Agharta & Pangaea, is there not a market for a CD reissue?

Nice one cheers! I may have to go for the mastersound as they seem the most available for more reasonable money than the bluespec ones. I am almost certain the moment I order them a new box set will be announced of those albums! Maybe my mistake will bring reward for everyone else here so maybe worth doing

 

Just been listening to Pangaea on slow bus ride home in the horrible blizzard we are having in the UK. While I can see the band losing a bit of steam during the
Gondwana medley I think Zimbabwe is equal to anything on Agharta. It also features a rare and rather good solo by Reggie Lucas! I am listening to a download, not sure the source of the master, but Lucas is very high in the mix chopping away and you can hear his crucial roll much more than on other albums he plays on. While Miles is in charge it is Lucas who interprets the signals and guides the bands through the themes, at least to my ears.

I had forgotten how off the chain Cosey is, he gets as much if not more solo space than Miles. I always had a theory that while Miles liked his playing (or he wouldn't have been in the band of course) he was seen as a surrogate Jimi Hendrix figure by Davis. Miles doesn't really give him much coverage in his autobiography. I like how when he is not soloing Cosey plays a triangle....

Another weird thing is that I find myself whistling a lot of the themes, odd how music that was seen as the death of melody and jazz is not so fully absorbed I find myself humming them in the shower.

 

Cool, I just found the mastersound Pangaea so now I have both shows in all 3 configurations!

 

Don’t forget there were two Mastersound CD releases of both titles. The SICP ones were the first cd’s to feature the original LP mix, the earlier SRCS ones had the newer, less reverb mix. So it’s worth checking which ones you have!

 

Thank you all for your posts--I have the 1991 US CBS cassette of this, but recently gave in and recently bought the Japanese vinyl online, after many, many years of never hearing it, thinking about it, and never seeing it anywhere. I'm glad to have it, at last, but very well may soon be in the market for a CD copy. It's fascinating music.

 

The ones I have now are:

Agharta C2K 46799 and
Pangaea C2K 46115 the USA releases. The so called fanboys.

Agharta SICP 1230/31 and
Pangaea SICP 1232/3 the BluRay specs. Right?

Agharta SRCS 9128/9 and
Pangaea SRCS 9752/3 the so called Master Sound releases. Right?

 

@penguinzzz mentioned two different Mastersound releases, but I can only identify one.

 

These are the SICP 'original jacket' ones from 2006. I thought they were also referred to as 'Mastersound' but maybe I was wrong.

Either way they are a cheaper way to get the LP mixes than the Blu specs, which I haven't heard. But I'm not as much of an audiophile as many here.

Miles Davis - Agharta = アガルタの凱歌
Miles Davis - Pangaea

 

I still have hope Mobile Fidelity will get around to these on SACD. (and 'Big Fun' and 'Live-Evil' and 'Dark Magus.') Though, if they do, they'll probably use the shorter original mixes.

Honestly, I've been listening to the 80s remixes of both of these (and 'Dark Magus') (50DP editions) for so long I can't even remember what the original LP mixes sound like any more.

What's really needed are BluRay editions with multiple lossless audio tracks. But Sony would never go for that, would they?

I really can't understand why they stopped the metal spine box series when they did. All they really needed was two more to finish the set: 'Complete 1973-1975' and 'Complete '1981-1985.'

 

You actually have the two Mastersound releases (SRCS is from 1996, SICP 12xx from 2006). The later BluSpec CD2 releases have a different number:

Agharta SICP 30273-4
Pangaea SICP 30275-6

These are what I have. It's all pretty confusing and I would be interested to know if these BluSpec CD2's are the same as your SICP mastersounds. I have a hunch they could be...

 

What about a Buying Agartha and Pangaea in the "For Dummies" series? I think it would be helpful

 

It is confusing, thanks for the info.

 

This gets into a bit more speculative or "inside baseball" type deductive thinking, but I tend to believe that one possible reason or factor why Pangaea and Agarta did not receive further reissues, or any kind of lavish "super deluxe" treatment, was that legendary music journalist Tom Terrell passed away in 2007, just as the "On The Corner" box was coming out.

Not only did Terrell write the liner notes for the On The Corner deluxe set, he was HEAVILY involved in promoting that material and that whole era of Miles' music, internally to the label executives and powers-that-be inside Columbia and Sony Music; in a lot of ways, that On The Corner box was Tom's dream come true, and Terrell's enthusiasm for that period of Miles was an instrumental force in lobbying to get that set and its bonus material released by Sony.

Aside from seeing how passionate he was about the music in the liner notes, Tom Terrell was also tirelessly active throughout the '80s and '90s in talking it up to people, promoting it, explaining it conceptually to people, and generally urging folks to take a positive reappraisal of that whole post-Bitches Brew to mid-'70s live era of Miles.

For some reason there was a long-standing institutional tendency to ignore or even look down on that particular era of Miles, from within the label (going all the way back to the originals only being released in Japan, and not at all in the US). And in some ways, as a journalist and music industry insider, Tom clearly was a champion and advocate for that often-kinda-overlooked heavy funk/Pete Cosey type era of Miles. For many years, Tom was almost kind of a visionary force in lobbying Columbia to recognize that there WAS indeed a modern market for a reappraisal of that stuff, hence the expansion of the On The Corner set to include later unreleased recordings up to 1974.

I remember having a vague impression at the time it came out, that the On The Corner box set was sort of a "compromise" release -- like saying, okay, we'll finally bow to Tom's crazy ideas and finally give On The Corner a fancy deluxe metallic box like the other earlier Miles boxes had, but let's also get all the "funk" or "African" Miles stuff out of the way in one go, all the way up to his "retirement," so we don't have to fool with it any further.

Whereas obviously the heavy fans and supporters of that period -- like us in this thread, and Tom Terrell (RIP)--- would have much rather wanted a full On The Corner box, and then a whole other box set of that late 1973-74-75 Miles period, as its own separate thing, with other live tapes, etc.

Also in the late '90s there was a burst of interest in that particular material, coming from producer Bill Laswell, who released that Panthalassa remix/reimagining project. Which I always had the vague impression that Laswell somehow convinced them to do that, simply because the tapes for those albums were kinda just sitting there languishing and laying around in the vault, and Laswell noticed that nobody at the label seemed to want to do anything much with the tapes, or with those original albums, so he talked them into letting him remix them....

And I even wonder if maybe that remix CD actually reduced or killed off the label's interest in reissuing those original albums, even further. It almost feels sometimes like there was a long-standing, in-house cultural tradition at Columbia, of really not liking those two particular albums, or ignoring them, or not knowing what to do with them, ever since day one... Which is weird because to my ears the music on them still sounds so fresh, ambitious and contemporary, even today.

 

It could be good to know that the extra material on the Mastersound cds is just end-of-set percussion solos and applause, Miles having left stage minutes before. If you're a crazy completist like me they are a must of course...

 

FWIW, the three "Japan only" Miles albums from the 70's were Black Beauty (from 1970), Dark Magus and Pangaea. There were some other Japan-only Columbia releases in that era, notably several from Herbie Hancock.

As someone who started buying Miles albums in the 80's, I noticed that while Columbia kept everything up through Live Evil in print, they deleted the On the Corner through Agharta run, until there was a surprise reissue on LP of On the Corner in the late 80's, and eventually the CD wave brought back Agharta and the others.

 

Member evilcat used to keep on top of all the different issues. Here's one thread:

Miles Davis: Which versions of Agharta and Pangaea are on the new Japanese Blu-Spec?

but you should be able to find more by searching for his posts on the 'electric' period.

 

Very interesting insights thanks!

 

Does anyone know if the Live in Tokyo 1975 Hi Hat cd is the same concert as the great Another Unity bootleg? Any other good 1975 Japanese tour (or any other 1975 gigs) bootlegs anyone knows about?

 

It should be - the 22 Jan concert is the only gig in professional quality sound (radio broadcast).
The rest of the Japanese tour recordings are all audience tapes.

The July Avery Fisher concert is in good sound, as are two June Bottom Line recordings.

 

Check out this link for official and unofficial releases from the various dates:

Miles Davis records: 1970-1978

 

@Black Elk
@DTK

Thanks guys!

 

I have a dim memory that someone told me it is Cosey playing on Betty Wright's Clean Up Woman, anyone know if this is true?

 

With a special "On vinyl" section added, please!

I've never heard any of those, but based on some of the '73-'75 audience tapes I have heard, that music doesn't translate very well on some of those audience recordings (Toronto '74 and Washington '74 immediately come to mind)- not the greatest recordings to begin with but the music just sounds like a big wall of noise IMO you need soundboard recordings or the officially released live albums to fully appreciate what this band could do.

Two Bottom Line '75 recordings? Damn, I could only find one of 'em...now, I believe that one is an audience recording and it's pretty decent.

 

This is a great article, thank you

 

I know what you mean! None are ideal and I would think there would be a market for a new version. A new bootleg series for both would be great, or MoFi releases, or Mark Wilder Sony releases using the original mix but slightly less modern mastering style.

But, who am I kidding, I would buy any new version!