Listening Through Miles

[gdogus]

I've always had a hard time really getting into the music Miles Davis made beyond, like, 1968. In a Silent Way irritates me. I'm fascinated by much of Bitches Brew - I even own the Columbia Complete Bitches Brew box - but find Live Evil and Jack Johnson rough sledding. Beyond that, forget it. I admit all of this because I decided to take another shot at electric Miles, this time approaching it by a selective survey of his career as a leader up to that point. Hoping that refreshed context will help me out with these recordings.

I started this afternoon with Birth of the Cool (1949), Bags Groove (1954), and three from the "first great quintet" of 1955-56: Relaxin', Steamin' and 'Round About Midnight.

I don't know if this will help me get my groove on with the Dark Magus Miles, but it's been a great afternoon of listening. I haven't put on Birth of the Cool in a long while, and it made a greater impression this time than it has before. Wonderfully orchestrated and arranged jazz for a tight nonet. Bags Groove cooks along as always, but I'm reminded again how good Miles and Sonny Rollins were together. And then, the Davis-Coltrane-Garland-Chambers-Jones quintet swings so hard and sweetly by turns, producing such a wonderful pile of music. Coletrane amazes me all over again, and Davis's manipulation of tone, with and without the Harmon mute, is breathtaking.

But onward...

[Peter Johnson]

Gdogus, consider easing further in with something from his Gil Evans collab period--if for no other reason than to complete the evolutionary picture. I used to have the same problem getting into later Miles, but I think the later music rewards repeated listens. I'm also fond of On the Corner, as yet another bridge to the later stuff--I think it was unjustly maligned by the critics and other when it came out as "not jazz," a ridiculous sentiment that's been played out here before (see discussion wrt Vince Guaraldi).

But I digress! You've inspired me to put on some of those later sides during the remainder of the weekend...I'll check back. Hope you continue to post your impressions!

[JSngry]

Or try a heavy immersion in THERE'S A RIOT GOING ON & any competent JB comp spanning, say, 68-71.

[gdogus]

Gdogus, consider easing further in with something from his Gil Evans collab period--if for no other reason than to complete the evolutionary picture. 

Funny you should say so, Peter - up this morning are:

Miles Ahead (1957)

Milestones (1958)

Porgy and Bess (1958)

Kind of Blue (1959)

Sketches of Spain (1960)

Creeping a bit closer to the troublesome period. I'm lingering here a bit exactly because I now suspect a critical connection between the Gil Evans collaborations and the musical landscape of, say, Live-Evil.

I'll keep you posted on my impressions.

Edited January 4, 2004 by gdogus

[Selim Sivad]

Here's another way to appraoch Miles' early fusion period. Pick up the Bill Laswell-remixed Panthalassa. Laswell took a representative cross section of tracks from '69-'74, chopped them down to a more palatable length and subtlely smoothed out some rough edges. It may have made a few Miles fusion purists cringe (I myself still prefer the original renditions for the most part) but for those trying to find the right segueway into this difficult body of music, this might be the way to go.

SS

[gdogus]

My little Miles odyssey continues with 1957-60, a period that finds the trumpeter dividing creative energies between his sextets (Milestones, Kind of Blue) and his collaborations with arranger extraordinaire Gil Evans (Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain).

I tend not to pull the Gil Evans stuff off of my shelves very often. Listening to Miles Ahead this time around, I have no idea why; this is wonderful stuff, and clearly a resumption of ideas left unuttered in the Birth of the Cool sessions years earlier. Miles as the principal, distinct, sharp voice against a complex, highly-arranged background - or maybe floating above a dense foundation is a better way to put it, a twisting pastiche of Ellington, Bernstein, and Gershwin. Until now I haven't cared too much for the Davis-Evans Porgy and Bess for some reason, but on this listen it's really fascinating! There's an even clearer contrast between Evans's background/foundation and Davis's singing voice than I find on Miles Ahead, and - call me crazy - but there are definitely large stretches where Porgy and Bess sounds like Bitches Brew. Something about the modal, pulsing feel of the foundation, dense and sparse at the same time, against which Davis smears and blurs swaths of colored sound. Sketches of Spain furthers the approach, taking the foundation outside of the familiar (e.g., Gershwin), but still maintaining a coherent and identifiable atmosphere (the Spanish feel). And Miles's horn is even starker in contrast. Interesting.

The sextet sides? Ah, well. Milestones is a wonderful album, cooking along in the same vein as the Davis-Coltrane quintet (this is the same group, after all, adding Cannonball Adderley on alto), but also picking up the orchestrated feel from the Miles Ahead project, especially on the title track. Kind of Blue is a different sextet (replacing Philly Jo Jones with Jimmy Cobb and Red Garland with Bill Evans or Wynton Kelly), and musically it's a whole other animal. The shift between sextet recordings is important if not absolutely seismic. It now sounds to me as if the Porgy and Bess project (which also used Adderley, Chambers, and Cobb) had real impact on the conception of Kind of Blue, showing Davis how to seek, create, and value musical "texture" in a small group more consciously than he had done before. "It Ain't Necessarily So" and other tracks on PaB, are immediate progenitors of KoB.

Musical texture. Textural settings. An integral density from which voices might emerge, and into which they might submerge again. Maybe I'm moving somewhere toward "getting" later, electric Miles?

But, onward…Next up: 1965-68

E.S.P. (1965)

Miles Smiles (1966)

Nefertiti (1967)

Miles in the Sky (1968)

Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968)

Edited January 5, 2004 by gdogus

[.:.impossible]

Sounds like you are building quite a bridge gdogus! As you have begun to introduce electric keyboards into the mix, I think it is important at this point to introduce the electric guitar into your Miles survey.

Miles In the Sky 1968 is on your list. I find this album to be the album that spans the gap better than any other single album in the catalog. It doesn't seem to get much attention here for whatever reason, but it has been a long time since we've discussed Miles' music...

I'd like to hear your opinion as to how this album fits into the grander scheme that you are currently looking at.

The other track that I think is essential to your purpose is Circle In The Round 1967. As a stand-alone track, this may be the skeleton key that you are looking for.

[gdogus]

Regretting that I must leap entirely over the period 1960-1965 (I don't have any Miles recordings from those years), I forge ahead to resample the second great quintet, with Shorter, Hancock, Carter and Williams: E.S.P. (1965), Miles Smiles (1966), Nefertiti (1967), Miles in the Sky (1968), and Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968), with the track "Circle in the Round" (1967 – from the quintet's Complete Columbia box) thrown in for good measure (thanks to .:.impossible for the suggestion).

E.S.P. and Miles Smiles are near and dear to me, and don't get any particularly new impressions of them on this go-around. I now realize how big a hole there is in my Miles collection, though, since it seems very strange, even dishonest, to go straight from Sketches of Spain to the second quintet. Note to self: fix this.

Nefertiti is a different story. This middle-period quintet music (along with Sorcerer) is all about building sound shapes. It's more abstract, not unlike parts of Sketches of Spain – just sparser and more angular. The direction in which we're headed seems much clearer to me now.

"Circle in the Round," with Joe beck on electric guitar, is the technical advent of electronics. There's tremendous playing here, furthering some of Nefertiti's sound architecture approach, but blended here more overtly with the Spanish idiom. Glancing backwards at Sketches, and forwards, perhaps, to Bitches Brew's "Spanish Key."

Miles in the Sky – I really don't think I've ever had a problem with "electric Miles" because it's electric – it isn't the instrumentation that seems to trip me up, but the music itself: fierce abstractions rearing their heads above slabs of glowing funk that I can't quite sort out. Miles in the Sky starts us off – BAM! with both of those features, continuing the icy angularity of Nefertiti, but undergirding that aspect of the music with funky rhythms. "Stuff" announces the agenda pretty clearly. "Paraphernalia" is all jittery bass from Carter and eruptions of noise from Williams, sliced through with Hancock's edgy piano and slathered over with Miles's horn washes. The "electric" Miles, if it begins in earnest here, is less about the electric piano and George Benson's (admittedly mild) electric guitar. It's about a BEAT – not a swing or a pulse, mind you, though those are present on Miles in the Sky, too - but a BEAT. Damn – where did that come from?

I haven't listened to Filles de Kilimanjaro in a couple of years, so it seems quite new to me. Also surprisingly bluesy and very beautiful. Shorter sounds marvelous throughout, and the electric pianos (Hancock and Chick Corea) make perfect sense. I'm hearing a lot of Gill Evans in "Tout de Suite" and the title track in particular – something similarly cinematic in the music.

But onward…I'm going in, lads! Next up:

In a Silent Way (1969)

Bitches Brew (1969)

Live-Evil (1970)

 

Edited January 5, 2004 by gdogus

[mikeweil]

My respect for taking the quest!

I really dig Live-Evil, but for the improvising of the band, I would take this without Miles - I like it even better when he's not playing. There's less of his influence in a way, as a soloist shaping the music, than in previous albums, maybe that's what you're missing?

Edited January 5, 2004 by mikeweil

[Peter Johnson]

Hopefully I'm not catching you too late, gdogus, but did you catch Water Babies from (correct me if I'm wrong) about 66/68, but released later? Beautiful stuff, with the only distractions being some abrupt editing of tracks...

But, you're probably immersed in the wonder of Silent Way, and from there, there's no looking back!

My props for taking this journey in such a short period of time...I think it will expand your horizons beautifully...

[king ubu]

Regretting that I must leap entirely over the period 1960-1965 (I don't have any Miles recordings from those years)...

Check out the following:

- the recent Blackhawk 4CD set

- its companion studio album SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME

- at least one or two of the live dates with George Coleman (best you get the 1964 2CD MY FUNNY VALENTINE/FOUR AND MORE)

much great music there!

ubu

[gdogus]

Thanks for the encouragement, and for the recommendations. I haven't got a copy of Water Babies, so skipped past that. And yes, I am immersed in A Silent Way and Bitches Brew SInce this is the beginning of the real trouble for me, I'm taking my time on these (oh, and I ran out of weekend)

Edited January 5, 2004 by gdogus

[king ubu]

Water Babies is a great one! I never had it, but now have it as part of the Quintet 65-68 and In A Silent Way boxes (same goes for Filles De Kilimanjaro, though I had that one before). Two marvellous records!

ubu