in just one chord, and then Davis and Shorter enter to play over the Rhodes and doubled bassline. When the early recorded versions are set in place, and McLaughlin opens the tune, you can feel how much the tune has developed from the rehearsal tape. The pace is tortoise-like; everything is gone from the mix, and there's just that guitar with Zawinul eventually adding his organ and Hancock slinking his piano into the intervals. When the band does enter, it's via Shorter's sweet, singing soprano rather than Davis' trumpet. It's reduced to essence as a melodic frame with no foundation to hook onto, as transitory and elegant as it is beautiful. The suspended vamp that begins "It's About That Time" is a floating one; it never anchors itself to either E or F sharp. Hancock offers the chords and Corea and Zawinul join him, playing shifting, ghostly fills before McLaughlin jumps in and doubles the keyboards sleepily with a bluesy graciousness. The piece was recorded in sections, so everything heard here has an illusory quality to it, because Macero edited it all into one tune. Solos and density structures mark the individual takes; Hancock and McLaughlin deconstruct tonalities in favor of sound, creating overtonal ambiences. The rest of the set offers finished, wonderfully remastered versions of both "In a Silent Way/It's About That Time" and "Shhh/Peaceful": those that appeared on the original LP.</p><p>Bob Belden's revealing, insightful, and authoritative liner notes tell the fascinating story of how the recorded tracks were edited into final versions; so no need to go into it here. But the two other tracks recorded with the same band minus Tony Williams — replaced by Joe Chambers, of all people — are both unissued: "The Ghetto Walk" and "Early Minor." Both are deeply Hendrix-influenced, using his choice of keys and a series of sevenths around E flat, B flat, and A flat, and finally shifting themselves, in transmuted form, to the big daddy of all rock keys, E. Both of these tracks, filled with space, blues, rock, and killer piano and organ fills, are rhythmically carried by Holland and danced through the pocket by Chambers, who, while not as muscular as either Williams or DeJohnette, was more nuanced as a blues player, which is what these two awesome numbers called for, as they turned out to be — especially "Ghetto Walk" — the precursors to the material that would be recorded for Jack Johnson a year later. There is nothing extra in this set in terms of fluff, viscera, or detritus. All of the material included from these sessions offers perhaps the most fascinating look to date into the musical mind of Miles Davis, who was undergoing a revolution of his own — he looked to the younger players for inspiration and guidance in how to handle the new forms; the liner notes bear this atypical personification out. Each track is an audible step in that development, and a step toward the goal of what would be the first Miles Davis "groove" album — not in the Blue Note sense of the vernacular — one of atmosphere and ambience and texture and drift — not of melodies and changes. The package is handsome and well-illustrated to be sure, but the music alone is worth the package price. In many ways — far more so than the Bitches Brew sessions — this is the long-sought key that unlocks the door to the room that has the answers as to why and how Davis made such a complete break with his own music on In a Silent Way — a music which he never returned to — at least on record. It's the first box set in a long time that's been worth playing from beginning to end. [This set was reissued in 2004 with different packaging.]</p><p>— <strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p><hr/><p>Miles had a new girl. Her name was Betty, and she told him all about what the kids were listening to. Being a singer herself, she had some connection to the inside world of pop and soul, but mostly, she was just a lot younger than him, and was probably instinctively more drawn to that music than Miles was. It's not as if Miles was completely out of touch with popular trends, but on tour and in the studio as frequently as he was, one could hardly blame him for receiving information second-hand. Betty told him all about Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and the Fifth Dimension (hopefully in that order), and he was keen to investigate the new sounds. Years later he would brag about being able to put together a rock band that would blow all the others away, but he approached the idiom cautiously and methodically at first. Additionally, Miles was getting insider info from his drummer, Tony Williams. Tony was younger even than Betty Mabry, and although he'd come of age deep inside one of the most popular bands in jazz (even if jazz's popularity wasn't what it had been ten years previous), he had his finger very much on the pulse of hip new music. Tony had especially enjoyed the new funk from James Brown and the boogaloo grooves being played by Jimmy McGriff and Richard "Groove" Holmes' bands. Betty and Tony were playing a key role for Miles Davis in the late 60s, even beyond their personal and performing ones. The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions release details a six-month stretch in 1968-69 when the various advisors in Miles' life would see their seeds sprout into fauna so full of life and outrageous fertility that the face of his idiom would be forever changed. Of course, the final product of all this investigation and experimentation has been the subject of countless essays on Miles' genius, but it bears closer inspection to reveal that the trumpeter didn't just up and create this music out of thin air. He spent months in the studio rehearsing on tape, midwifing his ideas. In late '68, Miles was a painter using one canvas to try and retry his masterpiece, continually repainting over areas where, though the ideas were fresh and the colors vibrant, the concept was yet immature.</p><p>As a palette, Miles chose only the best primaries from two continents. At the time, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, and Herbie Hancock were mainstays from his second great quintet. Bassist Ron Carter had become so busy with sessions in New York that Miles had to find a replacement. In between gigs in England, he saw Dave Holland's band opening for Bill Evans. Miles was immediately struck by the young bassist, and sent word via Philly Jo Jones and his manager (Miles had the best connections) that he wanted Dave. Elsewhere, when it became apparent Hancock was going to have trouble making a recording date, Williams recommended the young Boston native Chick Corea as a replacement. This quintet (Davis, Shorter, Williams, Holland and Corea) produced the first tunes on this release in September 1968.</p><p>"Mademoiselle Mabry" is a sprawling ode to both Miles' new girl and Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary." Miles had started using electric keyboards in the studio almost exclusively by that time, and Corea's relatively conservative figures (when they aren't directly quoting the Hendrix tune), are the dominant timbre in this piece at first. He hadn't picked up the Fender Rhodes piano that would color almost every tune Miles performed thereafter, and the primitive sounds produced here betray the band's uncertainty about where the tune (or their sound) was going. Davis takes the first solo, similar to his exploratory efforts on Miles in the Sky earlier that year, over a non-groove from Williams' toms and Holland's steady, if rather static, low-end line. One of the reasons sets like this are great is that you really get a feeling for the musicians' progress during that time, and if this tune is any indication, things had only just begun to get interesting.</p><p>"Frelon Brun" gives a much better idea of the revolutionary sounds ahead. Williams wastes no time in hammering out a hard funk break from the kit, and Corea had apparently already learned the importance of the repetitive chordal vamp to this music. Davis takes a short solo, as if testing the waters, which is followed by Shorter's seemingly more confident strides in funky acid soul. The music actually ends up closer to what the band played after Bitches Brew than anything on In a Silent Way. Two months later, Miles reconvened with the same musicians, adding Herbie Hancock on Rhodes to form a sextet, to begin the next phase of the trip. The band played music closer to Miles' vision on "Two Faced": mystical, impressionistic soundscapes courtesy of the two-keyboard attack, subtle, though insistent drumming from Williams, and a by-then typically moaning, weary head covered by Davis and Shorter. The band was also not afraid of stretching the tunes out to 10, 15, or 20 minutes if it meant they'd find something useful along the way.</p><p>Miles (with the help of producer Teo Macero) had discovered tape edits from progressive pop records of the time (Sgt. Pepper being a chief influence), and this tune, similar to "Shhh/Peaceful" and "In a Silent Way/It's About That Time," was constructed from several stop/start fragments. Later the same month, Miles found yet another missing ingredient in keyboardist (and über-influence on the sound of all resulting jazz-rock fusion) Joe Zawinul. The two men had known each other for several years prior to these sessions, but Miles could only admire the Austrian's playing from afar. Zawinul had made great strides in uniting jazz and soul with Julian "Cannonball" Adderley's band in the mid-60s, even scoring a pop hit with "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." He also brought an earthy sense of melody and classicism to the mix, and would ultimately become a major architect for the sound of Miles' band. "Splashdown," a previously unreleased piece of tense, Rhodes-led jazz-funk, was recorded with the first three-keyboard version of the band. However, Zawinul's influence wasn't really apparent until sessions from a couple of days later, when the band played two of his compositions: "Ascent" and the subsequent concert staple, "Directions." The former seemingly caught the band in transition, with its theretofore-unprecedented use of tonal clusters and rootless "comping" from the keyboards, and an absence of any drum pattern at all, save an odd tambourine pulse. "Directions" was another story altogether, as the band busts out of the peaceful into the wild. This was the most "rock" Miles Davis had sounded like up to that point, and the two versions of the tune on this set are very similar to what Miles' concerts would sound like from '69 through the early 70s. Also of note on this session is that drummer Jack DeJohnette made his first appearance with a Miles Davis band in the studio, lending his distinct, high-energy stomp to the proceedings.</p><p>The band went on the road for a few months after that, and returned to the studio in February 1969. More changes: John McLaughlin had been recruited on guitar (another Tony Williams recommendation), and Williams had returned on drums. This time around, Miles was looking for what he called a "groove album." The strategy was that the band would play a tune (on this session, "Shhh/Peaceful" and "In a Silent Way"), based on charts, but were free to explore what regions the performance yielded to them. Afterwards, Miles and Teo would evaluate the pieces, and form the "groove" in Miles' head from whatever was on tape.</p><p>The original, previously unreleased version of "Shhh/Peaceful" from that session will shock most people accustomed to the legendary In a Silent Way version. First of all, there's an exposition and melodic theme that was completely discarded in the proper version. Also, the famous robotic hi-hat pattern doesn't even begin until almost five minutes in. One of the surprises (some might even say disappointments) of this set is the realization that this music wasn't just the product of Miles' muse; there were hours of sessions and rehearsals before the band, Miles and Teo discovered what it was they were looking for. The humble beginnings of this tune still have much in common with straight jazz, though with a markedly progressive bent.</p><p>The same session yielded two versions of "In a Silent Way." The first is very different to what ended up on the album, with a faux-bossanova beat and Holland's light-footed bassline supporting the classic melody line. The second version is the version that was used on the album, with McLaughlin's heavenly solo statement of the main theme, and Miles' delicate answer. The band also performed "It's About That Time" (definitely a fruitful afternoon) in what was essentially the final version, complete with tape edits and loops compiled by Teo. Two days later, Miles was back in the studio. He had a couple of new pieces, "The Ghetto Walk" and "Early Minor," neither of which ended up on In a Silent Way. The first tune is a hard funk almost-blues featuring Joe Chambers laying down a slinky groove on drums, while McLaughlin, Shorter and Miles give up equally subversive solos. Most interesting is the middle section trip-down, wherein the ghost of the session two days prior sneaks in with a little atmospheric feather float. "Early Minor" is another Zawinul original that's indicative of the kind of hyper-impressionism he would play (with Shorter) with Weather Report shortly after making Bitches Brew with Miles. It's also confusing as to just why this didn't make the cut for the original In a Silent Way release, because it features similar cascading Rhodes figures, and very nice, gentle pulse keeping by Chambers.</p><p>The set ends with the LP versions of "Shhh/Peaceful" and "In a Silent Way/It's About That Time." Miles fans didn't get to hear everything that came in between this album and its predecessor, so the sessions documented on this collection will make the leap from the cautious dabbling in rock textures of Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro to the full-blown jazz-opera of Bitches Brew. These recordings seem a lot more logically arranged and planned. This is good and bad: while few people would doubt the genius of Miles Davis as a player, composer and bandleader, it's evident that he was running on blind faith more than once during that time, and that he was learning on the go as much as his sidemen were. Part of the mystique surrounding this album, for me, has always been that it seemed to come out of nowhere, like a beacon of uncanny originality and visionary foresight. Apparently, it did have roots, and while the music will always be some of my favorite from Miles, I can't honestly say that seeing the blueprints for his magic translates to the same sheer joy as did the end results. But, it's still magic music, and it's still Miles. The worst thing you could ever say about a set like this is that it's almost too educational, and of course, that's not really a criticism, is it?</p><p>— <strong>Dominique Leone, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Bitches Brew 40th Anniversary Edition | <p>Thought by many to be among the most revolutionary albums in jazz history, Miles Davis' Bitches Brew solidified the genre known as jazz-rock fusion. It being the jazz album to most influence jazz, rock, and funk musicians after 1970, by its very nature it is legend. The original double LP included only six cuts and featured up to 12 musicians at any given time, some of whom were already established while others would become high-profile players later: Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Airto, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Don Alias, Bennie Maupin, Larry Young, and Lenny White among them.</p><p>Originally thought to be a series of long jams locked into grooves around keyboard, bass, or guitar vamps, Bitches Brew is actually a recording that producer Teo Macero assembled from various jams by razor-blade: splice to splice and section to section. "Pharaoh's Dance" opens the set with its slippery trumpet lines and McLaughlin's snaky guitar figures skirting the edge of the rhythm section, as Alias' conga slipping through the middle. Corea's and Zawinul's keyboards create a haunted, riffing modal groove, echoed and accented by the basses of Harvey Brooks and Holland. The title cut was originally composed as a five-part suite, though only three were used. Here the keyboards punch through the mix, big chords ring up distorted harmonics for Davis to solo rhythmically over, outside the mode. McLaughlin comps with a vamp, and the bass and drums carry the rest. It's a small taste of the deep voodoo funk to appear on Davis' later records. Side three opens with McLaughlin and Davis trading fours and eights over a lock-step hypnotic vamp on "Spanish Key." Zawinul's trademark lyric sensibility provides a near-chorus for Corea to flit around in; the congas and drummers juxtapose themselves against the basslines. It neatly segues into the brief "John McLaughlin," featuring an organ playing modes below arpeggiated blues guitar runs. The end of Bitches Brew, signified by the stellar "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," reflects the influence of Jimi Hendrix with its chunky slipped chords and Davis playing a ghostly melody through the shimmering funkiness of the rhythm section. It seemingly dances, becoming increasingly more chaotic until it nearly disintegrates before shimmering into a loose, foggy nadir. The disc closes with "Sanctuary," completely redone here as a moody electric ballad, reworked for this band, but it keeps enough of its integrity to be recognizable. Bitches Brew is so forward thinking, it retains its freshness and mystery in the 21st century. [Sony Legacy's 40th Anniversary Edition contains three CDs and a DVD. These remasters from the original eight-track tapes contain two newly discovered and previously unreleased alternate takes of "Spanish Key" and "John McLaughlin." Also included are the 45 edits of "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," "Spanish Key," "Great Expectations," and "Little Blue Frog." The 71-minute DVD called Copenhagen Live 1969, includes a complete performance by a quintet that includes Shorter, Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette, three months prior to the release of Bitches Brew. The arrangements of the album's tunes are scaled down, and the playing is freer, further outside than the recordings. In addition, some of Davis' previous quintet numbers are given some eclectic, electric treatments, including "I Fall in Love Too Easily," "Directions," and "Agitation." The DVD's quality is sonically fine, though visually a bit grainy around the edges, though it doesn't hinder the enjoyment at all. The booklet comes with an excellent new liner essay by Greg Tate that takes a completely different cultural tact compared to Legacy's other Davis reissues.]</p><p>— <strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p><hr/><p>There's a passage in Miles Davis' notorious 1990 autobiography where he's talking about how much quality music he recorded in the mid-to-late 1960s with his current quintet-- the group featuring Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams. "I made six studio dates with this group in four years," he says. "And there were some live recordings that I guess Columbia will release when they think they can make the most money-- probably after I'm dead." I can remember chuckling at that line when reading the book the year of its publication, but it would have been difficult to imagine just how extensive and sustained the Miles Davis reissue program would actually be after his death in 1991. The anniversary sets; the complete studio sessions boxes; the boxes collecting the boxes. It goes on and on and every new gift season brings another new offering.And now here's the latest, from a couple of years after the period Davis mentioned: two re-releases of the legendary 1970 2xLP set Bitches Brew. One is a 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition gathering together the original album on one and a quarter CDs, along with studio outtakes, another CD containing a previously unissued set recorded at Tanglewood, in Lenox, Mass., in August 1970, and a DVD containing a previously unissued concert in Copenhagen from November 1969. The other version of the album is part of Columbia's Legacy Edition and contains the first two CDs from the 40th Anniversary set along with the Copenhagen DVD.There's a reason Bitches Brew is getting this kind of treatment, even after the release of the 4xCD Complete Bitches Brew box set 12 years ago. It is, after all, one of the three or four most important albums of Miles Davis' career. And coming nine months after In a Silent Way, it is also one of founding texts of jazz fusion. It's a Big Deal Jazz album that's been tapped as being an essential part of any collection. Which unfortunately is something that tends to obscure the actual music. Putting on Bitches Brew and then straining to The first thing that Bitches Brew made clear is that Miles was keenly interested in expanding the idea of what his music could be, and was starting to stretch it way out. The title track runs 26 minutes, which then and now is at the extreme end of what a side of vinyl on an LP can hold; the opening "Pharaoh's Dance" also breaks 20 minutes. And these pieces weren't lengthy compositions or single jams, but were assembled by Miles and producer Teo Macero through editing-- unrelated tracks could become one piece through the miracle of the razor blade and magnetic tape. For an improvisatory art form that was founded on the idea collective expression in the present moment, the idea of stitching together pieces into a new whole was radical enough on its own. But Miles was changing his approach in several ways simultaneously as the 1960s came to a close. He was processing his trumpet with echo, working with electric keyboards and electric guitar, adding new percussion colors, experimenting with rock rhythms, doing away with chord changes, and building long tracks from riffs and vamps. And, as the liner notes from Greg Tate included with these sets illustrate, he was hanging out with Betty Davis, who was introducing him to new music, and along the way he had become a fan of Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and James Brown.All of these elements swirled together into a record of brilliant and fascinating contradictions. The psychedelic cover art and long electric jams on the one hand anchor the music in Age of Aquarius, but the connections to earlier jazz tradition and unmoored, floating quality of music also lend it a timeless feel. It sounds very much like a bunch of dudes jamming in the room, but some of the abrupt edits serve as a reminder that it owes a lot to technology. It finds Miles distancing himself from his musical past, but it sounds equally far from the dense abstraction his music would take on a couple of years later, especially in a live setting. It was long and hard to get a handle on, but it was also a huge commercial success. Ultimately, Bitches Brew seems mostly like a single beautiful frame from a jarring film filled with jump-cuts. The amount that Miles Davis' music changed from the early 60s to the early 70s is astonishing. His sound was constantly on the move, and this is what it sounded like on those August days in the studio.The bonus material illustrates just how quickly Davis' music was changing, and how much his music could vary given the context. Three months after Bitches Brew was recorded (but before it was released), he performed in Copenhagen with a five-piece band that included Wayne Shorter. Chick Corea's electric piano aside, the music is acoustic, though several tunes from Bitches Brew are included (the video is exceptional in quality in terms of both sound and image). In this setting, Davis' music sounds like what most people would identify as "jazz," and is less challenging than the cerebral and harmonically complex music he'd made just a few years earlier with his quintet. But by the August 1970 set included with the 40th Anniversary edition, the raging funk maelstrom that would epitomize his live shows in the next four years was on the rails. What a difference nine months made for Miles Davis as 1969 turned into 1970.The two sets sit at opposite ends of the value scale. Listing at about $19, the Legacy Edition seems to me a very good buy-- the original album is a 2xCD set, the outtakes are reasonably interesting, and the Copenhagen DVD is a vital addition to the Davis canon. Also included on the second disc are four tracks edited down for release as 7" singles, and they are interesting curios good for one play but not much more-- three-minute edits are the opposite of what this music is about. The 40th Anniversary Set, on the other hand, goes for over $100 and is obviously geared toward Davis completists-- for them, it actually delivers pretty well as these sets go, since the 1970 live set is excellent, there are some extra visual goodies, and it's not padded out with a promotional film masquerading as a documentary (it also comes with two 180 gram vinyl discs-- I'll never quite get why someone wants both CD and LP sets.) How much is left in the vault? We'll see, maybe when the album turns 50.</p><p>— <strong>Mark Richardson, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Miles At The Fillmore - The Bootleg Series Vol. 3 | <p>Until now, the official recordings of Miles Davis' performances at the Fillmore East between June 17 and 20, 1970 have been limited to Miles at the Fillmore, released as a double-disc. That album's producer Teo Macero edited the recordings to create medleys of each night's music to four 20-minute selections. This four-disc set contains the full concerts. There are 100 minutes of previously unreleased music from Wednesday through Saturday, and an additional 35 minutes of unreleased music from a previous gig at the Fillmore West.</p><p>These concerts featured the Davis band opening for songwriter Laura Nyro. Bill Graham regularly booked jazz acts to play on bills with rock and pop acts. The rock-pop context is significant because Davis was actively courting that audience — aided not only by Graham but by FM DJs playing the just-released Bitches Brew. The band — saxophonist Steve Grossman, Dave Holland on electric bass, drummer Jack DeJohnette, percussionist Airto Moreira, Chick Corea on electric piano, and Keith Jarrett on organ — was loud and driving, and its sound was drenched in wah-wah pedals; distortion was employed when necessary. Both keyboardists played in the group for only three months. The program for each evening was basically the same: "Directions," "The Mask," "It's About That Time," "Bitches Brew," and "The Theme." But each disc offers a different bonus: an encore, an unexpected performance, or tracks from the Fillmore West.</p><p>The charts are loose but focused, and the group's improvisational dynamic is breathtaking and entirely different each night. Davis is exceptionally strong. His playing is inventive, full of questions and muscular statements. Some notable solos occur on Wednesday's "It's About That Time," the Fillmore West's "Footprints" and "Paraphernalia," and the searing intensity displayed on "Directions," from Friday. Grossman's soprano playing is stunning on each version of "Bitches Brew"; his bluesy tenor playing is at its best on Thursday's "Spanish Key." Individually and collectively, DeJohnette and Holland add an extreme funkiness to the band's bottom. Their interplay is canny, full of unlikely yet nasty grooves — check Thursday's "The Mask," or the throbbing pulse and roiling breaks on Friday's "Directions." Jarrett's colors, textures, and stabs add an entirely different dimension to the band's attack. Check the spooky, sinister vamping and soloing on "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" from the Fillmore West. Corea is alternately knotty and atmospheric. He can push the horns hard — listen to Thursday's "Directions" — or paint through Jarrett's wah-wah organ with an expressionist brush — as on Saturday's "Willie Nelson" — and his solos are risky. Airto's vocal and percussion arsenal is wildly different, not only from tune to tune, but night to night!</p><p>The sound here is fantastic: balanced and detailed. The box includes a 28-page booklet with an essay by Michael Cuscuna and producer's notes with Richard Seidel, along with rare photographs and a poster. Miles at the Fillmore - Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 3 is an essential addition to the Davis canon.</p><p>— <strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p><hr/><p>Miles Davis hated stasis. In the 30-year period between the time he first gained notice playing bebop with Charlie Parker to when he retired for five years in 1975, his music was usually in a state of transformation, with steady but noticeable changes occasionally interrupted by moments of what, in another context, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould called "punctuated equilibrium." The shifts were not linear and could never be understood in terms of "progression." Explorations into impressionist harmony, modal improvisation, pastoral sound-painting, neoclassical orchestration, abstract funk, and sheets of electronic noise weren't experienced as one music building on top of another, but rather a constant search for the possibilities lurking in the unknown. As the years wore on, Miles' own fear of irrelevance kept him working with players many years younger than himself so he was being exposed to new ideas without feeling the need to chase trends (most major jazz figures with an interest in experimentation made some overtures toward free jazz in the 1960s but Miles never did). All of which is to say that when you contemplate a single, narrow segment of Miles' brilliant and varied career, there's no telling what the music is going to give you until you immerse yourself in it. You have to look at where it came from and where it would go next.</p><p>Miles at the Fillmore, the latest entry in Columbia's revelatory bootleg series collecting unreleased Miles Davis live material, finds the trumpeter departing one musical world and entering a new one. In the previous five years, he'd taken the music of the Second Great Quintet (Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams) as far as it could go; hearing new music in his head, music that had never been made before, Miles fully embraced electric instruments on the dual landmarks In a Silent Way and, a year later, in April 1970, Bitches Brew; most of this set was recorded in June of that year. By this point in a very busy year of live performances, Bitches Brew was in stores and selling well and making waves, and Miles and his band were playing large rock venues, landing on the same bills as the Grateful Dead and Neil Young.</p><p>Some of this material has been released in a different form. These four discs each contain an evening's set, recorded on four consecutive nights in New York at the Fillmore East (live albums during this time can get confusing—Miles also recorded in April 1970 at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and some of that material, in far poorer sound quality, is included as bonus tracks). On the 1970 2xLP Miles Davis at Fillmore, each night was condensed and edited by Teo Macero into an approximately 25-minute collage to fit a single album side and given an overarching title without identifying individual pieces ("Wednesday Miles", "Thursday Miles", etc.) That decision foreshadowed what was to come with Miles' live sets through the rest of the 1970s, as written compositions and themes were considered only as additional elements to be swirled into process-oriented whole, and needn't necessarily be identified.</p><p>Compared to where his music would take in the ensuing four years, Miles' sound in mid–1970 was still loosely tethered to jazz tradition. There are distinct compositions that unfold with a set arc, there are recognizable themes, there's still a standard in regular rotation. And unlike his music in 1974 and '75, Miles Davis' trumpet is very much the focus, and his tone was strong and forceful and could easily cut through the electronic din. There are two keyboard players here, both of whom would go on to become hugely popular in the 1970s: Keith Jarrett (organ) and Chick Corea (electric piano). With no guitarist in the band, Jarrett and Corea are responsible for the electronics, and each plays his instrument in ways that go well beyond its intended use; Jarrett's squawking solos are often harsh and noisy, reminiscent of electric guitar, while Corea's electric piano gives the music a sense of disembodied drift. Dave Holland's basslines are simple ostinatos but feel more connected to jazz proper than the minimal funk Michael Henderson would bring a short time later. Saxophonist Steve Grossman serves a more functional role, with solid workmanlike solos that mostly serve to make Miles' time out front that much more exciting. And Jack DeJohnette's drumming alternates between forward-driving and hard-hitting funk/rock and pure texture during more abstract passages. DeJohnette's contributions underscore the defining quality of the music here: it's relentless energy.</p><p>The opener for each night, the Joe Zawinul composition "Directions", sets the bar very high in this department. It's built around a brilliantly simple bassline and has a classic theme that only shows up later in the piece, signaling when to pass the soloing baton to the next player. Miles would lose interest in this sort of structure over the next couple of years, but "Directions" is the perfect tune for him at this moment, and hearing the four show kick-offs in one place provides an opportunity to see how pieces varied from night to night. Wednesday night absolutely rips, as Holland's bass refrain drives the song forward almost faster than the band wants to go. Thursday is comparatively mellow and exploratory, allowing for more space. On Friday DeJohnette takes a less polyrhythmic approach to drums and Miles is more fluid and less intense in his soloing. And then Saturday is lighter and trickier, with more quick rhythmic interplay. The set lists each night were almost identical—"The Mask", "It's About That Time", "I Fall in Love Too Easily", and "Bitches Brew" are all heard in multiple versions—but jumping to different takes from disc-to-disc never feels redundant, such is the invention and variation with each performance.</p><p>Each phase of Miles Davis' development calls for a different kind of listening. Both 1969 and 1970, to my ears, are more accessible than the late-period material with the second quintet, with its unusual harmonies and deceptive structure. Nefertiti from 1967 truly feels like a puzzle, something I'll be working to understand forever, but the appeal of the Miles at the Fillmore material is obvious: This is an amazing band and they rip, but they never leave traditional ideas of rhythm and melody behind. There are extended soundscape passages in "Bitches Brew" and "The Mask" that are more about experiments in timbre, exploring how jazz improvisation can become the furthest-out space music possible, but the best of this set comes in hearing these players creating a new sound that remains immediate. You're hearing jazz form straining against its enclosure, and soon enough, it would be abandoned—by 1974, another key era, musicality would not be a priority, as black-hole-level density took over completely. Any notion of mainstream acceptance was pretty much gone by then, and Miles and his band were doing brilliant things with that freedom. Here they're doing equally brilliant things within certain strictures, making up a few rules and bending a few others to the breaking point.</p><p>— <strong>Mark Richardson, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions | <p>Columbia's continuing summation of the career of Miles Davis through lavish box-set reissues resumed in 1998 with The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions, a four-disc set including all the music from the original 1970 double-album Bitches Brew plus over two additional hours of music from the six-month period during which the album was recorded. (Some of those tracks were previously released on compilations like Big Fun and Circle in the Round, but almost one-third of the material lay unissued until this release.) The music is simply fabulous -- the simultaneous birth and peak of jazz-rock/fusion, with a host of major players (John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Jack DeJohnette) and many innovations. There is a bit more evidence of tape hiss than in Columbia's last American remastering of the album, but the revelations of depth and timbre more than make up for it. Though the unreleased selections are distinctly inferior to those released on Bitches Brew, "Yaphet," "Corrado," and "Trevere" are intriguing jam sessions that reveal much about the creative process between Davis and producer Teo Macero during recording. Unlike Columbia's previous sets in the series (one treating Miles' period of collaboration with Gil Evans and one featuring the music of his second classic quintet), the Bitches Brew sessions lend themselves well to a box set of this type -- presenting the music in chronological order does no harm to original LP configurations as it did on previous sets, and the music here is another glowing testament to Miles' importance to the development of jazz in 1969, as in 1949.</p><p>—<strong>John Bush</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Bitches Brew | <p>Thought by many to be among the most revolutionary albums in jazz history, Miles Davis' Bitches Brew solidified the genre known as jazz-rock fusion. The original double LP included only six cuts and featured up to 12 musicians at any given time, some of whom were already established while others would become high-profile players later, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Airto, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Don Alias, Bennie Maupin, Larry Young, and Lenny White among them. Originally thought to be a series of long jams locked into grooves around keyboard, bass, or guitar vamps, Bitches Brew is actually a recording that producer Teo Macero assembled from various jams and takes by razor blade, splice to splice, section to section. "Pharaoh's Dance" opens the set with its slippery trumpet lines, McLaughlin's snaky guitar figures skirting the edge of the rhythm section and Don Alias' conga slipping through the middle. Corea and Zawinul's keyboards create a haunted, riffing modal groove, echoed and accented by the basses of Harvey Brooks and Holland. The title cut was originally composed as a five-part suite, though only three were used. Here the keyboards punch through the mix and big chords ring up distorted harmonics for Davis to solo rhythmically over, outside the mode. McLaughlin's comping creates a vamp, and the bass and drums carry the rest. It's a small taste of the deep voodoo funk to appear on Davis' later records. Side three opens with McLaughlin and Davis trading fours and eights over a lockstep hypnotic vamp on "Spanish Key." Zawinul's lyric sensibility provides a near chorus for Corea to flit around in; the congas and drummers juxtapose themselves against the basslines. It nearly segues into the brief "John McLaughlin," featuring an organ playing modes below arpeggiated blues guitar runs. The end of Bitches Brew, signified by the stellar "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," reflects the influence of Jimi Hendrix with its chunky, slipped chords and Davis playing a ghostly melody through the funkiness of the rhythm section. It seemingly dances, becoming increasingly more chaotic until it nearly disintegrates before shimmering into a loose foggy nadir. The disc closes with "Sanctuary," completely redone here as a moody electric ballad that was reworked for this band while keeping enough of its integrity to be recognizable. Bitches Brew is so forward-thinking that it retains its freshness and mystery in the 21st century.</p><p>—<strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Jack Johnson | <p>None of Miles Davis' recordings has been more shrouded in mystery than Jack Johnson, yet none has better fulfilled Davis' promise that he could form the "greatest rock band you ever heard." Containing only two tracks, the album was assembled out of no less than four recording sessions between February 18, 1970 and June 4, 1970, and was patched together by producer Teo Macero. Most of the outtake material ended up on Directions, Big Fun, and elsewhere. The first misconception is the lineup: the credits on the recording are incomplete. For the opener, "Right Off," the band is Davis, John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Herbie Hancock, Michael Henderson, and Steve Grossman (no piano player!), which reflects the liner notes. This was from the musicians' point of view, in a single take, recorded as McLaughlin began riffing in the studio while waiting for Davis; it was picked up on by Henderson and Cobham, Hancock was ushered in to jump on a Hammond organ (he was passing through the building), and Davis rushed in at 2:19 and proceeded to play one of the longest, funkiest, knottiest, and most complex solos of his career. Seldom has he cut loose like that and played in the high register with such a full sound. In the meantime, the interplay between Cobham, McLaughlin, and Henderson is out of the box, McLaughlin playing long, angular chords centering around E. This was funky, dirty rock & roll jazz. The groove gets nastier and nastier as the track carries on and never quits, though there are insertions by Macero of two Davis takes on Sly Stone tunes and an ambient textured section before the band comes back with the groove, fires it up again, and carries it out. On "Yesternow," the case is far more complex. There are two lineups, the one mentioned above, and one that begins at about 12:55. The second lineup was Davis, McLaughlin, Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea, Bennie Maupin, Dave Holland, and Sonny Sharrock. The first 12 minutes of the tune revolve around a single bass riff lifted from James Brown's "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud." The material that eases the first half of the tune into the second is taken from "Shhh/Peaceful," from In a Silent Way, overdubbed with the same trumpet solo that is in the ambient section of "Right Off." It gets more complex as the original lineup is dubbed back in with a section from Davis' tune "Willie Nelson," another part of the ambient section of "Right Off," and an orchestral bit of "The Man Nobody Saw" at 23:52, before the voice of Jack Johnson (by actor Brock Peters) takes the piece out. The highly textured, nearly pastoral ambience at the end of the album is a fitting coda to the chilling, overall high-energy rockist stance of the album. Jack Johnson is the purest electric jazz record ever made because of the feeling of spontaneity and freedom it evokes in the listener, for the stellar and inspiring solos by McLaughlin and Davis that blur all edges between the two musics, and for the tireless perfection of the studio assemblage by Miles and producer Macero.</p><p>—<strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Jack Johnson | <p>None of Miles Davis' recordings has been more shrouded in mystery than Jack Johnson, yet none has better fulfilled Miles Davis' promise that he could form the "greatest rock band you ever heard." Containing only two tracks, the album was assembled out of no less than four recording sessions between February 18, 1970, and June 4, 1970, and was patched together by producer Teo Macero. Most of the outtake material ended up on Directions, Big Fun, and elsewhere. The first misconception is the lineup: the credits on the recording are incomplete. For the opener, "Right Off," the band is Miles, John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Herbie Hancock, Michael Henderson, and Steve Grossman (no piano player!), which reflects the liner notes. This was from the musicians' point of view, in a single take, recorded as McLaughlin began riffing in the studio while waiting for Miles; it was picked up on by Henderson and Cobham, Hancock was ushered in to jump on a Hammond organ (he was passing through the building), and Miles rushed in at 2:19 and proceeded to play one of the longest, funkiest, knottiest, and most complex solos of his career. Seldom has he cut loose like that and played in the high register with such a full sound. In the meantime, the interplay between Cobham, McLaughlin, and Henderson is out of the box, McLaughlin playing long, angular chords centering around E. This was funky, dirty rock & roll jazz. There is this groove that gets nastier and nastier as the track carries on, and never quits, though there are insertions by Macero of two Miles takes on Sly Stone tunes and an ambient textured section before the band comes back with the groove, fires it up again, and carries it out. On "Yesternow," the case is far more complex. There are two lineups, the one mentioned above, and one that begins at about 12:55. The second lineup was Miles, McLaughlin, Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea, Bennie Maupin, Dave Holland, and Sonny Sharrock. The first 12 minutes of the tune revolve around a single bass riff lifted from James Brown's "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud." The material that eases the first half of the tune into the second is taken from "Shhh/Peaceful," from In a Silent Way, overdubbed with the same trumpet solo that is in the ambient section of "Right Off." It gets more complex as the original lineup is dubbed back in with a section from Miles' tune "Willie Nelson," another part of the ambient section of "Right Off," and an orchestral bit of "The Man Nobody Saw" at 23:52, before the voice of Jack Johnson (by actor Brock Peters) takes the piece out. The highly textured, nearly pastoral ambience at the end of the album is a fitting coda to the chilling, overall high-energy rockist stance of the album. Jack Johnson is the purest electric jazz record ever made because of the feeling of spontaneity and freedom it evokes in the listener, for the stellar and inspiring solos by McLaughlin and Davis that blur all edges between the two musics, and for the tireless perfection of the studio assemblage by Miles and producer Macero. [The album was completely remastered and reissued in January of 2005, following the 2003 release of the Complete Jack Johnson Sessions box set by Legacy.]</p><p>—<strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions | <p>Of all the Miles Davis recordings, the 16 weeks of sessions that created a single, two-selection LP produced by Teo Macero called A Tribute to Jack Johnson have been the most apocryphal. While the album itself was a confounding obscurity upon release — due to its closeness in proximity to the nearly simultaneous release of the vastly inferior yet infinitely more label-promoted Live at the Fillmore East — its reputation as the first complete fusion of jazz and rock is cemented. It also garnered a place in the history books for guitarist John McLaughlin, the axis around whose raw, slash-and-burn playing, the entire album turns.</p><p>The five-CD Complete Jack Johnson Sessions set, covering February 18 to June 4 of 1970, reveals that a revolving cast of musicians entered the Davis/Macero music and sound lab and made a series of mind-bending, often inspired — yet sometimes maddeningly monotonous — recording dates, where the creation of backbeat-driven grooves and short, rhythmic, rock- and funk-inflected riffs were the only ideas presented by Davis; everything else flowed freely, for better or worse. No less than five albums have benefited from these sessions: the others include Live-Evil, Get Up With It, Directions, and Big Fun. The two cuts that make up A Tribute to Jack Johnson, "Right Off" and "Yesternow," make up the last two selections on disc five. The arrangement of the session is basically chronological. Thus, there are not only numerous takes of a composition but insertion and remake takes as well. For instance, there are two takes of "Willie Nelson," two inserted "versions," and two remakes, all sequenced here in a row. Likewise is the strange genesis, deconstruction, and rebirth of "Go Ahead John," which appeared in this form on Big Fun. Still, despite the hypnotic grooves where already elongated tunes turn into monolithic groove structures, the historical importance of these sessions, and the sheer listening pleasure they provide in doses, cannot be overestimated.</p><p>There are 17 previously unissued performances here, 14 takes, and alternates that have never been issued in full form! As a small example, the official unearthing of the "Duran" alternate take offers so much more in terms of different instrumentation (many alternates here provide this) and ambience than the circulated version that it is nearly a different tune altogether. The roots of "Right Off" and "Yesternow," which appear on disc three, compare to the final heavily edited versions on the album as startlingly different compositions. Evolution becomes not only the crux of the Davis sessions, but a whole new way of making jazz records. These sides reveal how, decades later, Davis's own playing remains firmly committed to the jazz ideal as a soloist despite the fact that McLaughlin and others such as Bennie Maupin, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Steve Grossman, Michael Henderson, Ron Carter, Sonny Sharrock, Airto, Dave Holland, and Hermeto Pascoal were essentially playing jam- and groove-based rock.</p><p>The role of guitarist Sonny Sharrock is finally defined here. It has previously been discounted and provided endless grist for the Davis rumor mill how he was mixed out of the session. Yes, he was, but so was almost everyone but McLaughlin and Miles at one point or another. Check out Sharrock's killer slide playing that appears on the second inset of "Willie Nelson." For those who worship at the McLaughlin altar, there are the extra minutes of screaming, fuzz-drenched wailing on "Right Off" that were left on the floor by Macero. But this set is full of moments like that, such as the previously unreleased "Sugar Ray," a futuristic look at electronic noise — with rhythm — as jazz.</p><p>It is true that attempting to listen to this as a box is an admittedly long, arduous, and sometimes difficult task. Taking on individual pieces, in a changer, or even a disc at a time, is a deeply engaging, provocative listening experience. If any recordings needed to be released in order to document the perfect fusion of jazz and rock — in addition to Miles' musical and studio development — it's these.</p><p>— <strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p><hr/><p>In the spring of 1970, Miles Davis was fresh off his trailblazing, artistic watermarks In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, and focusing on the development of his live show. His band included some of the greatest session musicians in jazz at the time: bassist Dave Holland, keyboardist Chick Corea, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, and all were helping Miles to push the musical ideas he'd introduced on his records into uncharted territory in concert. But he was also very much inspired by the concept of using recording studios as compositional instruments, and when he set out to create the soundtrack to an obscure documentary on boxing icon Jack Johnson, it turned out he had many more ideas than could possibly find their way onto two sides of a single LP.</p><p>Following in the vein of Miles' recently issued Complete Sessions box sets for In a Silent Way or Bitches Brew (and featuring more raw material than either), this new five-disc collection shows a man consumed with evaluating the arsenal at his disposal. That meant recording countless takes on a theme, and, with assistance from producer Teo Macero, splicing those takes together into one coherent 40-minute release: 1971's A Tribute to Jack Johnson. But now, this compilation documents the sessions in their virtual entirety (there are a couple of missing takes, but nothing too essential), offering an incredible six hours of largely unheard material. As with the previous boxes from this era, fans will delight in hearing just about everything the musicians put to tape, as well as paging through the invaluable session info, extensive liner notes, and unseen photos included in the extensive and beautiful packaging. Obviously, though, anyone who hasn't heard and loved the original Jack Johnson album should check that out before dropping $60 on this exhaustive collection.</p><p>Disc one opens with several takes from a February 1970 session of the misleadingly titled "Willie Nelson" (it is, in fact, a Miles Davis original)-- much of which was incorporated into the original LP's largely ambient piece "Yesternow". The band, which here features Miles, Corea, Holland, DeJohnette, bass clarinetist Bernie Maupin, and guitarists John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock, set up a downbeat-heavy groove that reminds me of Funkadelic's "Music for Your Mother", if much less drugged-out. Davis enters about 40 seconds into "Willie Nelson (Take 2)" with a typically elongated phrase before settling into his "jab" motif with Maupin. Each take of the song offered here center around melodies similar to this one-- the real differences lie in Sharrock's, Miles' and Maupin's solos. It's a great way to kick off the set, if not quite as fiery a start as the original LP's "Right Off".</p><p>Later that month, Miles reconvened with a smaller band, keeping his rhythm section fully intact, but trading in Sharrock, Corea and Maupin for 19-year-old saxophonist Steve Grossman. They recorded a couple of speedier takes of "Willie Nelson" that boast more colorful McLaughlin lines and Grossman's pleasantly spooky soprano. Miles also gives some great solos, even sporting some of his bebop chops at times-- sax player Gary Bartz, a member of Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop and soloist on Miles' Live/Evil, said that some of the most exciting moments during the shows that eventually comprised the 1974 live offering Dark Magus were when Miles would reach back into history to pull out some of his old runs, and they certainly shine here. This band also tries out three versions of a tune called "Johnny Bratton" (previously unreleased, and starting the run of songs titled after boxers), a very rock-centric piece that sounds a bit like they were unsure of how to really nail this style. "Johnny Bratton (Insert 1)" is basically straight-ahead rock pounding (something like a fusion approximation of "Louie, Louie") with McLauglin doing his best to ensure that any tonal center is wiped out, and Holland entering with some admirable fuzz-wah bass playing.</p><p>In early March, Miles again headed into the studio with this same band to cut "Archie Moore" and several versions of "Go Ahead John". The former tune is a hard blues number with some very potent lines from McLaughlin-- in fact, Miles and Grossman sit this one out entirely, allowing the trio to bring it home like a seasoned rock band. Five takes of "Go Ahead John" pop up on disc two, showcasing Miles' midnight cool melody. The first part is a sparse, somber exercise in minimal blues, and features McLaughlin reeling off short, staccato statements similar to the ones played by Sharrock on the first disc. The second part of the tune is an odd combination of jittery funk and acid-rock, with DeJohnette playing a prehistoric drum-n-bass pattern and Holland holding a single bass note while McLaughlin shreds on the right. All five performances were later edited into a version released on 1974's Big Fun.</p><p>Mid-March saw Miles lay down two takes of the previously unissued "Duran" with McLaughlin, Holland, Maupin, soprano saxophonist Wayne Shorter, and drummer Billy Cobham. Miles' band was certainly getting a better idea of how to construct "simple" funk, as the basic, syncopated groove here could have been played (though never written) by any number of funk bands at the time. However, the robo-tight interplay of Cobham and Holland, along with McLaughlin's ever-edgy solos, make it much more interesting than just any ordinary breakdown. Miles reports, "that's some raunchy shit, y'all," and he's right. These guys (exit Cobham, enter future Return to Forever drummer Lenny White) also did the stop-time, angular funk tune "Sugar Ray", which Bill Mulkowski's liner notes curiously describe as "Devoesque" and "proto-punk." It sounds more like The Meters playing head games to me.</p><p>As April came around, Miles re-entered the studio with McLaughlin, Cobham, Grossman and Mike Henderson, a teenage bassist from Aretha Franklin's band, to record "Right Off" and the first half of "Yesternow". These two songs, of course, ended up serving as the tracklist on the original Jack Johnson LP, and anyone familiar with that record can attest to just how beautifully they pulled off "Right Off"'s uptempo shuffle, with McLaughlin's aggressive outcomping transforming the track from a merely interesting jazz experiment to full-on streetwise fusion. Herbie Hancock dropped by the studio as well (from the grocery store!) and got talked into laying down a fuzz-fried solo on Farfisa, a kind of organ he'd never played before. The track ended up purely celebratory, and the four takes on disc three provide just about every solo angle you could want. The two lengthy takes of "Yesternow" offered here are masterful runs into electric ambience, but inevitably not quite as interesting as Macero's final album edit.</p><p>In May, Miles added Keith Jarrett and percussionist Airto Moreira to the mix, cutting versions of "Honky Tonk" and "Ali". A short excerpt of "Honky Tonk" ended up on Live/Evil, but until now, the track has never been released in its entirety. Shame, too, because it's an excellent slice of blues-rock: Miles plays with confidence using an octave pedal while McLaughlin peals out still more spiky color for Jarrett to run rampant over. Considering that Jack Johnson would be Miles' last studio recording until On the Corner over two years later, it's hard to believe this song wasn't issued somewhere along the line.</p><p>"Ali", leading off disc four, sees the same band (here including longtime Elvin Jones collaborator Gene Perla, who nicks a riff from Hendrix's "Who Knows") following a groove similar to that of "Willie Nelson", but with a much better idea of how to flesh it out. And then there's "Konda", which the guys recorded without a bassist at all, and which didn't see release until 1981's Directions compilation. Jarrett's opening solo on electric piano perfectly sets up Miles' eerie, beautiful melody, and McLaughlin's harmonic work is practically unearthly, helping to make this track one of the box set's coolest pieces. Miles followed this muse a few days later for takes on Brazilian composer Hermeto Pascoal's "Nem Um Talvez". Neither of the versions here are the one from Live/Evil, though the second is remarkably close.</p><p>Miles wrapped recording in June, but not before taking most of the band from May's sessions (adding old friends Hancock and bassist Ron Carter) back into the studio for one last go at "Nem Um Talvez", three other Pascoal pieces ("Little High People", "Selim", "Little Church"), and another Davis original titled "The Mask". All of Pascoal's ballads seem to advance the side of Miles' music best heard on In a Silent Way, and serve notice to anyone who thought he'd abandoned that style for good at the turn of the decade. Unfortunately, "Little High People" is almost distractingly straightforward, at least in principal: The uptempo pop/rock groove brings Hancock's organ transmissions down to earth, and keeps Miles' wah-wah solos a bit too in check. Meanwhile, "Selim" (really just "Nem Um Talvez" with a different title) ended up on Live/Evil, along with the two versions of "Little Church" found on this set's fifth disc. Dave Holland came back to the fold to record both parts of the previously unreleased "The Mask": the first is a very out, keyboard-heavy free-jam with little assistance from Miles or McLaughlin, while the second-- hardly easy listening-- closes the sessions with an exhausted, punchdrunk swagger, finally collapsing after nearly 16 minutes.</p><p>The box, however, ends on a high note, with the original LP versions of "Right Off" and "Yesternow". I hesitate to go through them blow by blow because anyone investing in this box will almost certainly have already heard them many times over. Which, ultimately, is my only real caveat to The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions: there's more of interest here to fans; for a casual listener to tackle all five discs would be commendably ambitious, but an arduous challenge nonetheless. This set ranks behind both the Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way boxes in terms of the amount of music I'd want to just let play, uninterrupted. However, Miles Davis is one of those rare musicians who rarely failed to let a take pass without trying out something cool. As usual, the deeper you dig, the more you find.</p><p>— <strong>Dominique Leone, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Live-Evil | <p>The first in a continuing series of double-LP extravaganzas released only in Japan in the early '70s, Live-Evil mixes four studio tracks from 1970 with four live ones taken from a Washington, D.C. performance in December of that year. Amidst heavy competition, the live tracks -- including "What I Say," "Sivad" and "Gemini Double Image" -- are the highlights, featuring some of Miles' best playing of the decade, plus aggressive work on extended solo spots by John McLaughlin on guitar, Keith Jarrett on keyboards, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Alternating chaotic deep-groove passages with a few more atmospheric, Live-Evil held up for two decades as one of the great import-only Miles Davis albums, until it was reissued in America by Columbia/Legacy in 1997</p><p>— <strong>John Bush</strong></p><hr/><p>Firing like a machine gun over a heavily armored and equipped outfit of young, brawny assassins, Miles Davis ruled the world at the end of 1970. A year removed from his "corruption" at the hands of rock-- if you believe dozens of decaying jazz critics, that is-- Davis had the band and the vision to play music that no one would ever play again. His arsenal: "Directions", "What I Saw", "Honky Tonk", "Inamorata", "It's About That Time"; with only Joe Zawinul's "Directions" having been played by any of Davis' groups before, the trumpeter had to know he was making a statement. In fact, none of the new stuff had more than a few notes, a couple of chord changes to distinguish it from "formless jamming" (to borrow another phrase from a critic), and if fans thought Bitches Brew was out there, what would they make of this? A few months removed from playing to 600,000 at the Isle of Wight, Davis had the nerve to hole up at The Cellar Door in Washington D.C., a small club holding no more than a couple hundred people.</p><p>And he killed them. He and his band launched bomb after bomb for four nights; he slew every last person at the show, and listening to this noise now, it makes me want to kick the nonbelievers in the teeth. Fans will already know some of the music on the overwhelming 6xCD The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 because much of its final disc (from the band's last date at the club) was issued on 1971's Live-Evil. Of course, it was cut-up, rearranged, and interspersed with studio tracks, so even familiar performances sound new here. The box contains six of the 10 sets Davis' band played, remixed and sounding great (especially via an increased presence from Michael Henderson's bass), and extensive notes from everyone who played there-- except Davis. It's a shame we don't know what the band's leader thought of this stuff, because there is a case to be made that Henderson, drummer Jack DeJohnette, saxophonist Gary Bartz, keyboardist Keith Jarrett, and Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira comprised his last indisputably great band. When guitarist John McLaughlin shows up for the last set, things seems even more fiery, more volatile, and I always have to fight the urge to blast my neighbors into next week.</p><p>In any case, I can only guess Davis was pleased-- in fact, he leaves most of the lengthy solo pace to his bandmates, content to let this stew brew and brew and brew.</p><p>The first disc (from the band's first set on Wednesday night) begins right on Davis' solo from "Directions". DeJohnette is already playing like a motherfucker, nailing polyrhythms straight out of a drum'n'bass tune, and Davis flutters from behind a wah-wah pedal in turn. When he removes the effect, he plays high-pitched jabs-- a favorite move at the time-- and mixes in some furious runs, the kind he was gradually learning to leave behind as his music became more aggressive, more primal, LESS JAZZ. On the spacious "Yesternow" (originally from the Jack Johnson LP), the band stretches out. Nevertheless, Davis' solo is a strident mix of punches and runs, with Jarrett echoing him on the left after each phrase. Jarrett had already lit the fire under the track during his lengthy intro solo-- in fact, he was given a very long leash during these dates, frequently being allotted complete freedom to bring in tracks with unaccompanied performances.</p><p>The band closes shop with the funked-out "Inamorata" and Davis' screaming melody. We're just getting started. The second disc, from the next night, begins with DeJohnette's deft pulse on "What I Say", Henderson hitting the downbeats like a rock. Jarrett again begins things with a flighty, short-breathed solo on electric piano before Davis comes in with the piercing "melody" (which is mostly more high-note jabs that I imagine took out the eyes of the first row of club patrons). Bartz takes off after a particularly agitated Davis solo, and the tune seems to jump into another gear altogether-- and the audience responds in kind with the first of many animated reactions to his solos. On "Honky Tonk", something of a gospel blues vamp, the band brings everything way down, as Henderson plays the main riff under Jarrett's shimmering piano asides. Davis' solo afterwards sounds almost suffocated by the dirge of a pulse, but given that remainder of the band's set featured blow-outs like "It's About That Time" (here, with an unbelievably funky coda) and "Inamorata", he may just have been venting his anticipation.</p><p>Friday night's shows are spread over discs 3 and 4, the first of which contains epic versions of "What I Say", "Directions", and "Honky Tonk". I should note that the band never sounds out of breath in the slightest. Moreira's cuica squeak is all over the intro, as if chomping at the bit to let the floodgates open; Davis comes in about three minutes into the tune, nailing a wailing pitch into his solo and taking flight with a runs as if this was the first shot he'd ever gotten to play this stuff. Likewise, Jarrett's opening solo on "Honky Tonk" runs the gamut from blues, to modern jazz to an early run at the kind of exploratory impressionism he'd play on his own The Köln Concert years later-- these guys held a grand total of zero back. "Inamorata" from the fourth disc winds up for a minute before launching its main riff, as if the band were stretching its collective muscles and firing one last silo before disappearing into the night. Davis crawls out from between the twin locomotives of DeJohnnette and Henderson with a wah-wah'd solo, and it's obvious they probably could have gone on for hours. </p><p>The Saturday night shows on discs 5 and 6, and the introduction of guitarist McLaughlin (whose late flight only allowed him to make the tail end of their gigs), brings home an abundantly clear point: This period was apex for Davis and his band. Reissue co-producer Adam Holzman makes the point that this music was a sort of end-game for Davis' Bitches Brew ideas, before leaping off into the funky underworlds of On the Corner and the hazy, quasi-psychedelic shows of his touring band from 1973-75. McLaughlin's jaw-dropping solo on "Directions" from the last disc serves notice to anyone who forgot that Davis really did want to play rock music, but with the intelligence and technique of jazz. It's tough to find very many examples on record of people playing with as much intensity or inspiration. Funny enough, some of the guys mention in the box's notes that they weren't quite sure what to expect with McLaughlin's arrival. I guess it only goes to show you can't stop genius in the making. In December 1970, you couldn't stop Miles Davis.</p><p>— <strong>Dominique Leone, Pitchfork</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | On The Corner | <p>Could there be any more confrontational sound in Miles Davis' vast catalog than the distorted guitars and tinny double-timing drums reacting to a two-note bass riff funking it up on the first track from On the Corner? Before the trumpet even enters the picture, the story has been broken off somewhere in the middle, with deep street music melding with a secret language held within the band and those who can actually hear this music — certainly not the majority of Miles' fan base built up over the past 25 years. They heard this as a huge "f*ck you." Miles just shrugged and told them it wasn't personal, but they could take it that way if they wanted to, and he blew on his trumpet. Here are killer groove riffs that barely hold on as bleating trumpet and soprano sax lines (courtesy of Dave Liebman on track one) interact with John McLaughlin's distortion-box frenzy. Michael Henderson's bass keeps the basic so basic it hypnotizes; keyboards slowly enter the picture, a pair of them handled by Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, as well as Ivory Williams' synthesizer. Finally, Colin Walcott jumps in with an electric sitar and there are no less than five drummers — three kits (Al Foster, Billy Hart, and Jack DeJohnette), a tabla player, and Mtume.</p><p>It's a four-tune suite, <i>"On the Corner"</i> is, but the separations hardly matter, just the shifts in groove that alter the time/space continuum. After 20 minutes, the set feels over and a form of Miles' strange lyricism returns in "Black Satin." Though a tabla kicks the tune off, there's a recognizable eight-note melody that runs throughout. Carlos Garnett and Bennie Maupin replace Liebman, Dave Creamer replaces McLaughlin, and the groove rides a bit easier — except for those hand bells shimmering in the background off the beat just enough to make the squares crazy. The respite is short-lived, however. Davis and band move the music way over to the funk side of the street — though the street funkers thought these cats were too weird with their stranded time signatures and modal fugues that begin and end nowhere and live for the way the riff breaks down into emptiness. "One and One" begins the new tale, so jazz breaks down and gets polished off and resurrected as a far blacker, deeper-than-blue character in the form of "Helen Butte/Mr. Freedom X," where guitars and horns careen off Henderson's cracking bass and Foster's skittering hi-hats. It may sound weird even today, but <i>On the Corner</i> is the most street record ever recorded by a jazz musician. And it still kicks.</p><p> — <strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p><hr/><p>Miles Davis dropped jazz for good in late 1971—not that he'd been keeping up many appearances for the genre in several years. Though his band would still occasionally play old standards live, his main show in the early 70s was free-ish funk, openly indebted to Sly Stone and James Brown (and I still wonder what Davis would have made of Funkadelic). Of course, the maligned genre in question—jazz—was mostly the property of people writing about Davis, and in some cases, his still-jazz-oriented peers, so it's no surprise to read his bandmates of the time (percussionist Mtume, bassist Michael Henderson, guitarists Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas, drummer Al Foster, saxophonist Dave Liebman) refer back to those days with no small amount of pride, and scorn towards the ever-present "critics". The records Davis made during this time sounded raw (but weren't), hard (and were) and not the kind of thing that was going to fit into any particular canon, even as their maker adopted conscious efforts to position his music for younger, blacker audiences. And he might have dropped jazz, but he picked up something a lot more important: the future of music.</p><p>On the Corner was released in October 1972, followed by Big Fun and Get Up With It, both in 1974. All of these records contained (at least partially) music recorded during sessions in 1972-75, the period represented on Columbia Legacy's latest extravagant box-set treatment for Davis, The Complete On the Corner Sessions. Over six discs, we get every track put to tape during the period by Davis' revolving cast of players (in addition to the core of his touring band, luminous Davis alums like Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Don Alias, and Bennie Maupin drop by), and though I don't anticipate many all-night OtC listening parties in the near future, it's arguably the greatest collection of Davis' post-Bitches Brew studio music in one set. The thing is, this is thick, sticky stuff; 20-minute jams like "Ife" or the unedited take of "On the Corner" are amazingly gripping despite their lengths, but process a few in a row, and you risk experiencing dizzy spells. In retrospect, maybe it's not surprising that Davis retired in 1975, resurfacing half a decade later playing music that was a lot more easily digestible.</p><p>Since its 72 release, On the Corner (featured in full on the last disc in the box) has attained a level of infamy outmatching any of Davis' other records, though not really for the right reasons. Downbeat's equally infamous calling-out of its tunes as "repetitious boredom" unfortunately summed up the feeling of many folks who would have preferred to only remember Davis' music from the 50s and 60s. However, rock and experimental music fans weren't quite so dismissive—in fact, today, OtC is one of the easiest Davis records to recommend to a non-convert, especially if they're down with the wtf production and uber-grooved-out beats. Teo Macero's editing/splicing/midwifing of the myriad sessions that comprised the record were no less significant to its sound than Davis' pieces, and considering how records are made today, perhaps more so. Still, it's the avant-funk and druggy ambience that lingers longest. There's a reason people compare this stuff to Can.</p><p>Disc one features unedited takes of "On the Corner", "One and One", and "Helen Butte/Mr. Freedom X", all of which would appear in messed-with form on the 1972 LP. And though *OtC'*s edits are a considerable part of its magic, the surprising thing with these tracks is how well they work as just jams (greatly assisted by the fact that in most cases, their signature hooks are intact, such as the hi-hat pulse in "On the Corner", or the classic sing-song melody in "Helen Butte"). "Jabali" is a previously unissued track, featuring a slow, lurching bassline from Henderson, and gradually picks up steam while simultaneously becoming more psychedelic (anyone order three extra keyboards?). The second disc begins with "Ife" (originally issued on Big Fun), and adds Paul Buckmaster on electric cello. Buckmaster's contribution to Davis' music at that time was considerable, especially via turning the trumpeter onto Karlheinz Stockhausen, whose use of recorded and electric sound had a big impact on the recording of OtC. "Chieftan" is a previously unissued, agitated vamp, featuring an insistent hi-hat + rim shot beat, augmented (like many tracks from this era) by tabla and sitar. "Turnaround" and "U-Turnaround" are also new tracks, but whose slow, heavy grooves would have sounded very at home on, say, Live-Evil or Dark Magus. "Rated X" (later on Get Up With It) is just a badass funk track that features some seriously distorted production, and should probably be sampled by all crate-digging, rare-grooves DJs ASAP.</p><p>Disc three begins with another track from Get Up With It ("Billy Preston"—not featuring Billy Preston btw), and several unissued tracks: the somewhat raucous, wah-wah guitar-powered "The Hen", two HUGE mixes of "Big Fun/Holly-wuud" (which would later be severed to make both sides of a 74 single), the skeletal, relatively restrained "Peace", and the funk dirge "Mr. Foster", which takes the basic groove of "Big Fun", and stretches it across 15 minutes of mournful vamping and uncharacteristically solemn solos from Liebman and Davis. Disc four contains the two epic-length tracks from Get Up With It, "Calypso Frelimo" and the Duke Ellington tribute, "He Loved Him Madly". The first piece begins as reverb-drenched, frantic funk, and moves into molasses-paced death groove (though still laced with reverb, as if recorded in a subway tunnel). I've never been a huge fan of "He Loved Him Madly", though its extended (30+ minutes) calm is a welcome respite from the otherwise merciless pace of the rest of the box.</p><p>"Maiysha" (also from Get Up With It) begins disc five, and though its major-key, curiously sprightly guitar figure seems a little out of place with generally darker (or more cynical) music on the other discs, it still retains the exotic flavor of the box's music. "Mtume" begins with—you guessed it—a conga solo by Davis' permanent conga player Mtume, and soon turns into an up-tempo Afro-Cuban groove with cool triple-guitar wah-ing from Lucas, Cosey and Dominique Gaumont. (A shorter outtake of the same track features a good soprano sax solo from Sonny Fortune.) The 19-minute blues-shuffle "Hip Skip" (with a pretty bizarre organ solo by Davis), frantic "What They Do" (reminiscent of the faster stuff on Dark Magus) and brief, strangely loungy "Minnie"—notable mostly for being recorded at Davis' last session in 1975 before his five-year retirement —are all previously unissued. The final disc of the box contains all of the OtC LP, in addition to a fairly straight blues on "Red China Blues" (from Get Up With It, and featuring the only harmonica solo I can remember hearing on a Davis track), and both sides of the "Big Fun"/"Holly-wuud" single.</p><p>So, here we are again, near the end of another year, with another indispensable Miles Davis box to purchase (which Columbia doubtlessly realizes, as the lofty $120+ price tag might indicate). Do you need it? If you're a die-hard, it's obvious: you do. If you've never heard On the Corner, it's obvious: you don't. However, you do need to buy OtC sooner than yesterday. Perhaps in six months or a year, after you've stopped annoying all your friends by telling them how great it is, then you can go back and order the box—by which time, should be available for about half of what is now. Davis saw the future with this music. Be smart, do the same.</p><p> — <strong>Dominique Leone</strong> |
| Miles Davis | Big Fun | <p>Big Fun was roundly slagged off when it was issued in 1974 as holdover material from Bitches Brew. In fact, a lot of the double albums Miles was pumping out at the time were considered holdover material. In the case of this double reissue, that claim is partially true. The original Big Fun featured four side-long tracks: "Great Expectations," "Ife," "Go Ahead John," and "Lonely Fire," all of them recorded with different ensembles, three with 11-piece bands (which included Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Billy Cobham, Bennie Maupin, Larry Young, Ron Carter, Steve Grossman, Airto, Jack DeJohnette, and many others) and one — "Go Ahead John" — with a quintet. All of the material was recorded between 1969 and 1972. The four other tracks here, to round out this double-CD package, all appear on the four-CD Bitches Brew Sessions box set. They are "Recollections," "Trevere," "The Little Blue Frog," and "Yaphet." Some of these were recorded at the same time the original tracks had been and the ensembles match up, as on "Great Expectations" and "Yaphet," and the pairing of "The Little Blue Frog," "Lonely Fire," and "Trevere." What's wild is, even in the same sessions, there are differences in personnel. What all of this points to, other than the savvy of the reissue producers, is simple: Miles was restless his entire career, but never like he was when he discovered electricity. There is plenty of argument to suggest he never found what he was looking for but came very close numerous times. Here, as Miles breaks down the pedal points of his modal language to include Indian ragas — and the musicians who play them — as he does on Joe Zawinul's "Great Expectations" and his own "Yaphet," "Trevere," and "Lonely Fire," Davis opens the door to allowing his musicians to play outside of any jazz convention and still stay plugged in as a band. Listen to John McLaughlin's playing here, with its chunky restraint and aplomb and then — as on the "Go Ahead John" quintet session — fire. There has never been another Miles solo like the one here either; multi-tracked and many-faceted, it is as if he carries within it the history of music in the world. Or pick up the slippery intertwining of Dave Holland's acoustic and Harvey Brooks' electric basses, creating whole-tone drones along with the sitars while pumping rhythmic invention toward the band. Ultimately, amid the drones and the funk, there is the particular brand of lyricism that belonged only to Miles Davis. Listening to either the four original tracks or the two CDs taken as a session edited for one album, it hardly matters — the deep hues and pleasant pastoral wonders that Big Fun provides are as moving, mysterious, and beautiful as anything Miles ever created.</p><p><b>— Thom Jurek</b></p> |
| Miles Davis | Man With The Horn | <p>Miles Davis' first comeback record finds the trumpeter a bit shaky (he would improve album by album during the next few years) and has a few poppish throwaway tracks; it is doubtful if anyone really remembers the title cut or "Shout." But with Bill Evans on soprano and electric bassist Marcus Miller, the other four selections are more rewarding with Davis forming the nucleus of his new band.</p><p>—<strong>Scott Yanow</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Love Songs | <p>Nine examples of Miles Davis caressing a ballad at a slow tempo are included on this 1999 CD, Love Songs. All of the music is easily available elsewhere, but it is interesting to hear the different approaches that the trumpeter could employ in sticking close to a lyrical melody. There are two numbers ("My Ship" and "I Loves You, Porgy") from Davis' collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, selections from his 1961 quintet with Hank Mobley ("I Thought About You" and "Old Folks"), and his groups with George Coleman ("I Fall in Love Too Easily," "Summer Night," and a lengthy "My Funny Valentine"). "Stella by Starlight," by his 1958 super sextet (with John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and Bill Evans) and Davis' famous version of "Someday My Prince Will Come" (in which his Hank Mobley quintet is joined by guest John Coltrane) are also here. Surprisingly, "'Round Midnight" is absent. Due to the slow tempos and the lack of variety in moods, this set is really designed more for background music than for close listening.</p><p>—<strong>Scott Yanow</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Your'e Under Arrest | <p>Miles Davis's final Columbia recording (other than Aura which was released several years later) includes his straightforward ballad interpretations of Cyndy Lauper's "Time After Time" and the Michael Jackson - associated "Human Nature," two songs he would play in most of his concerts for the remainder of his life.</p><p>Other tunes (including "You're Under Arrest," "One Phone Call" and "Ms. Morrisine") were quickly discarded. In addition to Davis (who had regained his earlier chops) tenor - saxophonist Bob Berg, guitarist John Scofield and guest John McLaughlin get in a few decent solos on this competent but not overly memorable effort.</p><p>—<strong>Scott Yanow</strong></p> |
| Miles Davis | Tutu | <p>The controversial but memorable Tutu is mostly a duet between Miles Davis and the many overdubbed instruments of producer Marcus Miller (although violinist Michal Urbaniak, percussionist Paulinho da Costa, and keyboardist George Duke are among the other musicians making brief appearances). Certainly the results are not all that spontaneous, but Davis is in top form and some of the selections (most notably the title cut) are quite memorable.</p><p>—<strong>Scott Yanow</strong></p> |
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