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I got myself this beautiful compilation on Monday and really, this has to be some of the most amazing, beautiful, moving music ever.

It's like all at once.

I guess if someone asked me what my favorite music is, my smart-assed answer would be a fusion of Miles' electric period and Prince's more electronic funk/rock.
Do you know anything that goes in a similar direction? I'm not an expert on jazz, but I'd like to listen into some comparable things. Herbie Hancock maybe? Weather Report?

So good he put some of it on the Jack Johnson album! This is some of the best late night nusic ever.

Agreed. Miles' best.

calldapplwondery83 said:

IMO, You're on the right track...try some of these out:

Weather Report: Mysterious Traveler, Black Market, Heavy Weather, and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, Thrust, and Manchild albums....
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Anything Miles is awesome.....I have quite a collection, too.

tA is the expert on Miles and Herbie...hopefully he will respond to you in time with some suggestions.

Have you checked out John Coltrane or Thelonius Monk? They are not fusion or 'electric', however they are jazz greats that are worth studying and listening to.

You made me listen to it again! Great album, his first step into electric jazz. A better effort than Bitches Brew to me. I only own the In A Silent Way album with the two long tracks though, but I think I'm gonna buy the sessions too, cause I loved the 7 Steps To Heaven Compilation sessions!

paligap said:

Thanks! I had a very quick listen to Headhunters on Monday, but (I know I will SO regret having written this some day) it didn't immediately grab me. It were propably mainly the synth sounds that I didn't really like or just that it wasn't what I was looking for. I checked out Mwandishi and Crossings on allmusic.com a few minutes ago, I think I will get these first.

paligap said:

Good suggestions, pali....

BT11 said:

I'm glad I could inspire you to pick it up again! It's really just so amazing. I haven't listened to Bitches Brew in soooo long, but that's because I know that the Complete Bitches Brew Sessions are waiting for me on Christmas. I love all his electronic adventures (and lots of the other stuff, too). I think it's interesting how it became increasingly more radical and out-there until it culminated in the most radical music I personally know, 'On the corner'. 'Pangaea', 'Agharta', 'Dark Magus' are in a similar vein. I have to get all these soon. And 'The Cellar Door Sessions'!

cubic61052 said:

They are indeed! I have 'A Love Supreme' and it's just as heavenly as 'In a silent way'. Don't own any Monk yet, but I will. Some day.

paligap said:

Weather Report isn't funky to me, but I'll co-sign Herbie Hancock any day.

CinisterCee said:

I'm Surprised Y'all haven't sampled the Drumtrack From Weather Report's Nubian Sundance Yet!!!

Tribe Called Quest sure sampled the Hell out of Weather Report's "Young and Fine" for "Butter"....

I'm not going into Cucumber Slumber....



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[Edited 12/13/06 13:57pm]

paligap said:

Oh I know, Premier sampled em lots too. They're just not funky in the same way Herbie's electric era is.

CinisterCee said:

Yeah, They have more of an Ethereal, World kinda vibe...but Cucumber Slumber is straight funky!!




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[Edited 12/13/06 14:53pm]

cubic61052 said:

Somebody him!

calldapplwondery83 said:

Truth be told there's only 17 minutes of orignal music record (8 on first track and 9 on the next). The album is a bunch of tapeloops engineerd by producer Teo Maceros and the box set is filled out with outtakes. Miles figured this was more than enough music for people to digest before he surged ahead of them with BITCHES BREW later that same year.

Also in box set form



I'm not much of a fan of "Prince's more electronic funk/rock" nor do I care much for Miles' studio recordings of the 80s, but the live gigs Miles did acter coming out of retirement exhibits a strong Prince and PFunk (live) influence. It's a bit costly at $200 to $250, but the Complete Miles Davis at Montreux 1973-1991 box

CinisterCee said:

"Boogie Woogie Waltz"...YOU need to axx sumbody!!

PFunkjazz said:

The booklet, which is very informative and beautifully done IMO, says "Teo used only 33 minutes of recorded music to make a 40-minute album from 46 minutes of usable music."

PFunkjazz said:

Ndeed!!



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Miles box sets

I bought the 'Silent Way' box set years ago, but am always a bit underwhelmed by the outtakes - I wish I'd just bought the remastered original album, as you can see why some got released and the rest didn't.

I'm looking forward to whenever they finally pull their fingers out and release the 'On the Corner' boxset tho!!

I'm more of a 1972-75 electric Miles fan than the earlier 'electric' stuff, which I find interesting but often very unfocused. With things like 'Bitches' Brew', it's as if Miles and his bands are searching for things they never quite find. While 'Jack Johnson' was very good, I think Miles finally found it in 1972, when he really got the funk on 'On the Corner'. His best 'electric' records imo are 'Get Up With It' ('He Loved Him Madly' is awesome if again overlong, 'Calypso Frelimo' is v. cool, and I love 'Ife' from 'Big Fun') and the live 'Agharta', which is one of Miles' best albums of any period.

I also dislike the 'Live Evil' stuff for some reason. Mind you Miles himself plays brilliantly on most of the '69-'70 stuff, so that makes up for the boredom and lack of focus of so much of his output then.

As to the later stuff, I've no great love for it tho, 'Aura' and 'Tutu' are the best imo, and I also have a fondness for 'Doo Bop' actually!

But, if you can find it, there's an obscure 1990 album by an Italian musician called Paolo Rustichelli called 'Capri' - there's two versions of the title track on there featuring Miles, and if his playing doesn't make you cry, then you're not human ...

As to Weather Report, they're ok, but I'm no big fan. It's interesting how, if you listen to Report's first two or three albums, you can hear the Zawinul 'Silent Way' style in there, gradually evolving into new stuff, but overall Weather Report for me, along with much of Herbie Hancock's post Mwandishi 'funk' output, sinks further into blandness. I've checked them all out over the years, Weather Report, Herbie, Return to Forever, Lifetime, but most of the mainstream post-Miles jazz fusion just don't move me a lot. Frank Zappa's probably my main jazz-rock man after Miles, as he kinda sounds like the Duke Ellington of jazz-rock and was his own man, not a slave to Miles' every musical utterance, good, bad or indifferent.

For me, the best post-electric Miles stuff in the '70s came from Santana, especially with 'Incident at Neshabur' on 'Abraxas' and the various jazz-rock albums like 'Love-Devotion-Surrender', 'Welcome' and 'Lotus' - pure beauty and soul. John McLaughlin's often good tho, with Mahavishnu going into Shakti - such contrasts! Just a little humourless and over-earnest.

I'm obviously a fan as I am so critical!!

I dare to say when we are 300 years from now, people looking back at the 20th century, will see Miles Davis as one of the most important artists of that century. Just in the same way we look at people like Mozart and Bach knowadays.

First, as a soloist on his instrument (trumpet) he is pure genious: intuition, intellect and musicality all in once, able to deliver totally mesmeserizing performances on his instrument.

Second, as a musician who crossed musical borders, not affraid to try new things, new sounds, not always with great results, but with a sense of adventure that in general is very much to admired.

I mean look at some of this man highpoints:
- A kind of Blue
- Sketches of Spain
- In a silent way
- Bitches Brew
- Tutu
- Aura

Always open to explore, to try new things, changing the music supporting his trumpet, and most of the time delivering solo's and phrases that are pure genious. There is a world of difference between Concerto de Aranjas (from sketches of spain) and Electric Red (from Aura), but both times his playing is genious, moving, mesmerezing.

In short: one of the top 10, maybe even top 5 artist of the 20th century.

On a related note, here's a suggestion if you like something a little different. There's a CD out called 'Bird Up - The Charlie Parker Remix Prject', which is a bunch of hip hop/ industrial remixes of original Charlie Parker tunes!

I know it might sound horrible and sacreligious, but to my ears, most of the tracks actually work. They do some interesting things in many cases, and there's some good new playing 'in the mix'. And they're mostly without rappers (no bad thing imo!), remixed by people like Dan the Automator, Me'shell NdegeOcello and El-P, and also feature the likes of Ravi Coltrane, Hubert Laws and the Kronos Quartet (their track, a remix of 'Salt Peanuts' is a little like Bird meets Bartok, (one of Bird's favourate composers) in the 'hood'.) all playing new stuff over Bird's riffing!! If you're open-minded, it's a good way to spend £1.99 as I did!! I wouldn't spend a lot on it, but it's worth checking out.

Riverpoet31 said:

I agree. I liken him to Picasso in terms of style, bravery, influence, ability to change, long career, technique etc and I think he's definitely one of the top 10 (if not top 5) of the 20th, like you say

There may have been people who played the horn better, but they weren't the artist Miles was.
[Edited 12/14/06 15:06pm]

I basically view Miles the trumpet player as a bluesman. No matter what his backing is, he's playing stuff informed by the blues. He was no virtuoso, like Dizzy, Bird or Hendrix, but he knew the meaning of 'taking the horn' out of your mouth' when you've nothing to say (as he so memorably once told John Coltrane), and he was very musically inquisitive, evocative and sensitive. He also knew his strengths and weaknesses and always knew how to get the best out of a band.

'In a Silent Way' is one of the best examples of the above ideas in his catalogue.

Many of the musicians passing through his band played a lot of their best work with Miles, be they JJ Johnson, Bill Evans, Pete Cosey or Bob Berg, they all were affected by the master's influence. And his musical influence stretches from jazz into rock, funk, hip-hop, 'world' music, modern classical, ambient, electronica, dance and beyond. I'd say only James Brown and the Beatles can be said to be as influential in modern music.

Yes, they sometimes call him 'the Picasso of Jazz', which, while not overly accurate, sort of sums him up, as a musician and as a man. Definitely one of my votes for inclusion in the top ten blues-based musicians of the 20th century.

Miles sure is in the same range as Pablo Picasso or Vincent van Gogh.

A real artist, among the many black eyed peas jumping around.

To be more precise:

When you hear Miles soloing on 'Electric Red' (from 'Aura'), you hear a single person expressing the sense to escape death, to live, to be vibrant, alive, by using his instrument, in such a splendid way it puts most of the output of recent pop-artists, including Justin Timberlake and Prince, into shame.

Its the difference between pure art and entertainment.