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Posted (edited)

Maybe Miles just wanted to be different and move from tenor to soprano just because rock and soul fans might find it a novelty and it would play with their preconceptions and give them a trippy new sound. Or maybe Miles was inspired by Coltrane's ventures into the land of new sound on the soprano and felt that instrument might lead his players into similar zones. And maybe Miles himself just wanted to get as far away from the trumpet-tenor and rhythm history of his as he could as he shifted gears.

Edited by jazzbo
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Posted

Yeah ... but somehow all notions of a winds frontline with rhythm accompaniment were way past at that time, weren't they? The thought of Coltrane though is one that's interesting ... are there any specific quotes of Miles known in that respect (like him endorsing the soprano, or having Shorter play soprano because of Coltrane or anything)?

Posted

Grossman was 19 years old in 1970. He did OK under the circumstances. I've never really been a fan of those Fillmore shows or the stuff that became Live-Evil, much prefer the studio stuff from that era. I also like Fortune best in the post-Shorter bands. But almost always found the bands to be less than the sum of their parts in that time. Granted, the parts were awesome, so it would have been hard to meet expectations. I really like the Grossman/Liebman front line on the Elvin Jones Lighthouse set (everybody on tenor sounded great with Jones in those years - Liebman, Grossman, Foster, Farrell, Coleman, all of them).

Posted

the only miles 1970's sax player who's solos i don't skip is Bartz. the last two guys after liebman weren't overly annoying either. and i even learned to enjoy jarrett's playing on the 70/71 shows. still can't tolerate the shorter, corea, and liebman contributions to the music. as for liebman, my guess is that, at that point in time, miles had a white guy in the band so that concert booking people/club owners wouldn't be turned off by an all black band.

Posted

as for liebman, my guess is that, at that point in time, miles had a white guy in the band so that concert booking people/club owners wouldn't be turned off by an all black band.

Nope. Miles liked his playing.

Posted

Oh yeah, what I like about the notey sax players that Miles invariably hired during this period (Bartz being the fascinating exception, although his contributions on the Euro-tour from the gigs I've heard, start getting pretty formulaic and seldom budge, but when it does,oh yeah YES!)) is that for the most part you didn't really have to listen to them, they were working out their Tranemath, same as they did with Elvin and on their own, it was a separate quest, really, one of catching up out of a sense of duty/compulsion/culture (not wholly misguided, but not really necessary except as a personal need, imo) but once you figure that out, that allows you, the listener, to just hear them as streaks of light in the sky, always in and out, but never really material, and then shift your focus to the rest of the band, which is where the real action was. Not saying they don't matter, but their role, intentional or otherwise, was as a diversion/redirection.

I have not always felt this way, but, after years of trying to direct my focus to Liebman, Grossman, even Sony Fortune (to a lesser extent, that tone was/is so personal) and find that, no, can't do it for too long before heading back to the rhythm section (especially once Miles took up the organ and started inserting all those denseass chords (hello Continuing Gil Evans Partnership Of Kindred Spirit Brotherhood) in those quirky spots that he would do (which would then often provoke a response from Reggie Lucas, you don't listen to this music for the solos, you just don't, I mean, you can, but you can also look at a car and just see the headlights, and when you ride in a car, are you still focusing on the headlights? Or even worse, when you drive the thing?).

Posted

Thanks Jim - makes sense to me!

Btw, thinking of Miles I finally tried to order the Blu-Spec reissues of "Agartha" and "Pangaea" ... hope CD Japan still gets them (says 3-5 days, so I'm crossing my fingers).

Posted

Thanks Jim - makes sense to me!

Btw, thinking of Miles I finally tried to order the Blu-Spec reissues of "Agartha" and "Pangaea" ... hope CD Japan still gets them (says 3-5 days, so I'm crossing my fingers).

I ordered Agartha from them a couple months ago, I received it very quickly, less than two weeks.

Posted

I have that one also (one of those especially imported by Sony USA from Japan in 1997). If I'm not mistaken, the version in the 71 disc box has the extra minutes as well. The question is: are they GOOD minutes? :)

Posted (edited)

I have that one also (one of those especially imported by Sony USA from Japan in 1997). If I'm not mistaken, the version in the 71 disc box has the extra minutes as well. The question is: are they GOOD minutes? :)

No extra minutes on the 71 disc box (Complete Columbia Album Collection). CD 2 of Agharta is 51:36 there according to my CD player (51:56 according to the box's book).

Are the Japanese discs sonically superior to the Complete Album Collection editions from 2009? I thought these sounded very good.

This besides the question JETman put forward of the quality of the music in those ten minutes.

Edited by erwbol
Posted

According to what I can decipher from Losin's site (someone else may figure this out better than I) no. The two listed with the added matrerial are from '96 and '97. There is a later one listed that is the lp length and mix. I can't tell if the Blu-Spec or Blu-Spec 2 cd is listed, they don't appear to be, in any case both are not.


I have that one also (one of those especially imported by Sony USA from Japan in 1997). If I'm not mistaken, the version in the 71 disc box has the extra minutes as well. The question is: are they GOOD minutes? :)

No extra minutes on the 71 disc box (Complete Columbia Album Collection). CD 2 of Agharta is 51:56 there.

Are the Japanese discs sonically superior to the Complete Album Collection editions from 2009? I thought these sounded very good.

This besides the question JETman put forward of the quality of the music in those ten minutes.

The Agharta in the Complete Album Collection is, I believe, a very good-sounding Wilder-tweaked mastering from

Sony SICP 1230/1
Posted (edited)

Thank you.

Maiysha is also a minute shorter on the (excellent) Wilder remaster. The end is a fade out during Mtume's percussion (I downloaded the Mastersound in FLAC through bittorrent this morning).

I also downloaded the 2001 Japanese Pangaea (SRCS 9752-3, not a Mastersound CD) and Gondawana is actually over 2:30 minutes longer on the 2009 Wilder remaster!

Listening to the Agharta Mastersound I cannot justify buying this thing second hand at an inflated price for ten minutes of guitar feedback and percussion.

Edited by erwbol
Posted

I just checked by new BCSDMFT CD (sorry, I live in an acronym world and am acromymically challenged, so...) of Agharta (bought because holy shit, I thought I had bought this on CD once, but no, had not, DOH!), and the Disc Two timing does not indicate extra music added. Bummer.

Are the Japanese Mastersound edtion of this and Pangea (also with extra minutes, or not?) both even somewhat semi-regularly available? I want those extra minutes (I have them on a dub somewhere, and enjoy the effect very much, it's like the concert starts with a Big Atomic Boom, and the end is like a further extension of the atomic decay, a few minutes closer to reaching half-life.

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