Miles Davis: Get Up With It (1974) appreciation thread

As I progressed on my Miles journey through 'Round About Midnight and beyond Kind Of Blue and Sketches Of Spain I knew that I was on to something incredibly good. Everything about Miles' music spoke to me like nothing I'd ever heard before, and I loved how his style seemed to keep evolving, always on to something new and exciting. Miles In The Sky was nice, but In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, to me, were the best Miles yet up to that point. I listened to those two over the course of an entire spring and summer, and by fall I knew it was time for me to continue on my journey with Miles from these two "acoustic meets electric" fusion albums on to the noisier electric stuff that I had been warned about.

The next two albums I bought were On The Corner and A Tribute To Jack Johnson. Wow! I had them in constant rotation for a few months, trying to soak it all in and wondering if it could get any better. Then I added Big Fun, Get Up With It, and slowly got all of the live albums from that period (Live-Evil, Agharta, Pangaea, Dark Magus, In Concert, Black Beauty, and the official bootleg series stuff). There is so much on each of these albums that I'm obsessed with, but the one album I keep going back to - never seem to be able to get enough of - is Get Up With It.

The most highly acclaimed (and longest!) sides on this double album, "He Loved Him Madly" and "Calypso Felimo" are stellar indeed. I'm also crazy about "Maiysha," "Rated X" and Mtume." I'm not quite as nuts about "Honky Tonk" and "Red China Blues," but still enjoy them every time they come on. "Billy Preston" has a neat groove to it and is the perfect choice to round-out this album.

More of a cohesive album than Big Fun, more material than Jack Johnson, less filler than On The Corner, for me this is the best studio album of Miles' electric period (post-Bitches Brew).

Miles fans, where does this album rank for you?

 

I was about three years into my listening to Miles and my second year at the University of Chicago when this came out, I bought it when new and played it when I could with a few friends in my dorm that liked Miles. I remember that "He Loved him Madly" impressed me immensely immediately and I listened to that side over and over. "Rated X" and "Mtume" were beyond me for some time. There was nothing else like that I had ever heard before. I used to think "Mayisha" was a lightweight track, but over the decades I've come to love that and find it a fascinating track in structure and execution.

One of the albums that has been with me and in rotation all my adult life. A treasure!

 

I dig it !!!

 

What a great one. Each year that passes has "He Loved Him Madly" inching closer and closer to Shhh/Peaceful as my favorite Miles tune.

 

Love it.
A very interesting album.

 

Love it too. I need to spend more time with it, but it's fantastic!!

 

....I rank it pretty high. Scored a nice clean vinyl copy a few years ago. Love the On the Corner Sessions box as well. I can never get enough of Miles circa '69-'75. My favorite music... period.

 

Masterpiece.

 

Big Fun isn't very cohesive because it's not from one session. GUWI is already past JJ, and OTC, is, well, OTC. That's the beauty of it all.

 

This album has been praised in a few threads over the years. Here's one I managed to find:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/miles-davis-he-loved-him-madly-an-appreciation.188238/

My go to version: the Japanese SACD.

 

"Rated X" and "Mtume" are the standouts for me; I also like the related material from The Complete On The Corner Sessions box like "The Hen"

 

This album comes from my favourite Miles period. I like it almost as much as Big Fun, and better than On the Corner. Haven't heard all of the live albums from that period, but I like Dark Magus. All of this era of Miles stuff is very much a mood thing, for me. If I'm in the right mood, it's great music to hear. If the mood isn't quite right, i can find it intolerable.

The edition I have is the unremastered Columbia CD, which sounds okay, though i haven't heard any other.

 

A consistent mention in any 'desert island recordings' thread for me even though I would never say it has less filler than On the Corner. Honky Tonk and Red China Blues belong only in the sense that I've grown accustomed to them being there. The title piece and Calypso Frelimo are magical, and I think it's the best version of the latter I've heard although my experience of the bootlegs is incomplete. This is the recording that brought me back to Miles Davis after a few years of dismissing him which was clearly a mistake in retrospect. I wish I had seen him in concert during this period.

 

I dig this album a lot.
Keep returning to it quite frequently.
On CD I prefer the Japanese Master Sound Edition ( Sony SRCS 9126-7) before the US Legacy edition and the "Complete On The Corner Session" mentioned earlier.
The only LP edition I own and have heard is: Columbia KG 33236.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if they included Honky Tonk so they could say in ads that Herbie Hancock and John McLaughlin performed on the album.

Rated X is a very bizarre and haunting track and Calypso Frelimo is a strong workout. (Circulating outtakes have strong playing from Dave Liebman left off the album version.) He Loved Him Madly has never really clicked for me although maybe someday it will.

 

Does anyone have the JSACD? The album is not an audiophile piece-- so perhaps the domestic US CD suffices?

 

possibly my favorite MD album, at least for studio releases. Purchased the week it was released, have loved it ever since.
I also have it as the Japanese SACD, the US regular CD, & an earlier, 2-jewel case version pressed in WGermany.

 

I have never heard an SACD of this title. I do have the Japanese 2 cd version and the recent Blu-Spec 2 cd version made from that mastering. These sound much better to me than the US 2 cd set.

 

Great album. "Red China Blues" was a backing track that Miles overdubbed trumpet and a couple of his band players on.

 

Red China Blues is one of my favorites on here - just love that chugging 6/8 groove and Micheal Henderson's understated but tasteful Bass work. Great track and yeah, the album is a masterpiece.

 

One of my faves from this period.

 

IIRC, 'Red China Blues' was meant as a single.

 

That would be the version on Line/Coline (CLCD 9.00927 L and CLCD 9.00928 L).

 

I remember that "Get Up With It" was not all that well received by the critics when it was first released, and some famous older jazz musician said in Down Beat that the album had "only one good song on it." I can't remember who that was. I wondered which song would have qualified as the "one good song" for anyone, as the material is all equally inaccessible if you are just not into it, I think.

I was in college when "Get Up With It" came out. A 2 LP album was thought of as somewhat unusual and as a lot of music to try to listen to. Miles had released several 2 LP sets in the years before "Get Up With It"--"Bitches Brew", "At Fillmore", "Live Evil", "Big Fun". It seemed like an amazing number of 2 LP sets within a few years. Many of the college music lovers in my dorm found Miles' electric music after "Tribute to Jack Johnson" somewhat difficult to get into. By the time of "Get Up With It" they were exhausted with Miles' weird electric music.

Contrary to all of that, I always loved "Get Up With It" and still do.

It is interesting to compare the original mix of "Rated X" on "Get Up With It", to Bill Laswell's different mix on the "Panthalassa" album. Laswell allows other instruments to poke their heads out of the sonic assault (I mean "sonic assault" in a complimentary way). Laswell's mix makes the original sound murky. But it is a matter of personal taste--perhaps the
murkiness adds to the harrowing quality of the original track. It is intriguing to me to compare the two mixes.

 

Agreed that Calypso Frelimo is a great piece, my favourite on the LP by far. It's a shame it ended up on the On The Corner box without those original studio sessions being included - the 3rd part with the long Liebman solo would have been great to hear in good quality, and certainly more interesting than the studio sessions for the OTC LP which I don't think added much to the released versions.

I also agree with you about He Loved Him Madly, I don't dislike it but just don't find it as moving or compelling as other clearly do.