Best Miles Davis Album 1949-1974

that seems unlikely tbh

from the electric, pre-80s, period id say bitches brew is the normy choice/most overrated but also along with IASW and OTC it is my fave.

for as long as i've been listening to Miles Davis (since the mid-'90s), everything i read would point to IASW as one of his peak classic works, this is not a new opinion.

Right but it was down the list a tad. KOB, BB were his top 2 in everything I read back then (mid 90s). Sketches of Spain might've even gotten more attention than IASW.

IASW was there w/Jack Johnson and Round About Midnight and SOS and the quintet albums from the '50s, afaicr

I obv have a diff recollection regarding it's rep, but objectively IASW was not as popular as KOB or BB. Like Shakey said, if someone had a token jazz album in their collection, it would be KOB or BB rather than IASW.

Sales are generally a good indication of popular reach of albums:

Bitches Brew gained momentum and became Davis's highest charting album on the U.S. Billboard 200 with peak at No. 35 and also his fastest selling at the time when it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1976 for selling 500,000 copies. In 1971, it won a Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.

Kind of Blue Though precise figures have been disputed, Kind of Blue is often cited as the best-selling jazz record of all time. In 2008, it was certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of at least four million copies.

By contrast In A Silent Way never sold nearly as much, had a much more muted/conflicted critical reaction upon release (granted, Lester Bangs loved it, which may partly explain its critical reappraisal by a new generation of critics beginning in the 90s).

I think its predating Bitches Brew might have given it an air of "firsties" for critics ("oh you like the best-seller, well really he did all that even BETTER on the first album that almost nobody listened to")

I admit this is all strawman speculation for the most part

I think part of it is that the album makes the most sense as a gateway point from/to certain other styles (krautrock and lots of more hypnotic electronic music) that also rose to relative critical prominence during the nineties

oh definitely

When I ranked Davis albums for Stereogum, keeping IASW out of the top ten (it was #12) pissed off even more commenters than putting On The Corner at #1.

I thought BB was the bestselling one because it was sort of properly timed and promoted as "Hey hippies, here's the breakthrough jazz freakout album for YOU!" Like he was playing all those Fillmore and festival shows with rock acts etc. at the time.

I think Bitches Brew is a much more difficult and forbidding listen to modern ears not already used to jazz.

If I was trying to introduce someone with vaguely pitchforkish eclectic taste but no knowledge of jazz I would go IASW, GUWI, TTJJ, OTC and only then BB.

*introduce to electric era Miles

agree

more difficult and forbidding listen

in what way? I didn't know much about jazz when I first heard it in 1992 or so, that's for sure.

I thought BB was the bestselling one because it was sort of properly timed and promoted as "Hey hippies, here's the breakthrough jazz freakout album for YOU!" Like he was playing all those Fillmore and festival shows with rock acts etc. at the time.

This is pretty much exactly right. Davis started playing at the Fillmores etc. in 1969, and BB came out in March 1970.

no argument there

and I think that's a point that gets lost a lot in discussions about most popular albums, often they are most popular because of right time/right place

The hippies were already primed for a jazz-rock crossover anyway; Blood, Sweat and Tears and Chicago and the Electric Flag were coming at it from the rock side, and Charles Lloyd (with Keith Jarrett on piano, Cecil McBee on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums) was playing the Fillmore in 1967 and 1968 and had at least one platinum album. Davis eventually stole both Jarrett and DeJohnette from him.

shakey if you were hearing it on the cd available in the early 90s then its a miracle if you could dig it, that thing sounded like shit compared to the remaster from the late 90s

was driving around town today and came across a cool Bitches Brew mural I had never seen before

if you were hearing it on the cd available in the early 90s

nah I bought a cheap vinyl copy (which I still have) from Logos in downtown Santa Cruz, put it on the stereo, clamped on the headphones, got super-stoned and drew a convoluted picture of pyramids and snakes and sun motifs that I later gave to my girlfriend.

true story!

I thought BB was the bestselling one because it was sort of properly timed and promoted as "Hey hippies, here's the breakthrough jazz freakout album for YOU!" Like he was playing all those Fillmore and festival shows with rock acts etc. at the time.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, 18 October 2019 20:19 (one hour ago) link

this was v much in part the effort of the label, at least thats the impression given by the admittedly hagiographic clive davis bio on netflix right now

like imagine a label convinced idk nas to make a soundcloud rap album lol

hahaha

of course miles made a lot more of that opportunity than nas is likely to in 2019 but you know what i mean

hagiographic clive davis bio on netflix r

threw up in my mouth a little when I saw this in the queue tbh

The Clive doc isn’t utterly unentertaining, as these things go, but it’s no different than all the other music exec docs:

“I could pick hits! I didn’t always pick hits, but I mostly picked hits!”

Diddy: “(exec) always picked hits.”

"and then we took a meeting"

I think Bitches Brew is a much more difficult and forbidding listen to modern ears not already used to jazz.

I don't really think of BB as jazz

When I ranked Davis albums for Stereogum, keeping IASW out of the top ten (it was #12) pissed off even more commenters than putting On The Corner at #1.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Friday, October 18, 2019 3:24 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I recall enjoying this list despite the rankings, which were imo ludicrous. No offense - I thought the writing was terrific. But can't see how any non-trolling person who's heard more than five Miles albums from literally any part of his discography would ever put OTC at #1. I don't even know how anyone tells the songs on that record apart.

any non-trolling person

Reads like trolling tbh.

SO why aren't we discussing Sorcerer or Nefertiti?

"Pee Wee"? "Prince of Darkness"? And Miles in the Sky has "Stuff," c'mon now.

I always thought Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro were very underrated. Also, it's ridiculous that both of these, Nefertiti, and Miles Smiles were released in the same year. I like this period, the sorta sweet spot between two very distinct eras...

It's so easy to lapse into hyperbole when you talk about this dude, but jesus what a towering goddamn body of work.

not exactly the same year since Miles Smiles is early '67 and Filles de Kilimanjaro is late '68, but I agree that those first two you mention are underrated

But can't see how any non-trolling person who's heard more than five Miles albums from literally any part of his discography would ever put OTC at #1. I don't even know how anyone tells the songs on that record apart.

― Paul Ponzi, Saturday, October 19, 2019 9:26 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i try to abandon incredulity in the face of any aspect of peoples' tastes so i dont mean to echo your own here but i dont know man, the release itself is not my personal #1 but if you enjoy miles' electric work in any respect i struggle to think how you could hear the music spread across the complete OTC sessions that produced OTC, BF and GUWI and think that people who really dig that music and that band are 'trolling'

like dude maybe step back and consider that this band miles assembled is killer and the funk is harder than anything in the universe of funk, maybe people might like that? lol

Like, if someone ranked The Musings of Miles at #1 I'd be a tad bemused but On the Corner is an inaugural album for so many genres and subgenres, it's not hard to see what makes it a credible contender.

"On the Corner" would definitely win this poll if run again. Don't like it much personally tbh.

I don't even know how anyone tells the songs on that record apart.

i'm sure you can work it out

since when does it matter

the correct album won this

where has the last 12 years gone since I ran this poll

between digital & LPs I have a lot of miles- when I play mp3s, streaming etc I listen to the stuff off the various Complete Sessions boxes- all the stuff that had gone uncollected prior. But is it my favorite or his best? Not necessarily but it's all interesting. When I put on records, I listen to Ascensur/Jazz Track, Miles Smiles, & Big Fun the most. I suspect my trajectory with Miles was like many people- Started with BB & Silent Way, then stayed in the heavy funk era for a long time. Over the ensuing years I have played the 2nd quintet stuff much more and am finally back in the 50s in the early Columbia years. No real point, just that I find it remarkable how much the music has to offer, and my changing perceptions of it over time. There isn't anything I find where I think "oh this wasn't all that after all". If anything, occasional replays of the 80s material have made me more generous toward some (not all) of it...

JAZZ IS LIKE HEROIN TO ME ! ! ! ~~~~ ILM POST-1945 JAZZ ALBUMS POLL - THE RESULTS COUNTDOWN (now counting top 25!)

In A Silent Way won that ^

Porgy and Bess is a fucking beautiful album and just about as close to perfection as he has reached at other times in a recording studio over the decades. Not that much of a controp either - 5 people back then agreed.

no votes for Big Fun is ridic!

There *is* something a little weird about OTC at number one — not that it’s not legit for someone to have as their fav miles album but it’s so representative of a very specific style of his music vs being especially representative ... I think the reason something like KoB is so often listed at no 1 is because it’s seen is bridging different styles and eras of his while being very singularly itself. OTC at number one is so dismissive of the mass of miles fans who valued the intricacies of his bebop, cool, hardbop, and post bop records it’s hard not to take it as a pretty extreme ideological statement about what “really matters” in his career — and to see that as deferential to a rock & funk generation that came later

*vs being especially representative of his whole career, I mean