Miles Davis on Columbia/Legacy

[DMP]

What about Freddie Hubbard's "Sing a Song of Songmy" or Bill Evans and George Russell's "Living Time?" (Donald Byrd's "Electric Byrd" has a few elements, although mostly it's like the other traditional jazz plus trendy touches discussed above.)

[ep1str0phy]

"Songmy" is kind of off on its own, all things considered (it's not just electric stuff on there, right? Some wild things going on...). The Living Time stuff, though, is pretty stridently electric, although not always in a funky or rocky way, certain soloists notwithstanding--it's still very Russellish in the long run.

[JSngry]

Well, if you want to talk about people who got into electronics in "ways that partially transformed their musical vision", and if "taste" is not a consideration, then you gotta put Don Ellis in there. For every 10 (or 100...) pieces of gimmicky bullshit, there'd be a thing that showed real vision.

Probably more trouble than it's worth finding them, but if you're so inclined, they're there.

[Guest akanalog]

now we are getting too far away from miles davis, but what about anthony braxton and george lewis doing stuff with richard teitelbaum. i don't really like teitelbaum but i would imagine they were among the first here in the US to be combining such electronic noises with jazz improvisation. there was also that don cherry with jonh appelton. none of this stuff really does it for me....

[JSngry]

"Songmy" is kind of off on its own, all things considered (it's not just electric stuff on there, right? Some wild things going on...). The Living Time stuff, though, is pretty stridently electric, although not always in a funky or rocky way, certain soloists notwithstanding--it's still very Russellish in the long run.

Songmy is really an Ilhan Mimaroglu thing, imo, allt hings considered.

Russell, remember...

[B. Clugston]

now we are getting too far away from miles davis, but what about anthony braxton and george lewis doing stuff with richard teitelbaum. i don’t really like teitelbaum but i would imagine they were among the first here in the US to be combining such electronic noises with jazz improvisation. there was also that don cherry with jonh appelton. none of this stuff really does it for me....

Teitelbaum mixed electronics with improv with MEV long before his collaborations with Braxton and Lewis.

When they did get together, it was music far removed from the funky subtext this thread has developed.

[ep1str0phy]

Agree with you there, B. A lot of MEV stuff (I'm thinking of United Patchwork right now) could pass as Euro-American free jazz in a Lacyish, post-BYG vein. As with Ra, a lot of this music has electronics without being straight-up, jazz-rock "electric." Now, if we want to get into pseudo-funky free improv--about as free as it gets without losing that "rock" feel in so much of the later Miles stuff--then we can mention Arcana's The Last Wave. That's even less accessible than the crazier Lifetime moments, and with Bill Laswell to boot.

[Guest the mommy]

i don't think laswel belongs in this discussion.

[ep1str0phy]

Laswell per se is a can of worms, but his whole ethos is part of what has happened to the legacy of early jazz-rock (and electric Miles, for that matter). I'd agree that Laswell never "went electric," though, 'cause he had nowhere to go from. It's interesting to hear Tony Williams in that context though--especially that late in the game. Arcana was essentially a more pissed-off Lifetime.

Edited October 18, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[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.

Many post in the past but no response.

It is very important when one encounters music and how that is folded into one's personal taste.

[7/4]

I'd agree that Laswell never "went electric," though, 'cause he had nowhere to go from. It's interesting to hear Tony Williams in that context though--especially that late in the game. Arcana was essentially a more pissed-off Lifetime.

That's right, he was never acoustic. I'm a big fan of his, but even though I have a ton of his stuff, I haven't been listening to him much lately.

[ep1str0phy]

13-17 for me was spent listening to this stuff, so I guess I'm fortunate in that sense. It doesn't always occur to me, but my salad salad days pop up now and again (my girlfriend, sympathetically receptive to modern improv--had her dancing to Steve Reid not too long ago--went nuts when I went into my early-90's singer-songwriter mode yesterday). I'm speaking from the perspective of youth and inexperience, though--I'd like to know just how much of it sticks with, how much changes... oh, thirty, forty years down the line.

Edited October 18, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[Chuck Nessa]

13-17 for me was spent listening to this stuff, so I guess I'm fortunate in that sense. It doesn't always occur to me, but my salad salad days pop up now and again (my girlfriend, sympathetically receptive to modern improv--had her dancing to Steve Reid not too long ago--went nuts when I went into my early-90's singer-songwriter mode yesterday). I'm speaking from the perspective of youth and inexperience, though--I'd like to know just how much of it sticks with, how much changes... oh, thirty, forty years down the line.

Important info. We all have stuff to deal with. Thanks.

[Dan Gould]

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.

Many post in the past but no response.

It is very important when one encounters music and how that is folded into one's personal taste.

Chuck, if I may, are you saying that we all have particular favorites that are purely a function of our age when we first heard them? Are you also saying that such favorites are in some sense almost involuntary or not completely rational? In other words, had we not heard them at a presumably impressionable age, we wouldn't enjoy them as we do? For that matter, why do we have to "allocate importance"? Just because you discovered Charlie Parker and Louis Armstrong a few years down the road, does that mean you're supposed to downgrade the music of your youth?

Are you ashamed of your "youthful weakness" for Little Richard, et al.? I'd happily trade my weakness for "American Pie" and countless other top 40 hits of the 70s for an equivalent dose of "Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Great Balls of Fire".

This deserves a separate thread - but its the first comment in this one that I had anything to add to.

[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.

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.

Many post in the past but no response.

It is very important when one encounters music and how that is folded into one's personal taste.

The pop "imprinting was well underway by the time I reached those years. 13 was when the tide began to turn. 14-17 was spent listening to anything but Top 40 pop radio music, except that which was unavoidably around in the environment (and that which "crossed over" from the cave into the mainstream). Some's stayed, some's gone. 18, I got sentimental and turned the radio on again, and it was fun.

Guess I had a "youthful weakness" for, a.o., Armstrong, Ellington, Ayler, Bird, Trane, & Sonny that I've still not shaken. OTOH, "youthful weaknesses" for "jazz-rock" as an umbrella style, weirdness for the sake of weirdness, and all that type of stuff have pretty much been shaken. It's fun, but that's it. And I don't mind having fun. But the meat stays, and there is meat there, whether it's to your liking or not. Weather Report & electric Miles are substantially (& substantively) different musics than "fusion" in general. Etc. etc.etc.

It's a good argument in theory, Chuck, but it's only partially accurate. If you ever catch me saying that The Buckinghams were "major artists", then you can smack me down. Until then, one size (or one age) doesn't fit all. You of all people should know that.

Edited October 19, 2006 by JSngry

[Guy Berger]

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.

Many post in the past but no response.

It is very important when one encounters music and how that is folded into one's personal taste.

So, Mr. Psychoanalyst -- what does it mean that I got into electric miles at age 20?

Guy

[Chuck Nessa]

So, Mr. Psychoanalyst -- what does it mean that I got into electric miles at age 20?

Guy

You were a late bloomer.

[Chuck Nessa]

So if I was digging Nessa LPs during my pre and teen years

(and I was), then I should be reconsidering my

choices from those days?

Reject 'em.

You should know the difference Rod.

[JSngry]

on the other hand, i just spun Body Meta and Metal Box back to back & pls-- PiL kills those guys at that time.

I wasn't aware that it was a cage match.

[JSngry]

Can't say that PIL & PT struck me as playing the same game even a little. For one thing, PT was always relaxed underneath it all, and PIL....wasn't.

Must be one of those non-related parallel out-of-time universal convergence flukes of the universe things you were talking about earlier. They do happen...

[felser]

If you ever catch me saying that The Buckinghams were "major artists", then you can smack me down.

But I love the Buckinghams (really).! "Kind of a Drag", "Susan", "Foreign Policy", some great stuff! Amazing production by Guerco before he moved onto Chicago Transit Authority. Major artists, no, no staying power once Guerco moved on. Tina Brooks also wasn't a "major" artist either for the same reasons. Were the Buckinghams thoroughly enjoyable for me on the same level as a lot of the music we enshrine here, absolutely!

[JohnBlutarski]

I can't blame BB if he does walk away after the Cellar Door fiasco.

Bertrand.

I know this is an old threat, but why was the cellar door a fiasco?

artistically? financially?

I like listening to that box, since I purchased it last year...

JB

Edited April 11, 2007 by JohnBlutarski

[Chuck Nessa]

The "fiasco" was the politics/egos/bs involved in the delays of issue. Probably to long and involve to get into here. Enough to say Bob Belden and the label were "abused" by the "estate".

[JohnBlutarski]

The "fiasco" was the politics/egos/bs involved in the delays of issue. Probably to long and involve to get into here. Enough to say Bob Belden and the label were "abused" by the "estate".

ah, thanks for the fast reply!

and I hope the "On The Corner" box will really see its release this year!

JB

[B. Clugston]

From the Miles Beyond site:

"The problem remains the Miles Davis Estate, and mainly Miles's nephew, Vince Wilburn. A few weeks before the original release date last September he wanted the credits of Adam Holzman and Bob Belden changed from 'produced by' to 'compiled by.' Understandably, this was not something these two, or Sony, were happy about. Moreover, the Cellar Door set had been more than five years in the making, and Belden's and Holzman's involvement must have been clear for ages, so the timing of the demand reeked of a hidden agenda...."

That explains the sticker on the credits page.

Lots more here: http://www.miles-beyond.com/news.htm