When Miles Davis rocked.

Backslapping time. Well done us. We are fantastic.
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B
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Postby B » 10 Nov 2006, 01:11

Snarfyguy wrote:
neverknows wrote:Anyway, your guide is useful and a fine read.

It is, but it's probably going to wind up costing me a couple of hundred dollars!


A heads up -

Pretty much all of Miles Davis' major releases (including the Complete Sessions sets) are available from YourMusic.com for a mere $5.99 per disc. How else do you think I afforded all those sets?

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Postby Jeff K » 11 Nov 2006, 23:13

Great job, pig! I'm finding your summaries very valuable.
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Postby yomptepi » 11 Nov 2006, 23:23

Chopped Liver wrote:
Snarfyguy wrote:
neverknows wrote:Anyway, your guide is useful and a fine read.

It is, but it's probably going to wind up costing me a couple of hundred dollars!


A heads up -

Pretty much all of Miles Davis' major releases (including the Complete Sessions sets) are available from YourMusic.com for a mere $5.99 per disc. How else do you think I afforded all those sets?


or look in the cough section. Jethro nailed this set.
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Postby KeithPratt » 12 Nov 2006, 16:01

I love this period. I can't offer any commentary on it really, as my knowledge of those involved and Miles life's is pretty patchy to say the least. Bitches Brew is one of those records that I play once a year and treat with nothing less than the respect it deserves - it is the sort of magical music that, like a fine wine, needs to be aired and savoured. There's so much imagination in it all.

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Postby Jeff K » 12 Nov 2006, 17:26

Miles was supposed to be heavily into Jimi and Sly during this period yet each one of these albums are heavily dominated by keyboards. A lot of the tracks have three keyboardists playing on them which was unheard of. It's just a little observation on my part.
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Postby Magilla » 13 Nov 2006, 01:09

Jeff K wrote:Great job, pig! I'm finding your summaries very valuable.


I concur. While I've liked Coltrane for ages, I've only recently started to dabble in Miles.
Just yesterday I picked up In A Silent Way on cd for 50c at a school fair 8-) and am finding this thread very informative and helpful. Cheers, people.
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Postby bixhenry » 14 Nov 2006, 15:08

Great analyses, pb. Miles' electric work is among my favorite music in the world - like you, In A Silent Way is one of my very favorites of all time. McLaughlin's work during his tenure w/Miles - especially Jack Johnson - is especially revelatory for guitar buffs.

It's interesting that I was turned onto this period of Davis' work in the '80s by two musician friends who were strongly influenced by Lou Reed - The Dream Syndicate's Steve Wynn (whose band drew all sorts of Velvet Underground comparisons at the time) and the late Robert Quine, who of course played with Lou and recorded the VU in San Francisco in '69 for what became The Quine Tapes. Wynn made me a cassette of Jack Johnson while Quine hipped me to Agharta. I immediately responded to the funkiness of the former, while the latter took a little longer to reveal its riches. Oh, and toomanyhatz and I used to positively wear out On The Corner back then as well. It's weird to look back nostalgically on such forward-thinking music, but there you go.
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Postby Snarfyguy » 15 Nov 2006, 02:16

pig bodine wrote:Image
Image

Davis' Live Evil was a triumph of editing. Macero basically reinvented these songs. They are taken from several songs and several performances and it works great. This is the funkiest Davis to date (though On the Corner and In Concert would probably surpass it in that regard) and the main reason is Davis' new bassist, Michael Henderson, stolen from Stevie Wonder, and his new saxaphonist, Gary Bartz. Bartz played alto, which hadn't been heard on a Davis album in some time.

The rest of the band was Keith Jarrett on keys, Jack Dejohnette on drums, Airto on percussion, and occasionaly John McLaughlin on guitar.
McLaughlin is all over Live Evil, but as shown on the Complete Cellar Door Sessions, he was only there for the last two concerts.

The Complete Cellar Door is a revelation. Here you get the original full length versions of all the songs on Live Evil. The booklet goes into detail about how the sessions were edited for that album and where the parts of the songs came from. I prefer the original versions, though Macero did an outstanding job with Live Evil. The band is leaner and heavier than it had been, and the rhythms are simpler and more straightforward. I can't imagine anyone finding this set inaccessable. It's as close to Earth Wind & Fire's and Kool and the Gang's instrumentals as it is to the abstract Bitches Brew--this is not to say it isn't adventurous--it's just a compliment to EWF and Kool and the Gang. The songs are mainly taken from the Tribute to Jack Johnson, his most straight forward rock album. Live Evil basically creates totally new songs. Both are highly recommended.

So wait - if I already have the Cellar Door set, I should also get Live Evil because the editing recontextualizes the material that dramatically? Is this pre-postmodernism?

By the way, even though it's only two pages long so far, can I nominate this for Classic Threads? It's already an invaluable resource, much more so than looking at the individual album reviews on allmusic.com or whatever, and it would be really handy to have it somewhere accessible.
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Postby Jeff K » 15 Nov 2006, 02:32

Snarfyguy wrote:By the way, even though it's only two pages long so far, can I nominate this for Classic Threads?


Don't jinx the pig!

He has enough pressure writing up all these wonderful summaries and now you're nominating him for Classic Threads. He'll crack! :lol:
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Postby The Modernist » 15 Nov 2006, 12:31

Great post PB. I must say I have struggled with this album in the past, but I keep meaning to return to it and your post makes me even more eager to do just that.

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Postby Kenji » 15 Nov 2006, 15:29

pig bodine wrote:Image

people are only now beginning to appreciate what a major work this is.


I bought this in 1990 when I was 18 years old and I loved it immediately... :wink:

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Postby The Write Profile » 16 Nov 2006, 09:00

pig bodine wrote:Image

In A Silent Way is my second favorite album of all time (The Box Set Complete Sessions) ...[producer Teo Marcero's] edited version of the album is one of the most ahead of its time releases in the history of pop music.
[... ] Electronic ambient funk that is a complete break from anything heard in jazz before. I love Bitches Brew, but it really is a refinement of this album. This album has a rock feel to it, but is nothing like the louder, funkier recordings that would follow. It's closer to chill out electronica.


Some amazing writing here, pigbodine, keep it up. I was playing In A Silent Way just before and you're absolutely right on your last point- it is very close to ambient/electronica in its sound. Actually there's a moment during the "In A Silent Way/It's About That Time" section that might be one of my favourites in all music- it's the bit where those swirling organs suddenly fade away and we return to the opening "theme" of the track. I'm not sure how to describe it other than saying there's an amazing serenity and peacefulness to it that I find indescribably beautiful, the way it seems to be totally at ease with itself. I really should get that complete boxset. Actually the whole sound of that record appeals to me, just the sheer space of it. It's perfectly formed.

Really look forward to reading your next entry, it's been very illuminating.
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Postby T. Berry Shuffle » 16 Nov 2006, 16:45

Great writing Mr. Bodine. It's great to see somebody here approach these albums with a direct and passionate eye for description. Hopefully your efforts will certainly make these albums more accessible to interested listeners. There's so much of value to these records. I have found that the prominent electric format can actually open them to a whole new audience more easily than tentative listeners would initially expect.

I have never had anyone refuse the appeal of In a Silent Way for instance. It is an instant mood generator, one of those rare records that seem impossible to stop once they have started. It just takes the listener away. It's truly lovely.

The Miles album from this period that blew my mind more thoroughly than any other was Pangaea. I had listened to many of his electric records before I happened upon a used copy of this album. I bought it without much knowledge of it. I certainly wasn’t prepared for what it held in any case.

The music is absolutely forceful and relentless, athletic and not at all sloppy. It’s dynamic and explosive but not bombastic. It’s like seeing a welterweight fighter wind in, tighten up and unleash a staggeringly lethal assortment of well placed and concussive punches while seemingly levitating on slinky spring legs. Or much like watching an invisible storm wind pull apart a massive oak tree strewing limbs, twigs and leaves in a uniform ring around the devastated, bone-white remnants of it’s core, it’s a thunderous force of energy that just doesn’t let up. Pangaea is a perfectly mutated supersonic funk bomb designed to rearrange the DNA of music, not just jazz music, not just rock music, all music. It's a knock you upside the head dose of "shut the fuck up and listen bitch!"

Godwana as heavy as it is on side two almost sounds limp and week against Zimbabwe’s ruthlessly pulverizing side one. It’s hard to find a band with this much seamless intuitive ability to predict the direct of each member while simultaneously creating this much sound. It's a must listen for anyone interested in Miles' music from this period. I'm still in awe of it.
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Postby This Was » 25 Nov 2006, 00:12

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Postby king feeb » 25 Nov 2006, 04:05

Thanks for this thread, PB. It's really informative, and a far better "buyer's guide" than most magazines could put together. It ought to be a classic thread once it's run it's course.
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Postby This Was » 28 Dec 2006, 01:41

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Postby king feeb » 28 Dec 2006, 04:31

I picked up Agharta about a month ago, and it is great. I had never heard it before. In some ways, I actually like it better than Pangaea (maybe because it's still new to me). I played it at work and my boss really dug it. He had never heard it before either- he was only familiar with Bitches Brew and the earlier Miles. (FYI-he's a black dude, ex-Marine, in his mid-fifties who loves gospel, soul and funk, but is not a big jazz buff).

This stuff just sounds better than ever in the modern day. It's the very definition of "ahead of its time".
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Postby Dave the Jackal » 28 Dec 2006, 20:45

Love this period. Can't quite put my finger on why I don't 'get' 'on the corner' though. I think it's just too relentless for me. Of the others I love Live/Evil, Agartha, Dark Magus and particularly the Jack Johnson Box (which is truly wonderous), the In a silent way box is slimmer but still a thing of beauty (containing as it does takes of tracks which appear on many other albums from just before this period).

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Postby automatic_drip » 28 Dec 2006, 21:02

If you're in the states, yourmusic.com still has the cellar door and the jack johnson box sets cheaper than you'll find anywhere else.


Actually, it's your best source for all things Miles:

http://www.yourmusic.com/browse/discogr ... es%20davis

EDIT - Sorry, did not see Brian's post about this previous. Great minds....
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