Miles Davis on Columbia/Legacy

[JSngry]

Yeahyeahyeah & blahblahblah, but show me a substantive precedent for that beat distribution on side 2 of OTC and then we can talk.

[Chuck Nessa]

Now, why should I play detective? This is about music good/bad/indifferent/misdirected/etc.

[Chuck Nessa]

Yeahyeahyeah & blahblahblah.

Yes, that's what I said.

I'd feel better about your musical judgements if they weren't from your "hormone" period.

[JSngry]

My "hormone period"?

Dude, I hope I never have a time that's not my hormone period in some form or fashion!

The neutered life is not for me, thanks anyway.

[Werf]

I love it when Pete Cosey fucking FREAKS on that Strat, that gigantic mo-fo knows his feedback FREAKOUT!!

It makes ripples of electric happiness wriggle and crackle

[Eric]

rooster-if you consider george duke part of the miles family (well he had ndugu drum a lot who drummer for miles and uh, he played with john scofield like miles did and billy cobham who played with miles and also with airto and he played with sonny rollins and joe henderson as well)-well here is the guy who really, IMO, plugged in in the early 70s and was truly the best technician, moreso than herbie or corea or zawinul or whoever else-at rocking the electric keyboards. george duke was the master.

Where best to find examples of this work?? Thanks

Edited October 18, 2006 by Eric

[Chuck Nessa]

My "hormone period"?

Dude, I hope I never have a time that's not my hormone period in some form or fashion!

The neutered life is not for me, thanks anyway.

Despite your protestations, you be much jumpier at 13-17. Music encountered during this period "imprints" and it is up to the recipient to allocate importance. I have youthful weaknesses for Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and even Timi Yuro. Never started a thread about this stuff 'cuz I know (and accept) what it is.

[Guest akanalog]

[Werf]

I have youthful weaknesses for Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and even Timi Yuro. Never started a thread about this stuff 'cuz I know (and accept) what it is.

CHUCK ROCKS n' ROLLS!

[B. Clugston]

rooster-if you consider george duke part of the miles family (well he had ndugu drum a lot who drummer for miles and uh, he played with john scofield like miles did and billy cobham who played with miles and also with airto and he played with sonny rollins and joe henderson as well)-well here is the guy who really, IMO, plugged in in the early 70s and was truly the best technician, moreso than herbie or corea or zawinul or whoever else-at rocking the electric keyboards. george duke was the master.

George Duke went on to play with Miles Davis a couple of times in the mid-1980s, including some of the Warners sessions plus a Montreux cameo. Wrong decade to meet.

[Eric]

From his website (I was guessing I would not find any of these at Best Buy):

The first quarter of 2007 will see the release of a George Duke MPS albums Box set. So far, except for my website, it will only be available in Europe. Individual albums and songs will be available as a digital download from iTunes and other legitimate digital download services. The box set will include: Faces In Reflection, Feel, The Aura Will Prevail, I Love The Blues, She Heard My Cry, Liberated Fantasies.

[Guest akanalog]

wow, that's awesome. i didn't know that.

i always rip on MPS for only reissuing hans koller and especially oscar peterson, but this would go a long way towards changing my opinion.

[Guest akanalog]

towards the end of the MPS run the music isn't as good, BTW. a lot of singing and less jazz and more tight production "songs".

[felser]

The Byrds, who were undoubtedly inf. by Brits but synthesized that w/Am. folk, a genius songwriter in Gene Clark, a truly inspired eccentric in David Crosby, an intermittently balls-out 'Trane inspired guitarist in Jim (Roger) McGuinn AND Gary Usher behind the board... this is gonna prob piss everyone off but I rate the highest Byrds as innovative as Miles in that '65-'66 period. (Byrds fell off HARD, as is the general pop/rock wont, Miles peaked high a # of times after).

I'm with you on the Byrds. The seemingly unlimited potential of Rock peaked at "Eight Miles High" and "I See You". THAT's a group who was so far ahead of their time, no one has caught up yet 40 years later, and no one even dares take up the quest. They were never the same group after Gene Clark left. There was magic in the McGuinn/Clark/Crosby trio.

[felser]

Who else notably went "electric" in arguably substantive ways during the 70's?? By "substabative" – I mean ways that partially transformed their musical vision – in ways that weren't just about "selling out" – or trying to be more "popular".

Lee Morgan on his last album. Chick Corea on 'Return to Forever' and 'Light as a Feather' and 'Where Have I Known You Before' (the sell-out came later, and he has intermittently bought back in when he feels like it). Freddie Hubbard on 'Red Clay' and some of the other CTI's (the sell out came on Columbia). Stanley Turrentine on 'Sugar' (the sell out came on Fantasy). Les McCann on 'Invitation to Openness' and 'Layers'.

[Guy Berger]

Who else notably went "electric" in arguably substantive ways during the 70's?? By "substabative" – I mean ways that partially transformed their musical vision – in ways that weren't just about "selling out" – or trying to be more "popular".

Freddie Hubbard on 'Red Clay' and some of the other CTI's (the sell out came on Columbia). Stanley Turrentine on 'Sugar' (the sell out came on Fantasy).

Felser -- what makes you think that either of these guys went "electric in arguably substantive ways that partially transformed their musical vision" on these albums? Sugar and Red Clay are basically "jazz with a few electric instruments", not so different from what was done before. Maybe we just disagree on the meaning of "substantive" or "transformed".

Guy

[Guest akanalog]

jf-also you didn't mention the RTF album with bill connors prior to where have i known you before. hymn for the seventh galaxy or whatever. it is decent and probably even less of a sellout than the where have i known you...i like it a bit.

i agree with guy about those CTI sides. hubbard did go more electric on a few albums (which is the one with with the stevie wonder cover from '74ish). but still, the CTI albums to me felt more like it was creed taylor and bob james deciding what instruments were on what album and not the musician on the cover.

les mccann definitly on layers and invitation to openess was exploring the milesian world.

layer is a very underrated album, i think thought the other one drags a bit.

no one has mentioned tony williams! have they?

he definitely plugged in.

i woud say believe it is one of the greatest jazz rock fusion albums ever, though one has to accept it for what it is.

and larry young, in the sense he got more and more electric from his late 60s BN sides to the arista dates (i really like spaceball!).

[B. Clugston]

no one has mentioned tony williams! have they?

he definitely plugged in.

i woud say believe it is one of the greatest jazz rock fusion albums ever, though one has to accept it for what it is.

and larry young, in the sense he got more and more electric from his late 60s BN sides to the arista dates (i really like spaceball!).

Tony Williams was plugged in before the '70s and most of the musicians mentioned. Lifetime was ahead of the pack.

Another one to mention is Sun Ra. Sure he went electric in the 1950s, but he went really, really electric in the 1970s.

[ep1str0phy]

I'd argue that late-70's Sun Ra stuff like Sleeping Beauty and Lanquidity is about as sonically/technologically reactionary as any one of the founding fathers of free jazz got without losing a sense of edge. For my money, both Prime Time and the disco-Ra sides are mindf'in brilliant, but so long as we're talking catering to (or in, or with) the times, might as well bring that up.

Edited October 18, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[felser]

Who else notably went "electric" in arguably substantive ways during the 70's?? By "substabative" – I mean ways that partially transformed their musical vision – in ways that weren't just about "selling out" – or trying to be more "popular".

Freddie Hubbard on 'Red Clay' and some of the other CTI's (the sell out came on Columbia). Stanley Turrentine on 'Sugar' (the sell out came on Fantasy).

Felser -- what makes you think that either of these guys went "electric in arguably substantive ways that partially transformed their musical vision" on these albums? Sugar and Red Clay are basically "jazz with a few electric instruments", not so different from what was done before. Maybe we just disagree on the meaning of "substantive" or "transformed".

Guy

Fair enough comments on the CTI stuff, though I think the rhythms also changed compared to what they did on Blue Note and Atlantic previously, but they weren't massive departures. Altohough it should probably be remembered that 70's Miles was an evolution starting all the way back at 'Nefertiti' and 'Miles in the Sky' rather than a sudden shift. Adam's comments on 'Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy' is also correct, I just overlooked that one.

[Guy Berger]

the original Lifetime sorta does tho' it follows avant- rock moves of the time. Are setting those three dudes on LOUD & letting the tape roll enough to grant 'em a new 'concept'?

I think so.

Guy

[Late]

(Gulp) I own no Lifetime recordings. What I've heard, though, I've liked.

So ... if you (we) all were to guess, what Miles Davis release (minus remixes and/or best-ofs) do you think we'll see next? A 2-disc set of the Juan les Pins stuff? Something else? (Bill Evans' recorded ruminations driving home in his car after the KoB session?)

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I have to wonder if this isn't just Miles's heirs trying to extend their copyright control. If they release "Kind of Blue" with some digitally mixed in crap, the copyright, set to expire in 2061, would now expire 70 years from the death of whoever adds the crap. They could do this with every recording Miles ever did and extend the copyright ad infinitum.

From the US government's website (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hlc):

"A work that was created (fixed in tangible form for the first time) on or after January 1, 1978, is automatically protected from the moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for the author’s life plus an additional 70 years after the author’s death. In the case of “a joint work prepared by two or more authors who did not work for hire,” the term lasts for 70 years after the last surviving author’s death."

Belden himself got burned by this. He made a Jazz version of Puccini's "Turandot" for Blue Note, figuring it would be out of copyright since Puccini died in 1924. It turns out that "Turandot" was finished by Franco Alfano, who died in 1954. So Puccini's estate (why Puccini's estate and not Alfano's estate?) controls "Turandot" until 2029.

Kevin

Edited October 18, 2006 by Kevin Bresnahan

[ep1str0phy]

Ep1-- can you elaborate on Prime Time? do you dig as more Ornette (which we all do, or wanna) or as its own unique concept? I've listened for years & years to every record & while I do get stuff out of, none of them save maybe the first (where I listen w/'potential' in mind) strike me as ideal. you may say that is a false goal-- ok, & that we gotta take O anywhere we can but I find better examples of collectivism, esp. in West African music (subject for another thread), likewise Afro- America for dead on the heavy FUNK. nice Jerry cameo on "Virgin Beauty" tho'. there's still some great O. in Prime Time but I just don't find 'em that hot band for all the business. am i 'missing it'?

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's so difficult to get inside Ornette's head. I do my best to subscribe to the conceit that he's completely conscious of the materials and idioms within which he functions and, on that level, it's easier to bypass the smell of bull... Pulled this one out of a Downbeat interview I ran across:

Howard Mandel: We're talking about the word jazz. I know you've written about yourself as being a jazz artist. Is that really the categorization that you find keeps you from being able to perform in other contexts?

OC: Yeah, I think those terms existed before I existed and I can't quite outdate those terms, but I've outgrown them... I have to find out how I can get what I do where I would like to have it done. WHat do I need to do that? In the Western world your success is based on how many people you reach, and in the music called jazz up to now it's only people who've made money from other levels of music who are allowing people that have a jazz background to integrate, to increase their financial status by mixing with other kinds of music.

<snip>

Mandel: Do you feel you're co-opting an audeince by having electric guitars there with you?

Ornette: ...It's not the same thing as having an electric band, having two guitars. That's really what I have, two guitars. I don't call it an electric band. The terms that pepople have had to play their music under! Categories and the ways in which the musical world allows musicians to survive, usually are much more about the selling and buying than the creating and performing.

(typed quickly and probably messily)

There's a general sense of ambivalence about Ornette's ideology in this period--jaded by industry dealings, Skies of America and the Columbia situtation had gone bust, economic hardship, etc. I presume that there's some sense of obfuscation regarding Ornette and his public face, but I'd be damned if he isn't struggling to maintain the classic "no labels" optimism at this point. I love him to death, but I think it's a lot more fun--and Mandel sort of nails it--when he suggests that Ornette was co-opting an audience. Of course, the musical drive of the Prime Time group was disco guys--Ellerbee, Tacuma, (later) Weston--with some more jazz and free oriented cats mixed in--but Ornette has never had trouble fitting people into his musical conception. The idea that Ornette not only knew what he was doing (and there are all those quotes about wanting to reach a bigger audience and whatnot) but did so through a willful co-optation of indsutry-driven jive is not just subversive--it is, in my book, brilliant. Ornette was pissed and upset enough to refuse to wink, but Prime Time is one fantastic wink, in my book.

When I hear the more strident Prime Time sides Dancing In Your Head, Body Meta, etc., I hear, among other things, "fuck you and I'll have fun doing it." I don't think it necessarily makes it as great funk, let alone free funk (and the BAG and AACM guys were all over that as, as many of the senior group here can attest), and it's really not just electric free jazz. BUT it sounds like Ornette music to me, and it's no more deluded or fake, AFAIC, than The Empty Foxhole (which was more or less the same thing in a jazz trio context).

[JSngry]

No problems here w/electric Ornette. Some's better than others, ranging from great to merely pleasant, but no real problems. Probably just those damn hormones interfering w/my judgement.