Fake fact alert! I had a look at the sleeve notes to Panthalassa last night, and I couldn't find anything written by Bill Laswell. I must have read it in an interview with him at the time of release. There is a Julian Cope review of Panthalassa on line which does support my claim about Laswell's opinion of Teo.
Laswell certainly was dismissive of Macero in several interviews given around the time Panthalassa was released. As someone who personally had no time for Laswell's efforts, they made for fairly grim reading. The only thing I can find right now is this passage taken from a 1999 interview: In terms of processes, is there anything inherently different between your role in this and Teo Macero’s in the originals? Laswell – Not particularly, because in some cases, there’s an outtake and there might be a theme or a solo that’s taken from another outtake and transplanted together. Teo Macero did a great deal of editing, and, in my opinion, I didn’t always think the editing served the music. It appeared to have been done very quickly. It felt like. I used to hear those records — when you don’t know anything about how records are made, you wonder, ‘How does the band do that? How do they change key so quickly? Why is it like that?’ It’s all him, doing editing, and I believe Teo Macero was more responsible for the results of the records than Miles was. SAB – Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard. That’s what’s been speculated. Laswell – Yeah, but I don’t think Teo Macero necessarily worked for Miles. Miles didn’t pay him. Columbia paid him. He was a salaryman, and a record guy, who worked for a company, and his job was to get a record made, get it out, and move on so they can make another one. And I think that was pretty much his mentality. I think he was good in the sixties, and then when the seventies arrived, his ideas from the sixties and all of his manual edits and quick decisions, I don’t think it related to the music. A lot of people argued that, but those are people who are still living in the sixties.
Return of the funky glasses: Get Up with It Columbia 2-LP album · released November 1974 With the October 1974 studio sessions resulting in two new tunes, we finally “unlock” Miles's last studio album before his long hiatus. Here's the tracklist: A1. He Loved Him Madly — recorded June 1974, after Dark Magus B1. Maiysha — recorded October 1974, final sessions for the album B2. Honky Tonk — recorded May 1970, after the Fillmore West concerts, in between studio sessions for Jack Johnson and Live/Evil B3. Rated X — recorded September 1972, after the sessions for On the Corner C1. Calypso Frelimo — recorded September 1973, a few months after the “Holly-wuud/Big Fun” sessions D1. Red China Blues — recorded March 1972, a few months before the sessions for On the Corner D2. Mtume — recorded October 1974, final sessions for the album D3. Billy Preston — recorded December 1972, after the Miles Davis in Concert album The release timeline indicates to me that if the last tracks were recorded in June and October of 1974 and the release was indeed in November of that year (given Wikipedia is correct), then the last sessions must have been held for the sole purpose of doing tracks specifically for the new album. Editing all of these different tracks, mixing them, preparing the cover art and actually pressing the album in enough quantities — this all takes time, so there is no way Macero would have pieced this together in October after those sessions. Most likely, the piecing together started with Miles's wish to record something as a tribute to Duke Ellington (June, 1974), so it is also probable Miles was more involved in the compiling of this album that critics have led us to believe. Also, had Miles spoken before publicly about his admiration for the Duke? Penguin Guide to Jazz: “ Miles's first attempt to make Ellington dance with Stockhausen. Dedicated to the recently deceased Duke and dominated by a huge, mournful tribute, Get Up with It is more coherent than its immediate predecessors and very much more challenging than its marginal reputation would suggest. Recorded over a period of four years, and put together very much after the fact, it traces Miles's growing interest in a whole range of apparently irreconcilable musics. In his ghosted autiobiography, he explains his attachment to Sly Stone's technologized Afro-funk on the one hand and Stockhausen's brooding music-as-process on the other. What united the two, beyond an obvious conclusion that pieces no longer needed to end or be resolved, was the idea that instrumental sound could be transformed or mutated almost infinitely and that the interest of a performance could be relocated from harmonic “changes” and settled on the manipulation of sound textures over a moving carpet of rhythm. Since Bitches Brew, and very noticeably on an album like Jack Johnson, Miles had been willing to consider the studio and the editing suite a further instrumental resource. With Get Up with It and the two live albums that follow, Miles went a step further, putting together bands that create similar phases and process-dominated “improvisations” in real time. There is a conventional wisdom that Miles's trumpet-playing was at a low ebb during this period: health problems are adduced to shore up the myth of a tortured genius robbed of his truest talent, clutching at even the most minimal musical opportunities. Even those who had heard the mid-'70s albums, which acquired an added mystique by being the last before Miles's five-year “retirement”, were apt to say that he “no longer played trumpet”. Though distorted by wah-wah pedals and constantly treading water in its own echo, Miles's horn was still doing precisely what the music required of it; the same applied to his resort to organ (Rated X) and piano (Calypso Frelimo). The poorer tracks (Maiysha and Red China Blues start off very late-nite) give only a misleading representation of how finely balanced Miles's radical populism actually was; a live version of Maiysha from the infamous Osaka gig is altogether together. The essence of “new” Miles is to be found on the Duke composition, He Loved Him Madly, a swarthy theme that sounds spontaneously developed, only gradually establishing a common pulse and tone-centre but replete with semi-conscious, almost dreamed references to Ellington's work. Honky Tonk, by contrast, is an actual throwback to the style and personnel of Jack Johnson. Though put together piecemeal and with Miles apparently willing to let Teo Macero edit greater or lesser chunks out of extended performances, Get Up with It is of considerable historical importance, looking forward not just to the apocalyptic live performances of 1975 but to the more polished and ironic pop-jazz of the comeback years. ”
"He Loved Him Madly" - loved it since first play. "Calypso Frelimo" - grew up on me. Great band performance(s). An album with just those 2 tracks would have been massive (more than 60min!).
One of my favorite Miles Albums. I have only owned it on CD. Wonder how the LP sound quality was with such long sides?
From the Chambers book I remember some Miles quotes that at one time he intended "Calypso Frelimo" to cover an entire album.
Not bad, but not very good either, as expected for such long sides. He Loved Him Madly is okay, because it has an overly long, fairly quiet introduction, which allows the grooves to be very tightly spaced. I do feel that there is a decided dip in quality for US-sourced Columbia Miles albums around this time, when it comes to SQ (the Japanese pressings are fine). Especially the compilation albums that came during the “retirement period” suffer from bad sound quality, a combination of poor mixing, indifferent mastering and Columbia’s tendency for overlong sides. Water Babies, Circle in the Round and Directions all come to mind. All of those tracks got a big bump in sound quality when Columbia remixed them for subsequent release in boxsets. Some of the earlier CDs feature the original mixes of those albums, and even those are better than the vinyl. In my opinion.
Interesting how staunchly defended Macero is on this thread. My take is that it's possible to enjoy and love the results he came up with while still occasionally feeling a certain arbitrariness in his decisions. Just my opinion, time to hide under the chair.
No I agree. I think On The Corner and Live Evil have messy edits, or in the first case there was material recorded that was sometimes superior to what Teo left in. But Teo was a pioneer and did a good job. I enjoy Phantalassa, but it was easier for Laswell with 30 years of hindsight to do that than what Teo did with more rudimentary technique and the mercurial Miles to content with.
No need for that chair, Sir. Nobody is idolising him here. What I think many of us are saying is that it’s unconvincing to say that everything Teo did was bad, and moreso to say he was unqualified for the job. Whether everything he did was successful? Of course not. But he was the best choice for Miles at that time; they knew each other for a long time, had been close collaborators and Teo was instrumental in forming Miles’s approach on records.
I'll throw in that Cosey isn't the only person who has mentioned that issue with certain versions of Agharta having better sound than others. Paul Tingen also mentions it in his book, and I've read a few internet discussions about it.
I had a neighbor who also taught Jazz who I took lessons from. He gave me his copy of Get Up With It and told me to listen to He Loved Him Madly to help get into electric Miles period. I think I still have his copy of the record. Will give it a spin this week.
Get Up With It is prime Miles. Messy, meandering and mesmerizing. It's a somewhat strange hodge-podge of sessions, but it still works as a unity IMHO. The weaker tracks are fortunately brief. He Loved Him Madly, Mtume and Calypso Frelimo are the stand-out tracks, and make up such a large bulk of the album. Honky Tonk is great too, and I have a soft spot for Mayisha, and finally, Rated X is not a track I listen to very often, but Miles gets bonus points just for letting it hang out like that.
The original LP has a different and superior mix compared to the 90s cd, not sure if Teo did both. The original Jap LP must be the same mix as contemporary Euro and US releases. Maybe Pete heard the 90s CD, but his argument doesn't really hold up...
I think the only slightly weak tracks are Mayisha and Red China Blues and Billy Preston. Mayisha is a good tune, but it sounds too polite here, a bit cockail jazz; the live versions are much tougher. Red China Blues is just Miles blowing to a pre-recorded backing track. Cool to hear Cornell Dupree and Miles together though. Billy Preston is good but doesn't really go anywhere. Rated X is horror movie music. But you have to admire the concept and execution and once in a while it's fun to listen to. Anyone notice that Mtume seems to use the chord progression from It's About That Time?
Rated X is my favourite track off this album. Every time I need to be blown away by sheer audaciousness and ahead-of-its-time-ness in Miles' music, I turn to “Rated X”. It's such a blast!
Does anyone know what the story of the title of this album is? Why “Get Up with It”? Was that an expression Miles used? Also, have we talked about the previously unreleased tracks from the Complete On the Corner boxset already? I checked the thread, but couldn't find anything. Maybe it's time to do those as well.
I mentioned peace as one of my favorite "lost tracks" (maybe a month ago ). Another thing, I'm sometimes critic of Teo's choices after listening to the complete tracks. So what I'm about to say will seem incongruent, but: I really like Panthalassa's "He Loved Him Madly" version.
Hear, hear. Sometimes you only need the short version, and it's really good. It doesn't promote Miles' idea of "music as a process" as the original does but it captures the essence.
Maybe I should give Panthalassa a new spin, but to be honest I never cared for it once the novelty of the unreleased material wore off. Just don't see what it adds to the music at all. Same has to be said for his reworking of McLaughlin/Santana's Love Devotion Surrender album. Completely pointless.
