Miles Davis - In A Silent Way

As for Miles, well, the other electric albums aren't really quite like In A Silent Way, as they're usually a bit more, eh, lively, I guess. I see no reason in hell for you not to run run run run and get Bitches Brew right away though. Or Live-Evil. Mmmm, Live-Evil.

As regards recommendations for something "that someone who has been listening intensively to In A Silent Way would get a kick out of", the first thing that came into my head was The Soft Machine's Third - but I'm not at all sure sure I could explain why....

(x-post)

The Miles records to check out if you enjoy Silent Way:
ESP (the brilliant quintet that immediately preceded the electric shift in Miles' music)
Bitches Brew (more electric stuff, might strike you as a confused mess at first)
Jack Johnson (immensely powerful 'rock' record with McLaughlin, may be Miles' last genius record)
Agharta/Pangaea (the full-on Sly Stone/Stockhausen funk apocalypse, live shows Tokyo 1975)
Get Up With It (schizophrenic record, bits of studio experimentation; features the side-long 'Amarcord' which inspired Eno's On Land)
On the Corner (very strange, prickly record that seems to have been created with maximum annoyance in mind, I never quite understood the love this record receives, but definitely worth checking out)

If you want to get away from Miles a bit, I think the Soul Jazz compilations New Thing! or Universal Sounds of America do a good job of rounding up the best electric jazz circa the late 60s-early 70s.

There are some grooves on there that are just thick.

also check out the 'zawinul' alb which contains a diff. version of In A Silent Way, including the material that miles deleted from the tune - v. instructive insight into the miles method

OTMFM!

You might also like Nefertiti or The Sorcerer, though they'd be more difficult listening than either of the ones you've heard.

You've got it backwards. Tago Mago could almost be an outtake from a Bitches Brew session, not the other way around.

The Eno connection is "Amarcord", dedicated to Ellington, on the Get Up With It record. Eno mentioned it as inspiring Ambient 4: On Land. It's a really interesting, spacey track.

In a Silent Way = February 1969

While being a contemporary record, Dave Douglas' "The Infinite" taps into a similar space as In A Silent Way.

"Odyssey of Iska" by Wayne Shorter was recorded around that same time on Blue Note and it also similar in feel to In A Silent Way.

The Complete Silent Way Sessions is amazing listening, not just for the extra music but for the insight --

The original take of 'Shhh/Peaceful' actually hinges upon an extended melodic phrase that sounds exactly like a Miles In The Sky era composition -- it's a fantastic melody they return to about every four minutes or so. The one bar riff (the descending two note bassline) is just a downtime noodle they stretch out on between that phrase.

Macero cuts the phrase out entirely, leaving just 14 minutes of the improvisation on that one bar riff. Then he takes one of Miles' improvised melodies over the riff, and repeats it at the very beginning and the very end so it becomes a motive that bookends the piece.

I always wondered how the musicians could stay so intensely, maniacly focused on such minimal material -- and the answer is, in the real life performance, they were building and charging towards a composed phrase which they'd refresh themselves with every four minutes before returning to the trance section. It must have taken balls for Macero to cut out the heart of the piece, but the result is nothing is the sound of musicians staying electrified on the most minimal materials imaginable, they would have arrived at either that structure or that magnified focused sound without the editing...

The original phrase they cut out, though -- it's prime Miles, totally beautiful

I've always been fond of Sketches of Spain as well, though some think it's too mellow / trad.

Also, this record is responsible for me being engaged -- at least indirectly. This spring, I bought said Complete...Sessions box on eBay and lovingly gazed upon it for a few days...until my gf dropped it on the bathroom floor, thus fucking up the packaging (what I was doing leaving it perched on the boombox in the bathroom is another story). At any rate, we got into a huge, stupid fight about it, and to make up for starting said stupid fight, I said we should go to her favorite restaurant that Friday night (Nora, in DC). Since the fight had happened on Monday, by Thursday we almost decided to cancel it, but thought it'd be fun, so we didn't. Anyway, after having agonized over the perfect setting to propose for months, I decided to that night when we were drunk and talking about sentimental things like family.

And honestly, In a Silent Way was never even one of my favorite Miles records.

My guess is: he didn't bother.

And in the Bitches Sessions box they have a handy diagram that shows how Pharoah's dance was edited. I had no idea how meticulous the little tiny loops were.

I only wish that box had done what the others did: actually give you the unedited versions of those tunes (title track's got some fancy razor-work as well) -- instead we got 12 takes of "Little Blue Frog"...

recently saw a half-hour film of Miles at Isle of Wight, sans electric guitar but with Corea and Jarrett. 1970, parts were boring, parts were amazing. DeJohnette was superb.

seconded/thirded on the Dave Douglas stuff, too. he's great. anyone heard his recent couple-albums? isn't there one that's supposed to be like a soundtrack to silent films--Arbuckle or someone?

check out the smidge of Silent Way that Teo drops into the middle of Jack Johnson. I have no idea how he talked Miles into that one.

So this actually was a sample? I mentioned it once to a prof who was convinced that the band just played that bit live.

My ex-girlfriend has this, I remember it being quite good, though more conventional than IaSW. I liked the version of "In a Silent Way" in it too. It's sort of a director's cut: the song was originally composed by Zawinul in Vienna when he was watching snowflakes fall on the statue of Mozart. Anyway, apparently he didn't like the treatment Macero and Miles gave to the song, so he wanted to rerecord it in the form he intended it to be.

Not by me (see ILM passim et ad infinitium/nauseum)

Soon Over Babaluma being the sequel to Future Days is in some ways similar to how Bitches Brew is to In A Silent Way, as the sounds, techniques and tempos are both turned up a notch in the follow up.

There's the rub!

That would largely be b/c Miles took out all the chord changes, leaving only the melody...

It is a nice record. They use a Fender Rhodes and an acoustic bass in the band setup with some bass clarinet on some tracks, so the textures are very reminicient of late 60s turn of the 70s jazz.

(I also found the thread where Josh described Rush as a spiritual experience and was being hyperbolic not sarcastic. Ah, heady days.)

I don't like the self-titled Zawinul album -- better to get Weather Report's first self-titled, I think. (Don't get the second S/T!) Sextant is great, though.

The early '70s jazz-fusion band Nucleus has a disc, Elastic Rock, that might hit the spot too.

I was a little disappointed by the Isle of Wight performance.

listen a few more times to Kind of Blue

and check out A Love Supreme

Heh, you can't be a big fan of McLaughlin's own records!

Maybe this was already answered in this thread, but what's the general opinion of the three disc "sessions" sets for these albums? I know Macero did a lot of cutting and pasting for the finished albums. How do the sessions hold up?

Not that this should change your opinion of it (it either hits you or it doesn't), but Kind of Blue was actually very unique and tradition-breaking when it came out. It just also happens to be very easy to listen to and accessible, so much so that it's kind of become the definitive jazz album for many people. KOB was very much breaking with the bop tradition at the time, but most Charlie Parker probably sounds more radical to most people than KOB.

In a way maybe you could use the analogy of someone like Aaron Copland, who wrote very modern, innovative music that was also very pleasant to the ears, so that today a lot of his stuff is quintessential Americana, whereas Bartok and Stravinsky still sound avant garde.

I don't understand this reaction at all. I bought it when I was fifteen, and loved it for years, listening to it all the time. Now I don't listen to it much at all, but that's because I've got it all but memorized in my head, not because of some kind of inability to appreciate it on its own merits because it's been over-praised or some such I-read-too-many-magazines-and-believe-what-I-read-therein horseshit.

I would recommend the Silent Sessions, as it contains very little 'filler' - like 35 versions of a tossed-off vamp as in the Johnson Sessions - and it's the cheapest of the boxes.

It also does a really good job of showing how the album was edited, by including the full performances that were chopped up (something which as was mentioned above the Bitches Sessions box doesn't do).

Brakhage--thanks for the tip on the boxes.

I was actually going to post asking if anyone had some recommendations for something similar to that one, as i've still never heard anything else like it. "tauhid" by pharaoh sanders maybe comes close. doesn't need to be jazz, i just have a craving for that kind of dark, extended motif.

There's a track on Squarepusher's Budakhan Mindphone which, if it's not a straight sample, is an homage to "Circle". It's only a few minutes long, though.

-- pdf (newyorkisno...), November 9th, 2005.

Let me help you understand my reaction. I got into jazz around 1969 and the among the first jazz albums I had were IASW & BB and most of the Miles descendents mentioned upthread. But soon I got into the Chicago avant-garde: Roscoe Mitchell's Congliptious followed by the AEC material on BYG/Actuel (Reese & the Smooth Ones, A Jackson in Your House, A Message to Our Folks) and then the ESP avant material (Giuseppe Logan, New York Contemporary Five, Ayler, Heliocentric Worlds and so on). Whenever I heard KOB it was an anachronism, a bit of the past that seemed irrelavant in the light of Muhal's Things to Come from Those Now Gone, Levels and Degrees of Light and even things that had been recorded contemporaneously such as Ra's Angels & Demons at Play. For most of the twenty years from 1969 to 1989, I found it hard to listen to KOB even next to Miles's contemporaries--I loved Mingus no end, that shit swung, KOB was too down tempo for me.

I started going back though listening to the Coltrane Atlantic recordings and to Miles's classic quartets of the 60s. Sometime in the mid 80s KOB became available as a Columbia Legacy imprint and I put it on the player and played it over and over again. I think I had matured as a listener and began to appreciate the music that Miles and Evans composed as an alternative to bop.

Never was it a matter of my "inability to appreciate it on its own merits because it's been over-praised or some such I-read-too-many-magazines-and-believe-what-I-read-therein horseshit."

I have no idea where you got the idea that my not getting KOB was in any way innfluenced by such factors. It was simply a matter of slowing down and appreciating the music for what was there and not for what wasn't.

Working nearly contemporarily and forward (in jazz and jazz fusion--I'll leave the rock-fusion suggestions to those who hear those connections better than I):

John McLaughlin: Birds of Fire, and yes, Devotion
Hancock: the Mwandishi recordings up-thread and don't overlook Head Hunters
Jan Garbarek/Bobo Stenson Q-tet: Witchi-Tai-To
Soft Machine: 5
John Surman/Morning Glory: s.t.
Tony Williams Lifetime: Emergency
Khalid Yasin/larry Young: Lawrence of Newark

-- Tyler Wilcox (tywil...), November 8th, 2005.

Oh, ick! And let me assure you I am a Laswell fan. I hate what LAswell did on PPanthalassa. As in, let's imagine IASW without Tony Williams. Gack. I probably have forty or so disks by each of Miles and of Laswell and they ain't all gems, for sure, but Panthalassa is one I sold without regrets.

And he did do s sequel, sort of. It is called "Divine Light: Reconstructions and Mix Translations" in which Laswell remixes & recasts the Carlos Santana/Jonhn McLaughlin "Love Devotion & Surrender" and the Santana/Alice Coltrane "Illuminations." I have kept this one, but still prefer the original LDS. He may have improved "Illuminations" somewhat or at least offered a remix that is a little less pretentious than the original. (or am I thinking of Welcome?

As I was saying, I purchased Witchi-Tai-To about 6 months ago and it's barely left my record player. A wholly amazing album.

I hadn't listened to this in years, then put side A on the other night. I thought I had maybe fucked up my turntable because the guitars sounded kinda out of tune no matter what I did. Then I listened to a couple of iTunes clips and remembered "oh, that's just how it sounds!"

I have the Panthalassa mix of this and it really is beautiful music.

It's interesting that in both the Tim Buckley and Brian Eno biographies, both subjects got so obsessed with In A Silent Way that they listened to little else for a long period (nearly a year).

Anyone got Big Fun? Been listening to it loads lately and it's some of the best shit I've ever heard. Obv love on the corner, get up with it, and iasw. Where to next? Is dark magus good? Herbie hancock? All of you need Big Fun by the way, I listened to it on a long bus journey through Spain this week, just such end times experimentalism, about as rich as music gets.

lotsa good suggestions of similar stuff in this thread and this one: In A Similarly Silent Way

you've heard pangaea, right?

In A Silent Way is among the best albums ever.

I love Big Fun. Ife!

Dark Magus is great, Pangaea is great, Agharta is mostly great.

Herbie's solo stuff immediately following his stint with Miles is amazing too, but in a different way, not as out there. more pop hooks tho

I don't have Get Up With It, always annoyed me that this stuff is kinda hard to find on vinyl

Big Fun is also one of my favorites. Just going through this thread and thinking that it was getting the love it deserves. I should listen to it tonight.

I always thought it was weird that Ife was the one eletric-period Davis piece that hip hpo guys sampled (offhand I can think of at least two - Digital Underground and New Kingdom)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCO79Y1eQvI

speaking of Miles, am I a complete chump for sort of wanting this?
http://feature.legacyrecordings.com/milesdavis/images/Miles-CompleteAlbums-01.jpg
Miles Davis - Complete Columbia Album Collection

No more than any of the Beatles chumps.

seriously. tho u probably have at least half those albums already

i do. and unlike the Beatles things, these aren't new remasterings or anything, I don't think ... AND YET.

The 97-onwards Miles remasterings are all fine to my ears anyway.

oh yeah, I don't think there's any particular need to remaster those records again. They sound great!

i think i just occasionally get box set fever

nah I totally want that box set

there are a lot of box sets I would like to have tbf

The box sounds cool though kinda inessential since I already have 5 of the 7 Columbia sets (still gotta get the Gil Evans box and the Seven Steps box).

However this sounds cool: "The release of the MILES DAVIS COLUMBIA box set coincides with a three-month exhibition at the Museé de la Musique in Paris (October 16, 2009, through January 17, 2010) entitled "We Want Miles." The exhibition follows the evolution of the artist from his birth (May 26, 1926) and childhood in East Saint Louis to his final Paris concert in July, two months before his death on September 28, 1991."

I hope it's better than the jazz museum in KC, though, which is sadly kinda silly.

I always wonder if the "Complete Sessions" box-sets are worth it. I've got the studio albums of In A Silent Way, Jack Johnson, Bitches Brew, and others, but there are these huge three-disc sets that I sort of want.

oh they're worth it. Jack Johnson esp., imo

in recent months i have struggled to listen to anything other than miles davis (post IASW stuff basically).
guess that means Big Fun is now on my list as i had given that one a miss.
oh, and the remasters sound fantastic, excellently packaged (no digipack nonsense), and are reasonably priced now for us cheapskates.
a good example of how to do a reissue program.

Can't nab the Jack Johnson complete sessions on eMusic, since it's like 1000 credits. But my local used disc store has it.

Jack Johnson, IASW, and BB boxes are all really good.

So are the On The Corner and Cellar Door boxes! Do you have $500 to spare.

Columbia House did me right on these boxes (like $30 a pop), except the On the Corner one which was a Christmas gift b/c otherwise it was like $120 for 6 disks and it's tough to justify that (though the packaging is gorgeous).

yeah you can actually find pretty good deals on some of them. Bitches Brew I think I got new from amazon for $25.

exactly, I got the three I mentioned for around 25 each. Still haven't seen the OTC box for less than 100 though.

The Miles + Gil Evans box is really nice, probably my favorite pre-IASW Miles stuff.

As I understand it, those boxes end up compiling most (if not all) of stuff like Big Fun, Water Babies, Get Up With It & Milestones (the wierdest one of them all)...

The Silent Way box takes some getting used to, the way it splits up Filles de Kilamanjaro.

The Sixties Quintet box is fucking amazing and was real eye-opening for me as I was already pretty conversant with the electric stuff.

I am seriously thinking about buying that massive Miles box (70 CDs and a DVD). It includes his Isle of Wight performance on CD, which is nice, but the down side is that the versions of Agharta and Pangaea are the U.S. versions, not the Japanese versions (which have much better sound and more music). But I might just spend the $300 Amazon is asking for it, since my birthday is less than a month after its street date...

i've been digging around on the net to see if I could find downloads of the Japanese versions of Agharta/Pangaea. I've already bought the US versions. Can anyone help me out. :'(

god damn it i didn't want to know this :(

What are the differences between the Japanese and US versions?

xpost, never mind, I read upthread

someone hook us up, don't make me beg. i have a newborn baby, i can't afford japanese imports are you kidding me.

Herbie's solo stuff immediately following his stint with Miles is amazing too, but in a different way, not as out there. more pop hooks tho

Are you talking about the stuff he did from Head Hunters on? Because the three albums he did with the Mwandishi band (Mwandishi, Crossings, and Sextant) after leaving Miles but before moving to jazz-funk with Head Hunters are certainly as "out there" as Miles' records of the era. And, like I said upthread, they're great stuff and certainly worth checking out if you like In a Silent Way.

yeah I was ref'ing the Headhunters (and post Headhunters) stuff, I haven't heard the Mwandishi band albums

Sextant is fantastic, still never heard the others.

You should. They're awesomely experimental and groovy and trippy and cosmic stuff, especially Sextant, which I think the best album Herbie has ever made.

(x-post)

All three of the Mwandishi albums are fantastic, and so is the live Headhunters album Flood. Of course, that one's a Japanese import, too, but it's totally worth it.

The other two are less synth-y as Sextant (Mwandishi has no synths at all, I think), but they're pretty similar otherwise: trancey extended grooves combined with bursts of free playing and cosmic noise. The last tune on Crossings has one of the weirdest, most disorienting use of vocals I've ever heard on a jazz record.

That was x-post to Nick B.

Most of the Mwandishi band (including Herbie) also appears on Eddie Henderson's Realization and Inside Out, which were reissued as a two-disc comp a few years ago. They're mostly quite good, though I think compositionally they're a bit weaker than the Herbie albums, and the lack of Julian Priester hurts the sound of the band. Certainly worth getting anyway, if you like the Mwandishi era Herbie.

Yeah, those Henderson albums are quite good. A bunch of the Mwandishi members released albums under their own names in the early '70s that are worth checking out, including Julian Priester's Love, Love and Buster Williams' Pinnacle.

Got Pangaea, been listening a lot. I actually am more excited about this music than I have been about any records for a long time. Can't get enough of it.

You should. They're awesomely experimental and groovy and trippy and cosmic stuff, especially Sextant, which I think the best album Herbie has ever made.

Yeah. I think the band changed drummers for Sextant, to pretty amazing results.

They didn't change drummers, Billy Hart was the drummer on all three albums. Sextant has an added percussionist (whose name escapes me) though, maybe that's what you're referring to?

You're right. I was thinking of Thrust. From the Rolling Stone review:

Yet where Headhunters was undergirded by the capable, facile drummer Harvey Mason, Thrust's drummer was jazz-funk genius Mike Clark, a scrawny little fiend who'd rather play music than eat. On extended jams like "Palm Grease" and "Actual Proof," Clark and bassist Paul Jackson are a two-headed computer disgorging off-kilter but irresistibly fat-bottomed licks; Hancock's Fender Rhodes and Bennie Maupin's reeds, meanwhile, dance on the ceiling. Thrust is a great album: brave, risky music making.

i'm trying to think of other artists who i fall back on so regularly and easily -- if the 'what record should i put on next' thought process goes on longer than 5 minutes for me, i feel like i end up putting on miles. his records pretty much never leave the 'recently played' stack next to my stereo, and they haven't since i've bought em

this one especially

Tried finding it myself, cos I'm sure I've seen you guys talk about it before somewhere on here, but couldn't:

Agharta & Pangaea - is there bonus material on the Japanese versions, or is it just better sound quality?

No bonus, just an altered tracklisting ('Prelude' is one track, not two, the second disc is one track, not two). I hear the 2006 Japanese remaster is pretty incredible sonicwise (it's released on the 'Blu-Spec' $50–60 CD).

Er, I was speaking of Agharta specifically there

No bonus, just an altered tracklisting

Nope. Agharta's second disc has about 10 minutes of music not on the US edition; Pangaea's second disc has about four minutes of music not on the US edition. Or maybe vice versa, but either way, the Japanese editions do have more music and a radically improved mix.

Oh man, I have to have those then. You're talking about the blu-specs?

There's a <a href="http://legacyrecordings.uservoice.com/pages/6333-reissue-requests/suggestions/76713-miles-davis-complete-live-in-japan-1975?ref=title";>petition</a> up to persuade Columbia to make a 1975 Tokyo box the next Miles box. If you're curious and you have Agharta and Pangaea, the rest of the Tokyo nights were compiled onto various bootlegs. Another Unity is a pretty easy one to find.

Listening to Another Unity now. Man, forget all that "strangle Hitler in the crib" shit; if I had a time machine, I'd go back to Japan in 1975 and see every show Miles Davis played. Holy fuck.

Did the Agartha and Pangeo original Japanese vinyl releases have different material too?

I just found Big Fun on vinyl and absolutely love it. I also voted on that Legacy/Columbia Tokyo box, excellent idea.

Sorry that should read Pangaea.

I'm quite surprised no one comes up with any Scandinavian ECM or Rune Grammofon stuff, they made a carreer out of re-using Miles' work from the early seventies. A release well searching for is a Dutch cd made by Eric Vloeimans and Erik Voermans called 'Nocturnal Ghost Songs', with guitar soundscapes and trumpet with in fact a cover of 'In A Silent Way'.

Something very 'In A Silent Way'-esque is the track 6.2 on Supersilent's album '6'. Arve Henriksen's trumpet solo is just stellar on that tune.

Eric Vloeimans new group 'Gatecrashin' is also similar to Miles Electric band. And I just fell in love with that beautiful title track from Wayne Shorter's 'Moto Grosso Feio'. Just gorgeous, well worth hearing if you like 'In A Silent Way'.

Thanks for the Agharta & Pangaea info, folks.

I'm quite surprised no one comes up with any Scandinavian ECM or Rune Grammofon stuff

I like to think of Khmer as the record Miles would have eventually made if he'd continued in the Tutu vein.

If you have Spotify
http://open.spotify.com/artist/7rZR0ugcLEhNrFYOrUtZii

Scored a excellent condition second hand copy of the Complete In A Silent Way Session box set today.

Extra pleased as it is the original short box, rather than the tall version. Aye, I'm a saddo like that.

The box sounds cool though kinda inessential since I already have 5 of the 7 Columbia sets (still gotta get the Gil Evans box and the Seven Steps box).

However this sounds cool: "The release of the MILES DAVIS COLUMBIA box set coincides with a three-month exhibition at the Museé de la Musique in Paris (October 16, 2009, through January 17, 2010) entitled "We Want Miles." The exhibition follows the evolution of the artist from his birth (May 26, 1926) and childhood in East Saint Louis to his final Paris concert in July, two months before his death on September 28, 1991."

I hope it's better than the jazz museum in KC, though, which is sadly kinda silly.

― Euler, Monday, September 28, 2009 2:46 PM (8 months ago)

Saw this exhibit on the weekend, and its got me listening to IASW nonstop.

I just discovered this album last week. Completely hooked.

http://jazzsermon.com/wp-content/uploads//2009/09/wreport1971.jpg

I presume everyone who likes In A Silent Way also has the first Weather Report album? Cos it's great.

Oh he'll yes. There's a great thread around here "stuff that sounds like in a silent way" that hipped me to a bunch of great records.

iPhone always subs "he'll" for "hell" dammit

Joe Zawinul's debut album is better.

xp

I recommend Richard Williams' recent book about Kind of Blue and the subsequent music he describes as continuing the spirit of that record.

hmm, yeah i was curious about that book, though I'll admit that the cover made me lol.
http://www.gaudeamus.fm/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/the-blue-moment-richard-williams-198x300.jpg

and here's that thread mentioned above -- cool stuff throughout: In A Similarly Silent Way

Joe Zawinul's debut album is better.

xp

― hipity-hopity muzik ftw! (Ioannis), Friday, December 10, 2010 3:27 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i like that almost as much as in a silent way

that is a very bizarre cover, had to look at it a while before I realized what it was

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/miles-davis-in-a-silent-way-round-21-nicks-choice/

Melody Maker around 1988 were trying to tout a scene called Oceanic Rock which had In A Silent Way as a benchmark/icon. Included things like A.R.Kane , Saqqara Dogs, Hugo Largo, Bark Psychosis, Butterfly Child, Long Fin Killie, Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom among others.

Turned me onto some good stuff even if it was just a fabricated movement

Really digging IASW at the mo. Think some more recommendations could include later Talk Talk, things like My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, and possibly the latest stuff by Ulver/Sunn O))). Not exactly the same but similar in execution.

If you haven't heard Deep Listening or Crone Music by Pauline Oliveros, I highly recommend them for IASW fans.

Joe Zawinul - Zawinul

(this is zawinul post-miles, pre-weather report....this album has a lot of the same players, very similar feel

also has zawinul's arrangement of the song "in a silent way" apparently more like how he envisioned it..

this basically is the sister album to in a silent way in a lot of ways

good recs there, Deep Listening is amazing but I have never heard the Zawinul album

lineup on zawinul speaks for itself:

Joe Zawinul – acoustic and electric piano
Herbie Hancock – electric piano
George Davis (tracks 1-3 & 5), Hubert Laws (track 4) – flute
Woody Shaw (tracks 1, 2, 4 & 5), Jimmy Owens (track 3) – trumpet
Earl Turbinton (tracks 1-3 & 5), Wayne Shorter (track 4) – soprano saxophone
Miroslav Vitouš, Walter Booker – bass
Billy Hart, David Lee, Joe Chambers – percussion
Jack DeJohnette – melodica (track 3), percussion (track 4)

(not as much crossover as i remember except shorter and hancock)

This is the thread mentioned by blank upthread btw:

In A Similarly Silent Way

i think i actually listened to too many things in this vein because of that thread, haha

amazing how (a) fresh (and even forward-thinking) in a silent way still sounds today; and (b) many fresh (and even forward-thinking) modern acts seem inspired by in a silent way. maybe my favorite album ever.

it really is something (and maybe even stands outside of miles' later electric work). hard to imagine what it was like to hear this record in 1969 for the first time.

i was a big tortoise fan and hearing in a silent way finally was a kind of crazy "oooo shit this is where they got it"....not unlike when teenage fugazi fan me finally heard gang of four and other post punk stuff

Yeah I had that kind of moment vis a vis Future Days and Laughing Stock when I finally heard IASW.

I actually have yet to listen to the IASW box because I just want those great long edit suites, I don't want to hear it exploded into sessions...

i heard from ppl that it's sort of underwhelming and i know teo hate those box sets

teo's name should always be said in a dry barely audible miles croak

complete in a silent way box set is pretty happening, i really love this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GehX6bRy1yk

the box is good but i haven't listened to any of it in years, nor wanted to

because this record never ever gets old and there are no substitutes for it

^ that's the way i feel about these threads recommending other records, none of them stack up (though lots of them are great on their own)

I found the box utterly fascinating, partly from the standpoint of hearing how it was constructed (e.g., "Holy shit, Teo heard that organ chord 15 minutes in and realized, 'Yep, we'll use that for the beginning'!"), and partly because the haunting atmosphere of the finished product is still present (and, at times, overwhelming) on the unedited pieces. The box demystifies and mystifies simultaneously.

Spot on about ´Zawinul´. But what about John Surman´s ´Way Back When´? It´s in the same class as IASW.

don't know that one, will investigate

The edit of IASW/Shh Peaceful and It's About That Time on Panthalassa is worth checking out.

Harold Budd's Pavilion of Dreams and Eberhard Weber's The Following Morning both share an IASW-esque nocturnal ambient fusion vibe.

think i mention this every time IASW sound-alikes come up, but this really is the closest thing i know to ssssh/peaceful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv7zSbmQt1o

What about Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, is that relevant here? I've always wanted to hear that based on its title alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqYkosktnmg

What about Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, is that relevant here? I've always wanted to hear that based on its title alone

it's a great rec, but it's not especially like IASW (guess the closest point of comparison wld be like a less zany art ensemble)

Surman is really good, thanks

To me Afternoon of a Georgia Faun really sounds like Americans binging on the already emergent Euro improv aesthetic, particularly that of the John Stevens/SME variety.

Shuggie Otis' Freedom Flight sounds a huge lot like IASW (the quieter sections from side two + a couple bluesy licks, basically)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rL-pE0xNC4

this been posted yet? apologies if I missed it.

Ray Moore (mixing and editing engineer): The mixing and editing took place between September 22 to October 24, although I did not work on the project exclusively. What was unusual was that Miles came in five times during this period. The first time on September 24. He didn’t say very much, but wanted certain things taken out. He was unhappy with Harvey Brooks’ solos. At one point he said to me, ‘I want all the C’s taken out.’ I looked at him and said, ‘You have to tell me which C’s and how to do it without breaking the phrases.’ He also wanted me to cut the tape at a certain point, and then specified another place where he wanted me to come in again. I said to him, ‘Miles, if you do that, there will be a ¾ measure, instead of 4/4. He looked at me, a bit taken aback, and then said, ‘Cut the fucking tape! Who is going to know?’

http://www.miles-beyond.com/iaswbitchesbrew.htm

wow @ teo:

Teo Macero: Miles would record his stuff, and then he’d just leave. He would sometimes say, ‘I like this or that,’ and then I’d say: ‘I’ll listen to it and I’ll put it together. If you like it, fine, if not, we’ll change it.’ So I was the one with the vision. Miles also had a vision, but he wasn’t really a composer, he didn’t compose in an organized way. It was happenstance. He played with these great musicians, and when they had played enough, I was able to cut out the stuff that wasn’t good, and piece something together from the rest. When we began editing In A Silent Way we had two huge stacks of 2” tape, 40-something reels in total. They were recorded over a longer period. It was one of the rare times Miles came to an editing session, because I’d told him, ‘This is a big job, you want to get your ass down here.’ So Miles said, ‘We’ll do it together.’ And we did. We cut things down to 8 ½ minutes on one LP side, and 9 ½ on the other, and then he said to me, “That’s my record.’ I said, ‘Go to hell!’ because it wasn’t enough music for an album. So I ended up creating repeats to make it longer. A lot of the stuff we cut was bullshit, and some of it is put out on this new boxed set. I raised hell at Columbia the other day and told them it was ridiculous they’re putting this bullshit out.

lol 'repeats to make it longer' somewhere stanley crouch is just sooooo vindicated, he thinks

brb gonna go remove all the C's from some records

the 18 minute version would probably be amazing.

well since the repeats were added it should be easy to recreate

loooool

while we were standing in the hallway John came over and whispered to me, ‘Can I ask you a question? I answered, ‘Sure’. He then said, ‘Herbie, I can’t tell... was that any good what we did? I mean, what did we do? I can’t tell what’s going on!’

In A Short Sweet Way xp

The Down Beat review (by Martin Williams, iirc) took the repetition to be a sloppily-overlooked technical error.

so he noticed that it was verbatim, that's sharp

Gleefully anticipating the Sony Legacy 60th anniversary "Miles' Cut" Silent Way 7" already.

followed by the box set of bill laswell remix 7"s

slightly off-topic: Bobby Previte put together an orchestra that plays Miles' electric stuff. A clip:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrEwbgzSeog

Miles At The Fillmore - Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3 4CD Box Set To Be Released March 25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrEwbgzSeog

so intensely, maniacly focused on such minimal material

jon l otm

and then he said to me, “That’s my record.’

^^

because this record never ever gets old and there are no substitutes for it

― j., Wednesday, February 5, 2014 11:12 AM (9 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^

^^^^

^^^^
x3

Not sure it's been mentioned in the thread but there was an excellent article on Stereogum by phil freeman about the best and worst of Miles Davis in which he mentions how part of the album is just the first part repeated - literally replayed. I can get my head around the studio work, but I find the idea of repeating the same section just really hard to parse. What was the decision behind that? How do others justify it?

wow @ teo:

Teo Macero: Miles would record his stuff, and then he’d just leave. He would sometimes say, ‘I like this or that,’ and then I’d say: ‘I’ll listen to it and I’ll put it together. If you like it, fine, if not, we’ll change it.’ So I was the one with the vision. Miles also had a vision, but he wasn’t really a composer, he didn’t compose in an organized way. It was happenstance. He played with these great musicians, and when they had played enough, I was able to cut out the stuff that wasn’t good, and piece something together from the rest. When we began editing In A Silent Way we had two huge stacks of 2” tape, 40-something reels in total. They were recorded over a longer period. It was one of the rare times Miles came to an editing session, because I’d told him, ‘This is a big job, you want to get your ass down here.’ So Miles said, ‘We’ll do it together.’ And we did. We cut things down to 8 ½ minutes on one LP side, and 9 ½ on the other, and then he said to me, “That’s my record.’ I said, ‘Go to hell!’ because it wasn’t enough music for an album. So I ended up creating repeats to make it longer. A lot of the stuff we cut was bullshit, and some of it is put out on this new boxed set. I raised hell at Columbia the other day and told them it was ridiculous they’re putting this bullshit out.

― festival culture (Jordan), Tuesday, 18 February 2014 20:50 (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

How do others justify it?

because it sounds fucking amazing!

dl that literally has been known and liner-noted and factoided about this album since forever

justify it? like… what, are you mad about not getting your money's worth? bored that you're hearing the same sounds again? (do you also only play the record once?)

(they're not the same, if you're hearing them repeated - let alone after other sounds intervene)

The whole repitition thingy makes it all sound very classical. Bach would also always just go back from the beginning.

how did bach justify that

He was paid by the minute.

hey hey hey, don't get me wrong - i love it, and there's a strange feeling similar to a 'rewind' in dance music. but shit, i hadn't relaised it was just the first part played over again; I thought they were just playing it very very similarly.

hang on, so is it the same or not?

also, i mean, if there was so much stuff cut out of it, it surprises me that they'd just repeat a whole part of the record again... but yeah, i didn't know if they altered the repeated part or not - as in you get to the end of Benefit of Mr Kite and it just starts playing the first three songs from Sgt Peppers all over again or whatevs...

well if you eat the same breakfast next monday you had this monday, is it the same or not

i don't throw up last monday's breakfast and eat it again?!

what i'm asking is - are the two parts EXACTLY the same or are they different? I've never been able to tell.

I think the amazing thing about the record is that Miles had only met John McLaughlin for the first time the evening before, and invited him to the session the next day. Such a chance thing, and yet the music is unimaginable without his contribution.

McLaughlin's playing on those few Miles records is some of the best work he ever did imo.

yea i agree.

i've found it very difficult to get into mahavishnu orchestra. i put on birds of fire here and there but i never make it through.

are the two parts EXACTLY the same or are they different?
they're exactly the same

but you're different

Love that Miles supposedly told McL, a technician supreme, "Play like you don't know how to play," so Go Ahead John had to unravel himself on the spot.

It worked!

Marcos you should listen to him on a Wayne Shorter record called Super Nova, which also features Sonny Sharrock, similar "I don't know how to play" type playing from him.

they're exactly the same

― tylerw, Friday, November 14, 2014 3:17 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but you're different

― tylerw, Friday, November 14, 2014 3:20 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Love this. I think this nails it.

^^^ Yes

whoa, great post

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newseventsimages?p_image_type=mainnews2012&p_image_id=23110

^^^^^^^^^^^^

lol

Just realized that this is one of those albums I have managed not to listen to in about 15 years. Crazy. (I listened to it so much between the ages of 16 to 25 that I basically have it internalized, but still ...). Gotta get a new copy I think.

Every time I try and play this back in my head today, it starts seguing into a short French horn section on Beach Boys' Smile.

Hah. Sounds pretty great actually.

the "complete" box set from these sessions is definitely not as compelling and cohesive as e.g. the complete jack johnson stuff. but i still enjoy it.

this album was one of my proper introductions to jazz, back when i was in high school, and it's hard not to cherish it for that reason alone.

i mean, i heard plenty of jazz before that, but i didn't really seek out whole albums, and some of the stuff i had been exposed to previously was a little jive (like wynton marsalis).

complete on the corner sessions is really the best of the complete sessions series imo. there is like 9 stellar albums worth of music in that collection (some of which was actually released as albums but still).

As the guitar had captured my brain at an early age the prominent guitar on this era of Miles really resonated with me. Such cool playing (as noted many times here) and for sure a gateway for me. Was into some other jazz at the time but pretty much none of the trad stuff with guitar worked for me that well. Still not a big jazz guitar fan, but this is of course a way different animal.

i think it was maybe the electric piano that first hooked me on this record!

Definitely a huge plus.

Just for reference, if anyone wants to gift me a Fender Rhodes I will give it a good home.

Promise.

complete on the corner sessions is really the best of the complete sessions series imo. there is like 9 stellar albums worth of music in that collection (some of which was actually released as albums but still).

― marcos, Friday, November 14, 2014 4:37 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it's really good. i checked it out after you recommended it on another thread. i love on the corner, but it kind of amazes me how much they cut out, and dare i say it, how it could have potentially been a more coherent and diverse album had it been cut differently out of these sections.

As the guitar had captured my brain at an early age the prominent guitar on this era of Miles really resonated with me. Such cool playing (as noted many times here) and for sure a gateway for me. Was into some other jazz at the time but pretty much none of the trad stuff with guitar worked for me that well. Still not a big jazz guitar fan, but this is of course a way different animal.

― grandavis, Friday, November 14, 2014 4:38 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It astounds me how many different times I tried and failed to get into jazz because i was checking out the wrong (i.e. shit) stuff.

yea the electric piano and miles playing hooked me. my brother was trying to tell me a few weeks ago that miles' greatest skill as a musician was picking the right band members, and while i think that is obviously one of his major strengths he is also just an amazing player.

xp oh yea definitely, tbh i rarely listen to the regular on the corner lp anymore, i just go to the complete sessions. that is not true for in a silent way or jack johnson.

miles' autobiography is so fun to read as i mentioned elsewhere, and like 80% of the book is him talking about how this player or that player was "just a motherfucker" on his instrument and was such a joy to watch

didn't the "on the corner" sessions actually produce most of like three or four LPs? i get really confused about this period of miles, in terms of what was recorded when. seems like he was in and out of the studio quite frequently without necessarily designating certain sessions as intended to produce a specific album. and of course the fact that the albums were created largely by macero in the editing room complicates it all further.

i actually had been listening to louis armstrong and count basie for a few years by the time i discovered this album, so i guess i was a fan of a certain kind of prewar jazz. but for me that stuff coded as pop music: concise, catchy. i don't think i really "got" jazz in its postwar form until after i really got stuck on this LP.

yea "on the corner sessions" is kind of misnomer, it covers like a 3 or 4 year period. feel like it could have easily been called the complete get up with it sessions, since the entirety of that double album is included

the weirdest part of listening to those "complete" box sets is when miles is speaking to the other musicians in his characteristic croaky whisper. i had always sort of imagined that his weirdly taciturn public persona was just that, a persona put on for public consumption. but eavesdropping on these sessions you realize he really was a complete weirdo.

jesus how many times can i use a variant of the word "weird"?

substitute "eccentric" for at least one of those instances

it's okay dude weird is like the best word

Yeah, the title The Complete On the Corner Sessions is really misleading; a more accurate title would have been The Complete Sessions 1972-75. The material for On the Corner was all tracked in, like, two days in June and an overdub session in July of 1972. The other sessions in the box wound up on Big Fun, Directions (IIRC), and Get Up With It. But as has been stated, there are literally hours of fucking glorious outtakes in there too.

All the various repackagings of Miles's early to mid 70s electric takes/outtakes/whatever get very hard to follow.

Can i just stan for the Panthalassa record for a sec, *not* the remixes record, but the original which is 4 suites, re-edits of tracks each about 15 mins long as I recall with two or three tracks in each suite.

i like that too, tho i know that some on ILM hate it with a passion!

Several Miles boxes (incl the apparently OOP Cellar Door) are on Spotify. Loved the first couple discs of OTC box, but yeah it seems to be just going by chronology, so I'd rather hear "He Loved Him Madly" and several others on the albs where I first heard 'em. But as dog latin says, always good to hear boxes as sources for your own edits, in reverie or elsewhere.
Yeah I like McL. best w Miles and elsewhere in this phase of the electric Miles era, like Devotion, with Buddy Miles(!)and organist Larry Young---- listening reminds me that all three played with Hendrix (McL, on jam tapes, Young also with Miles), but there's no imitation, just bold raw-edged cosmic fun (though McL was reportedly bummed by Alan Douglas's edits). Seems like the original vinyl had a track (or two?) missing from the CD versions I've found, but there's no reduction in the exhilaration.
McL. and Young were good with Tony Williams Lifetime too (even had Jack Bruce for a while: now there was a heavy band).
Live tapes of McL, and Carlos S. are worth looking for, in my ltd. experience (don't remember the studio album that well).
Liked Mahavishnu, but Cobham could seem kind of musclebound. Try the first and live ones.
Acoustic-wise, liked the re-re-mastered My Goal's Beyond, and (much more exciting) the live Remember Shakti twofer on Ryko.
xpost Super Nova won't knock yer socks off, at least not as consistently as you might think, from checking http://www.discogs.com/Wayne-Shorter-Super-Nova/release/774676, but it can generate the Shorter vibrations.

not a fan of panthalassa though i can't say i've given it a thorough listen

Isn't panthalassa that Bill Laswell "remix" album? That's some bullshit imo.

oh whoops explained upthread nm

Cobham could seem kind of musclebound

I actually love his drumming on mahavishnu, it's the only time I really really dig him that I can think of.

XP - I think the original Panthalassa has gotten residual stink from the remixes record (which I've never heard) with people getting the two mixed up.

haha ok i also didn't read maresnest's post thoroughly enough, i just assumed it was the bill laswell garbage remix

I like Panthalassa too, but if you're predisposed to not liking Laswell's stuff, as many around here seem to be, I can see where your mileage would vary. The original, not the remixes.

As long as I'm looking at discogs for the Wayne, might as well check versions of Devotion: the only legit CD version shown as missing a track is *one* of the Celluloid reissues, CELD5010.

I'm fairly sure there are a couple of sections that made their way into Panthalassa that had never been released before (or until the box sets came out) like the bit called Arghata prelude (dub) which Iirc is called Turnaround on the IASW box set.

Article - http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may98/articles/billlaswell.html

Arghata Prelude Dub - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2OrVsFw_2Q (starts at about 12:20)

I like Panthalassa for...their compactness? like single edits kinda. it's what I keep on my phone rather than the big albums, sorta 70s Miles mobile.

Also the extended intro on IASW is lovely!

^^^ totally! I used that a droney intro to dj sets a time or three.

I like Panthalassa just fine. The remixes, no thanks. Re the other stuff dow mentioned: The recent Mahavishnu "Complete Recordings" box is fantastic; the albums are all remastered, even the live one, and there's a full CD of bonus live tracks from the same shows which is fucking killer.

I have a great bootleg of the Carlos Santana/John McLaughlin band (which also included Larry Young on organ, Michael Shrieve on bass and Billy Cobham on drums IIRC); incredible stuff, half-hour monster jams like a mix of Mahavishnu and Santana (obviously) but with more metal power to it, almost verging on Earthless territory at times. It's the Chicago show, 9/1/73 I think the date is - find it if you can.

^that sounds awesome. love those tony williams albums with mclaughlin and larry young

damn apart from the miles stuff i feel like 70s fusion is like another planet to me, i need to get on this shit. i haven't had luck earlier with a few albums but i just know there is something there to open up for me. i mean i'm fucking flipping out about jaco pastorius' playing on joni records and starting to feel like i need to jump on the fusion bus real soon

Wait Michael Shrieve played bass too?

xp herbie hancock's mwandishi stuff is probably a good place to dive in beyond miles, if you haven't already gotten into that.

Marcus, sounds like the next step for you is Weather Report

Marcos although I'm on record as a Jaco hater, here's one I like a lot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jng_yZUc4F0

^^ awesome! yes weather report. feel like i even have some old weather report records in my vinyl collection that i got for free a while back when i worked at a record store. i might be thinking of return to forever though.

xp yes mwandishi definitely is on my list. sextant is great but it's the only herbie mwandishi-era record i know.

i have headhunters and i dig it for sure but i really like that tune "sly" the best on there. a lot of fusion i've heard doesn't have that dark menacing weirdness that "get up with it" does and that's what i'm looking for mostly. though jaco doesn't have that obviously and i dig him. so i might not know what i want.

first Joe Zawinul (self titled) pre-Weather Report solo album is the closest to a sister album to In a Silent Way

Yeah I know exactly the vibe you're talking about wrt Sly. Will try to think of stuff. Maybe also Herbie's score for Death Wish. Also have you ever heard the tune Butterfly off his record Thrust? I think that might scratch the same itch.

Wait Marcos do you know the Miles record Filles de Kilamanjaro? Great dark, proto-fusion stuff, one of my favorites.

Marcos also I think you'd like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iZ7id-lxXo

will check out all this stuff! definitely heard filles, basically all miles albums i've got. the rest is new!

Another suggestion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5CNYsmAJwI

Weather Report is so many different bands- the one I like best is the Live in Tokyo one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiBZeo_ZxWQ

For the dark side, check Miles' Pangea, Agharta, Dark Magus, Black Beauty. Weather Report's Mysterious Traveler is about as spooky as they get. Brace yerself for Sonny Sharrock's Black Woman. Jazz-Rock etc. aside, Coltrane can get pretty dark, on songs like "Alabama."

Lalo Schifrin 70s film scores. Start with Dirty Harry OST.

I don't think Shrieve played bass. I found a youtube of a portion of that Chicago concert and the personnel are
John McLaughlin - Guitar (double-neck)
Carlos Santana - Guitar
Khalid Yasin (aka Larry Young) - Organ, Keyboards
Doug Rauch - Bass
Billy Cobham - Drums
Armando Peraza - Percussions

http://youtu.be/O-0u2juyLYc

Rauch was Santana's bassist at the time iirc. The torrent for that show is easy to find, but nobody's seeding -- it's been sitting on zero for 6 hrs now.

I couldn't remember who Santana's bassist was, is all. Shrieve's name popped into my head.

IIRC there's one billy cobham record i like a lot but i can't remember the title and i'm not at home

i like the first bill laswell LP (baselines) and some of the early material stuff.

i've also developed a taste for some of santana's fusion records from the early 70s, but i do find myself wincing at times while listening to them

I love that whole stretch of Santana stuff from '72-'75: Caravanserai, Love Devotion Surrender, Illuminations (with Alice Coltrane), Welcome, and especially Lotus, which sounds like Santana trying to make his own version of Agharta.

Xp
I'd guess you mean Cobham's Spectrum album?

Wow, checking out Illuminations now.

I saw Santana in 74, and my memory of that night is much like Lotus. Redeems every dorky thing he's done since.

yeah he's traveled a strange road.

Always given flakey interviews, and when I saw him do a guest turn w Miles in a long 80s concert vid, he played all over everybody, chewed the scenery 4ever; Miles got in one sardonic oblique-stroke note at the very end, upstaged the whole performance.
Anybody heard The Swing of Delight? Described here by allmusic's William Ruhlmann:
For his second "solo" album, Carlos Santana used Miles Davis' famed '60s group--Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams -- plus members of the current Santana band, for a varied, jazz-oriented session that was one of his more pleasant excursions from the standard Santana sound. (Originally released as a double-LP, The Swing of Delight was reissued on a single CD.)

Wow, hadn't heard of that. I'd be curious to hear it, but sadly, by that time, whatever was left of Williams' brilliance had completely vanished.

I just got it (along with a lot of the other late '70s through late '80s band and "solo" albums) last night; will check it out this week.

thankfully you can't see santana's guitar face while you listen to record

I never found any use for Carlos Santana

smdh

Hurting, check out Caravanserai if you haven't.

The torrent for that show is easy to find, but nobody's seeding -- it's been sitting on zero for 6 hrs now.

Don't know if you use slsk but I was able to find it on there.

hurting i am digging that wayne shorter track upthread, that is great

yeah, that's my jam

It's a Milton Nascimiento (who is singing) tune. He recorded at least a couple earlier versions of the song that are also great.

the hubbard is really good too, it reminded me that i have red clay somewhere on my shelves, need to pull that out again!

percussion on mr clean is outstanding

u probably know this but Red Clay = tribe sample

yea!

Can we talk about how great the organ cold open is on this album? Like the first five seconds?

I had five seconds to spare so I thought I'd check. I agree.

i agree!

Has anyone heard the Mobile Fidelity vinyl reissue? I spotted it for $30 and it sure looks nice. I'm not a super hi-fi enthusiast or anything but this is one of my all time favorite albums (esp if you count the box set, which puts it firmly in the top 5) and I imagine it'll sound pretty sweet on the Rega. I actually don't own a vinyl copy of this, either, so it wouldn't be a redundant purchase, necessarily (though I've made many of those over the years). I don't think I own any Mobile Fidelity releases. Should I get it?

the organ sound on this is perhaps the best i've heard on any record.

a good remastered CD of this will sound better than any vinyl copy

and it will set you back $7

http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Way-Miles-Davis/dp/B00006GO9Q/

Just heard Mal Waldron's album The Call (recorded in Germany 1971)& it has a definite In A Silent Way vibe.

I have this on CD - a few times over, actually! Also have the box set. So you don't think the 'half speed master' or whatever makes any discernible difference? I will say that my reissued mono copy of Round About Midnight is one of the sweetest sounding LPs I own (and again, I'm not the type to notice such things unless they're really obvious)

if the CD remastering is done well--and it is, at least on the versions from the late 1990s and early 2000s that i know--then i don't see how the LP can really top it, given the inhering limitations of vinyl playback. i mean, if you prefer the sound of vinyl with all the added static etc. then by all means get the vinyl.

xpost

"the call" is a great album. i've been listening to a lot of mal waldron recently.

if i had to engage in an exercise as silly as picking a best album of all time, there are some days when it would be this one.

This, A Kind Of Blue and Big Fun make me think of Mozart, Rachmaninov, Schubert and the whole fucking universe. Miles is so amazing at his peak.

Jimmy, that's a pretty good price for a Mofi pressing; if you want it on vinyl and don't want to wait for an original to turn up it's probably worth it. The CD does sound quite good, though, and can be easily found for $5-6 in stores.

Holy smokes this Mal Waldron record is dope.

Jimmy, that's a pretty good price for a Mofi pressing; if you want it on vinyl and don't want to wait for an original to turn up it's probably worth it. The CD does sound quite good, though, and can be easily found for $5-6 in stores.

― rabatment of the rectangle (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Monday, February 16, 2015 6:30 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks! Got it on hold at the record store. I figure, at the very least, it won't be a bummer to own it on vinyl, even if it doesn't blow my mind.

It's 'Silent Way,' it will blow your mind regardless.

Holy smokes this Mal Waldron record is dope.

^^^ yeah, I was totally unfamiliar with this, thanks for the tip.

yeah i just got turned on to that too -- is waldron's other 70s stuff along those lines?

^^^ yeah, I was totally unfamiliar with this, thanks for the tip.

Same here, thanks!

Mal Waldron is great! Hard Talk is amazing - gets wilder than silent way tho

My Mal Waldron experience is limited to the three live Five Spot albums with Eric Dolphy and Booker Little, which I love madly. I should hear the one referenced itt!

yeahhh those five spot albums are so amazing. maldron's on a few mingus things from the 50s too, and I've got a couple albums of stuff with coltrane (also from the 50s). but i really don't know anything about the later phase of his career. seems like I've got to catch up!

his album "first encounter" w/gary peacock rules too (getting off the vibe of of this thread) but just in general he's excellent

The only Waldron that comes to mind is "Up Popped the Devil" which is great. I'll have to check out some of these others.

y'all know about waldron's work with the band embryo, right? it's not quite the world-historical event that a free jazz/krautrock crossover could and should have been, but it's quite good.

wait i forgot that "the call" /is/ embryo, essentially.

anyway your next stop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbRlAygcMFo

yeah that's what got me on the waldron kick -- "the call" is outstanding.

I agree with ILM's album poll:

Best Miles Davis Album 1949-1974

I wont argue with the winner but I don't agree with zero votes for Big Fun.

pretty far afield from in a silent way in terms of sound, but i just heard this early attempt at electrifying Miles this week: http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=2195
terrible recording, sounds like a great performance

finally getting around to the In A Silent Way sessions. it's interesting when you hear this period's recordings in order - from say '67 through '75 - there's a pretty clear but gradual evolution. It's not like he went from post-bop to Hendrix-style guitars all of a sudden, there's a real continuity to it as the personnel shifts and changes. But it feels like historically the short-hand is that this was so shocking and abrupt, a la Dylan-going-electric, but how much distance is there really, compositionally and sonically, between Miles in the Sky and In A Silent Way? It's not *that* abrupt a shift.

yeah it's in the keys mostly i would think. i recall crouch's big hit on this stressing the wallpapery background sound of it - which would mean he glommed on to the main differentiator from the 'miles in the sky' sound, too.

why did jazz dudes hate the fender rhodes initially, was Miles really the first to bring it in? (Obviously Ra loved electric keyboards but he was kinda off in his own little universe) Listening to Chick Corea bitch about being forced to play it is always lol

or was that Jarrett? shit I think I'm mixing them up

someone else is sure to know better but for sure jarrett bitched about it and steered clear as soon as he could; i thought corea was playing electric in one of his own bands well enough past this?

Things to remember:

- Miles in the Sky didn't sell very well at the time; it was kind of a forgotten album for a lot of years
- In a Silent Way was a breakthrough because it was where rock critics started paying attention, and (then as now) very few of them journeyed backwards to contextualize what they were hearing

Generally speaking, I agree that there's a clear evolutionary process going on, with the big leap being the introduction of electric guitar all the time. Prior to IASW, Miles had only had guitar on Miles in the Sky, and even there it was George Benson. The other, weirder track with guitar - "Water on the Pond," IIRC - was left in the vault until the mid '70s. But when McLaughlin joined the band, everything changed. The rhythms, the compositions, everything.

Jarrett hated the electric keyboard and never played one again after leaving Davis's band.

There's a great documentary called Miles Electric: A Different Kind Of Blue where a number of Miles' sidemen from his electric period are interviewed. Jarrett, as noted, whines about how much he hates electric keyboards. Hancock initially scoffs when Miles directs him to play a Rhodes -- "You want me to play that toy?" -- but then grows to love it. Corea jumps immediately into stacking ring modulators and Echoplexes on top of his Rhodes, so he apparently had no aversion to it.

why did jazz dudes hate the fender rhodes initially, was Miles really the first to bring it in?

I think it was just the usual "that's, like, selloutsville, daddy-o" stuff. Cannonball Adderley had a hit with "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" which featured Joe Zawinul on electric piano -- a Wurlitzer rather than a Rhodes -- and I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some level of professional jealousy/resentment.

Miles Electric: A Different Kind Of Blue where a number of Miles' sidemen from his electric period are interviewed. Jarrett, as noted, whines about how much he hates electric keyboards

yeah thx this is what I was thinking of

Don't forget about all the Hammond organ-led jazz trios from the late '50s/early '60s on. Electric pianos were probably viewed by many as a combination of dinky/toylike and downmarket - not forward-looking music, but shit for drunks in bars to listen to.

It's the difference between an acoustic guitar and electric. Acoustic instruments are much more touch sensitive and there is much greater range in the sensitivity.

that is a very weird thing to argue about electric vs. acoustic guitar. I mean, electric guitars are more sensitive to touch by their very nature - they're amplified.

But it depends on the sound from the pickup and amp, not necessarily on the fingers on fretboard.

You do some big fast run on an electric guitar that has a real compressed signal, it's much easier to make all the notes run out clean. On an acoustic, that clarity is much more in players hands.

i have this on repeat in my car right now. the "in a silent way" section sounds like the calm beautiful morning after a massive riot. i.e. this morning. i'm so sad.

I was revisiting the Complete In A Silent Way Sessions when I came across this frustrating bit from Bob Belden's liner notes where he discusses four brief "interludes" recorded at the November 12, 1968 session for the tune "Splash":

The unissued "interludes" are something of a mystery. They are only a few "cue" length introductory phrases, having nothing to do whatsoever with any tracks that Miles had recorded up to this point. Herbie is on electric harpsichord and Chick is on organ, and these snippets do have a flavor of Sgt. Pepper's. These interludes are just fragments of something; perhaps they were just test recordings for Miles to hear. They are not included in this set.

Maybe I sound ungrateful/entitled, but I think it's bad form to tantalizingly describe these interludes as having "a flavor of Sgt. Pepper's" and then immediately follow that up with something to the effect of "too bad for you, you're never gonna hear them lol." Am I right that they still haven't been released?

Yeah, I don’t think those ever came out. It’s definitely somewhat dickish to mention those without any explanation as to why they’re not included. Miles supposedly didn’t want any of his unreleased material to come out anyway, according to Teo Macero, so it can’t be put down to “Miles wasn’t happy with these.” I know that the reissue/boxed set program played fast-and-loose with the terminology: the Complete Bitches Brew Sessions set is nothing of the sort. Unlike the IASW set, it doesn’t include the unedited takes of what would be assembled later. So Belden probably just excluded those “interludes” because they spoiled the flow of the box, and/or stuck out as jarringly different to the rest of the set.