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Pangaea and Agartha


johnagrandy

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I know it's more Cosey than Lucas, but has someone got it definitely figured-out (it terms of digital time intervals) which guitar solos are Reggie Lucas and which are Pete Cosey for the following tracks:

Pangaea

"Zimbabwe"

"Godwana"

Agartha

"Prelude Part I" (liner notes say "Cosey's solo 1 over Foster's Herculean backbeat", I assume referring to this track)

"Prelude Part II"

"Maiysha"

"Interlude"

"Theme From Jack Johnson"

Interesting little thing I picked up from the liner notes: Miles' 1,2 choices for electric guitar in this final band before retirement were Hendrix and B.B. King.

Edited by johnagrandy
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In general Cosey is the lead guitarist and Lucas does rhythm work, though Lucas takes a solo here or there if I'm not mistaken.

Guy

Yeah, but I gotta know, man, like everything down to the last detail, you know what I mean .... heh heh ....

Definitely Cosey on "Prelude Part 1" ... which might be the baddest shit of it all.

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In general Cosey is the lead guitarist and Lucas does rhythm work, though Lucas takes a solo here or there if I'm not mistaken.

Guy

Yeah, but I gotta know, man, like everything down to the last detail, you know what I mean .... heh heh ....

Definitely Cosey on "Prelude Part 1" ... which might be the baddest shit of it all.

Cosey was and is one serious m/f ...

"Paul Tingen, in his book Miles Beyond, quotes Cosey as claiming that he used at least thirty-six different tuning systems, and would sometimes go onstage with five or six guitars, each tuned differently."

Anyone ever see him live with Miles ?

http://www.progreviews.com/reviews/display.php?rev=md-agh

http://www.chicagoreader.com/hitsville/030613.html

http://www.chicagoreader.com/hitsville/970829.html

Edited by johnagrandy
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Anyone ever see him live with Miles ?

Yes, Artpark, Lewiston, New York.

This concert is actualy mentioned in the book " Miles to Go ", by his road manager Chris Murphy, as a exceptional gig. It sure was.

I remember at the very end, when Miles was walking off the stage, that he grabed Cosley from behind ) Cosley sat and in a chair stage left) in a kind of yoke hold and smiled a bright smile for the first time all night.

1560253614.jpg

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...the book " Miles to Go ", by his road manager Chris Murphy...

1560253614.jpg

How's this book?? I'm afraid I heard about it once, or else maybe saw the cover in a store (and I guess didn't have time to even pick it up and read the back cover). Maybe I saw "road manager" - and wrote it off, possibly too hastily??

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Guest akanalog

miles to go is ok. i bought it real cheap used. offers some good insights i guess though like any other book i'm not sure how much to believe. FWIW, he really admired and respected miles....

wasn't cosey a real big dude-like he had to sit down while he played? in miles to go he sounds gigantic in height and girth if i remember.

a bigger challenge-who is playing what guitar solos during dark magus?

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...the book " Miles to Go ", by his road manager Chris Murphy...

1560253614.jpg

How's this book?? I'm afraid I heard about it once, or else maybe saw the cover in a store (and I guess didn't have time to even pick it up and read the back cover). Maybe I saw "road manager" - and wrote it off, possibly too hastily??

Bought it, and found it to be mostly a waste. It's more about Murphy and the lifestyle "perks" of being on the road with Miles than it is anything else. The so-called "lost years" of Miles that the book would seem to be referring to do not get covered at all, since Murphy was not in Miles' employ during that time. We do get to read about the chicks he balled during those years though. Yippee.

Miles actually comes off really well in Murphy's portrayal, a cool enough guy to work for (although Murphy, whether by design or delusion, paints a picture of him being really tight with Miles that is easily seen as the inflated ego trip that it is just by a reading of the circumstances setting up all the anecdotes). Cicely Tyson, otoh, comes of as a vain, manipulative bitch, which, who knows, maybe she was/is. The portrait of Miles as boss from a non-musical employee is the only redeeming value of the book afaic (that and a little bit of a look at Miles' "entorage"). The rest is totally an eo trip by the author. He was a road manager for crissakes, yet he gets indignant that Columbia wouldn't take his advice about how the band should be recorded. Etc...

I've no doubt that Murphy did his job quite well, and I've no doubt that he was really fond of Miles, and that Miles truly appreciated his work. But overall, reading this book is like reading the memoirs of a bat boy. Not totally worthless, but way too far removed from the real action to be more than background music.

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wasn't cosey a real big dude-like he had to sit down while he played? in miles to go he sounds gigantic in height and girth if i remember.

a bigger challenge-who is playing what guitar solos during dark magus?

I have a bootleg video of a gig during that period. Cosey cuts quite an imposing figure (no mean feat in a Miles band!) playing seated, surrounded by guitars (if memory serves he plays some 12 string) and flanked by a table littered with percussion instruments. His hair is something else too! One OUT looking cat!

I've always wondered about Dominque Gaumont's contribution to Dark Magus. That album is such a wall of sound I can't really figure ou what's what. Although in some ways it seems beside the point.

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Guest akanalog

well the beginning of the second disc of dark magus, after they start off with that big payback sort of riff thing, this effects drenched solo comes in and just cuts through the mess and really does it for me. i wonder if it was gaumont or cosey or even possibly lucas....

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Guest akanalog

this just inspired me to open up dark magus and have a listen.

i wonder why they used the wrong band photo for that inside part of the digipak.

i see cedric lawson and badal roy, who were both gone by the time of dark magus.

is that dave liebman? he looks like a real schmuck up there.

everyone else is looking all cool and dignified, even though i am generally against musicians wearing sunglasses inside as i think it is pretentious...but there is leibman rocking a tight tie dye and a bandana. get with the program dude.

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Guest akanalog

yeah the solo i am speaking of comes in at about 2:35 of tatu pt. 1....

some cool stuff going on with a volume pedal i think and some other kind of effect-maybe a ring modulator or something? i feel like this is gaumont because then a cleaner solo comes in and i bet this is cosey. unless oh i guess it is the same person jumping back and forth. that makes it crazier.

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yeah the solo i am speaking of comes in at about 2:35 of tatu pt. 1....

is that dave liebman? he looks like a real schmuck up there.

Don't forget Liebman had that bad leg his whole life so you gotta cut him some slack in the image department. I mean chicks weren't going to dig him no matter how he dressed.

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Whether I had enough real info to come to that same conclusion or not, that was my 15-second take on the book too. All I remember thinking was "Road Manager??" :huh::lol::lol::lol:

Not a great book by any means but there is one thing you have to hand him: the live sound of that band was fantastic and Murphy lays claim, in the book, to getting the band's equipment together.

The night I saw them Reggie Lucas took some long, far out solos with a fearsom expression on his face. Looked like he was on acid.

Miles directed everything that night. The duets with him and Al Foster was something to see (and hear)!

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Bits and pieces I found from Amazon reviews:

"For untrammeled Pete Cosey, PANGAEA is nonpareil and about as epochal as out-guitar has ever gotten (although I think this group's best music was "Calypso Frelimo" on GET UP WITH IT). Unfortunately, the scant few lucky enough (or not, in this case) to have heard the original once-difficult-now-impossible-to-find Japan-Sony LP, will lament the CD remix that puts Cosey dimly in the left channel, where he had previously been front, center, and thermonuclear. Probably the worst of Sony's many and various Miles reissue screw-ups - right up there with the first CD version of MILES AHEAD."

"And by the way, there is a guitar solo, I guess by Pete Cosey, about two-thirds the way through "Gondwana" that is absolutely mindblowing."

"Pete Cosey's solo on Zimbabwe is one the baddest solos ever put to tape."

"If Davis was unengaged and uninterested, it doesn't show, and certainly Cosey gets a real chance to shine with loads of solo space."

"AGHARTA is certainly Miles Davis' finest hour, his most intense moment. But if you hear the original LP you'll see that this music is infinitely more radical and wild than it sounds now, on this LOUSY CD MIX. Columbia SANITIZED this recording on CD: it now sounds utterly FLAT!! IT DOES NOT SOUND AS IT SHOULD: I JUST WISHED BILL LASWELL HAD A CHANCE TO RE-MIX THIS POWERFUL RECORDING. CHECK THE ORIGINAL LP: Reggie Lucas and Pete Cozey are upfront, menacing; Michael Henderson's bass is EXTREME, and Miles opens up a river of shining light-sound. To make a long story short: transfer the LP to a recordable CD, and then you'll be able to hear the AUTHENTIC AGHARTA!!"

"And then there is Pete Cosey. If Fortune and Foster sound like they have synthesized everything in jazz, then Cosey sounds like he's dialed in from another dimension. As Miles said, Jimi Hendrix wasn't available. Never have strings been strangled to such good use."

Referring to Agharta: "So with all the superlatives, where's the downside? Well, at times the music meanders, especially on disc two, track 2's mistitled "Theme From Jack Johnson" (disc 2 track 1 is "Right Off" from "A Tribute to Jack Johnson" as can be verified from listening to the audio sample, I suppose that makes disc 2 track 2 "Interlude"), and while someone (Cosey?) seems to be having fun making these Stockhausen-like white noise static blats using a synthesizer, I recoil in mock horror every time Miles reaches for the organ ("oh no, Miles, not the organ!"). That said, it is still a remarkable, though perhaps not essential disk."

"Contrary to most other reviewers, I was under the impression that this guitar work was primarily attributable to Reggie Lucas (as the style on his solo album is similar to that of Hendrix)."

"This is truly an album for artists, and Pete Cosey's "on the moon, or something" guitar playing puts it all out on the table! Here is a guy who played the same circuits as Jimi Hendrix and cut albums with blues greats like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf! Reggie Lucas plays incredible rhythm and lead guitar also, but as a friend of mine who saw these guys told me,"If it's out, it's Pete Cosey.""

Referring to Agharta: "The 22+ minute electro-funk workout that opens the album ("Prelude") is so intense I can't stop listening to it. Pete Cosey has a guitar solo about 6 minutes long that rocks so hard it's unbelievable."

Edited by johnagrandy
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What equipment do you need to convert LPs to CDs ? Those Amazon dudes are right, Col-bumbling-ia sanitized the guitars ... somehow.

I've actually got both the LPs and the CDs.

Maybe someone's already done the conversion ... ?

$46.50 will get you a re-master of the original "Agharta" :

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004VUJ...v=glance&n=5174

Edited by johnagrandy
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is that dave liebman? he looks like a real schmuck up there.

everyone else is looking all cool and dignified, even though i am generally against musicians wearing sunglasses inside as i think it is pretentious...but there is leibman rocking a tight tie dye and a bandana. get with the program dude.

Aw, that's kind of cold. It only looks silly now because the look is so dated. Back then, it was what hip young white musicians wore. Half the audience probably looked the same way!

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I'm giving up on my Googling ... too exhausting ... unless Pete Cosey answers someone's e-mail we'll probably never figure it out.

Uhh ... except, what is his e-mail ?

Oh, maybe Henry Kaiser knows the answers ...

I'm not contacting a cat who produced a Madonna album, that's for sure.

Edited by johnagrandy
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A question about one of my favourite bands is a good place for my first post...

Lucas solos once per concert on the Agharta and Pangaea discs.

On Agharta, he solos on the second track of disc 2 around the start of the tune most people call “For Dave.”

He also solos on disc 1 of Pangaea around the 30:29 mark following Fortune’s solo.

On Dark Magus, that’s Lucas playing initially on “Tatu“, with Gaumont taking over afterwards around the 2:30 mark. Cosey is likely playing percussion throughout.

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A question about one of my favourite bands is a good place for my first post...

Lucas solos once per concert on the Agharta and Pangaea discs.

On Agharta, he solos on the second track of disc 2 around the start of the tune most people call “For Dave.”

He also solos on disc 1 of Pangaea around the 30:29 mark following Fortune’s solo.

On Dark Magus, that’s Lucas playing initially on “Tatu“, with Gaumont taking over afterwards around the 2:30 mark. Cosey is likely playing percussion throughout.

That's an impressive first post. Welcome!

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