The Miles Davis album-by-album thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by KevinP, Jan 16, 2008.

  1. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    MF’s be sweet as pie.
     
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  2. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    I had to think myself...is Montreal in France? No, that's Montreux, which Miles played a lot too...
     
  3. rdreyer

    rdreyer Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Montreux is in Switzerland.
     
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  4. acetboy

    acetboy Forum Resident

    Actually Montreux is in Switzerland. :hide:
     
  5. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    Yup. OOPS.:laugh:
    And now back to our scheduled program.
     
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  6. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Btw, this week I saw a thread in the forum about There's a Riot Goin' On, and meanwhile someone commented on Miles being inspired to play with a guitarist in a smaller group after seeing Hendrix on New Year's Day at Fillmore East, so I cued up the pertinent Sly & Jimi and my trusty "road mix" of the Jack Johnson box:

    Right Off (Take 10)
    Right Off (Take 12)
    Willie Nelson (Insert 1)
    Willie Nelson (Insert 2)
    Duran (Take 6)
    Go Ahead John (Part Two B)
    Go Ahead John (Part Two A)
    Yesternow (Take 16)
    Willie Nelson (Take 3)
    Ali (Take 4)
    Honky Tonk (Take 5)
    Willie Nelson (Remake Take 2)

    An hour and 53 minutes.

    It condenses most of the session highlights, integrates the "Willie Nelson" sections into more listenable form, and makes for great driving music.

    If Sony put out a 2-CD release of something like this (maybe with the final album mixes of "Go Ahead John" and the Jack Johnson LP cuts, maybe with a few more tracks from the box added to pad out the discs, but I like it this way), people would go crazy for it.
     
  7. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    I've got that one- the Rome '82 soundboard was my introduction to the Man With The Horn material, and overall I probably preferred the Rome show to the studio album. If I had a quibble about the Rome '82 soundboard recording it's that cymbals aside Al Foster's drums are kinda buried, but other than it's a pretty good performance.

    "Back Seat Betty"/"My Man's Gone Now"/"Aida"/"Ife" (which sounds nothing like the 70's versions!)/"Fat Time"/"Jean Pierre"
     
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  8. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    One of the fascinating things about the Lost Quintet is that you can hear them pushing toward a more aggressive, driving groove over the Spring-Summer, but then the band seems to pull back from that in some shows on the Fall tour. Like, in Italy, they can go off on these free-form tangents--even Wayne tends to flap around like a wounded bird in the Rome show--but then Vienna and London get back into the groove more, then Paris and Copenhagen get more out, again. In the Copenhagen video, you can see Miles glaring at Chick when the set finishes, and Chick seems to avoid meeting the boss' eyes, like they both know that Chick let down the side, but it seems to me that the whole rhythm section was already wishing they could go off on their own to play free jazz until the money ran out.

    The Fender Rhodes breaking in Stockholm seems to get them back into the post-bop sweet spot. If you ever dreamed of what the Second Quintet might've sounded like with Chick on piano, there it is, and I think they stay in that zone through Berlin and Rotterdam, too. (Well, it's been awhile since I've heard Rotterdam, but I recall enjoying more than Rome and Copenhagen, say.) Or maybe they just realized after Copenhagen that they had been pushing Miles' patience a little too far.

    Of course, when they came back in March, they wouldn't abandon the avant-garde freak-outs, but they'd have a hotter level of intensity and a much stronger sense of the groove, a better balance of the earthy and the esoteric.
     
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  9. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    Interesting post. It's funny how Miles tried to get funkier and more groove-based in 1969 while he basically had a free jazz band up there on stage with him that "behaved" while playing behind Miles but often went all out when he stopped soloing. He must have liked the band a great deal to let them go on like that, or maybe he wasn't really sure where to take the music at that time.
     
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  10. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    Miles' playing varies a lot in quality on the European spring '82 tour; sometimes weak, sometimes quite strong. He had a stroke in the winter and couldn't move his left hand fingers at one point. By the late summer he was in much better shape, as you can hear on "Come Get It" on Star People. But of course that band always played well, sort of carried him when he needed them to.
     
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  11. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Right, and although he clearly wanted, and courted, young fans of rock/funk, and he felt jealous of his former sidemen's success in that area, he kept these avant-garde elements in his music up through Japan '75. I guess it's admirable that he really didn't see why young black people wouldn't take to his ideas relating to Stockhausen. It was a long while before he gave up on that dream, anyway.
     
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  12. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Listening to Rome '82 now; or, Agharta in sweatpants. Essentially the same ideas, but a little older, friendlier, it's given up on being the freakiest badass you ever did meet. No more scares. "Jean Pierre" is meant to get stuck in your head until you find yourself humming the melody while washing the dishes.

    Sony probably thinks it wouldn't sell, and I'm surprised to be thinking this, myself, but I'd actually be happy if this and some early '80s live shows were collected in a Bootleg Series volume, sometime in the next few years. (And honestly I'll be so annoyed if the next one is a '75 set that just repackages Agharta/Pangaea plus 1/22 Tokyo, I may have to kick some furniture.) It would do a lot to boost the reputation of '80s Miles. Some MF's who haven't bothered too much with his music after '75 might enjoy this band more than they'd expect.
     
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  13. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    A stroke, you say? Damn, I didn't know that! That definitely would explain a thing or two as to why it sounds to me like Miles is struggling a little bit on that Rome '82 performance.

    :laugh::laugh::laugh: "Agharta in sweatpants"...I like that!
    Hopefully I'm not one of those MF's, although I admit I am probably guilty as charged when it comes to not really giving Miles' 80's material a fair shake.
     
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  14. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    Yeah, Miles binged on coke and Heineken while his wife Cicely was on a movie job and woke up unable to move his fingers. Acupuncture and health foods got him out of that jam, but he actually had some sort of device to hold his fingers up on the trumpet on that tour.
     
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  15. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    Yowza. Hopefully that incident was enough to scare Miles straight...
     
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  16. slapbass

    slapbass Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    "Sony probably thinks it wouldn't sell, and I'm surprised to be thinking this, myself, but I'd actually be happy if this and some early '80s live shows were collected in a Bootleg Series volume, sometime in the next few years. (And honestly I'll be so annoyed if the next one is a '75 set that just repackages Agharta/Pangaea plus 1/22 Tokyo, I may have to kick some furniture.) It would do a lot to boost the reputation of '80s Miles. Some MF's who haven't bothered too much with his music after '75 might enjoy this band more than they'd expect." frightwigwam

    I second that! Would love to see a boxed set of Miles' 80s shows, especially one that included gigs with musicians who were only with Miles for a short time, like Bobby Broom, Hiram Bullock, Blackbyrd McKnight, Donald Harrison, Gary Thomas, Tom Barney, and Joey DeFrancesco (the radio series The Miles Davis Project included a lot of live music from the Miles' band that featured DeFrancesco). Not to mention the Stern/Scofield band that I was fortunate to see in London in 1983.
     
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  17. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Oh, I am definitely one of those MF's! I wouldn't dare point my finger at anyone.
     
  18. Yes, yes, yes!! I'd LOVE to hear Gary Thomas w/ Miles -- Gary is maybe one of my 2-3 favorite working tenor-players today (along with Billy Harper).
     
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  19. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Have you heard the 3/25/87 Minneapolis audience recording? Unfortunately, Gary Thomas was gone by the time Miles took his band to Europe in the Summer, so there probably isn't a broadcast recording of Thomas with Miles.

     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2018
  20. Alien Reg

    Alien Reg Forum Resident

    That extra can of Heineken - that'll be what did it.
     
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  21. ohnothimagen

    ohnothimagen "Live music is better!"

    Location:
    Canada
    Hey, Phil Lesh from The Grateful Dead went through what he called his "coke and Heineken" period as well, but it didn't cause him to stroke out!
     
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  22. slapbass

    slapbass Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    When are we going to talk about Decoy?!!!!
     
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  23. LarsO

    LarsO Forum Resident

    Send an application to thread manager @rxcory
     
  24. rxcory

    rxcory proud jazz band/marching band parent

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    Thanks for keeping me on my toes guys! Will get to cracking on it here soon :righton:
     
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  25. slapbass

    slapbass Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Great news! I love this thread!
     
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