What albums are part of Miles Davis' experimental phase?

All of them. But weirdest, most 'out there', 'On the corner' probably.

He spent 6 months stoned listening to Frampton Comes Alive.

From the 40's: Miles first recording as a leader, for Savoy, with his first attempts at being a bebop composer; the arrangers' co-op The Birth of the Cool, wringing orchestral textures from an economy of means and bringing "cool" to the lexicon.

From the 50's, Kind of Blue: the notion of modes, attempting an alternative to the well-worn ii-V cadences of bop, but not in an Ornette-ish, scorched-earth way.

From the 60's, Nefertiti (or one of many others from the pre-electric years): the final modernizing of modernism via borrowings from free jazz and via Wayne Shorter's pen — the fruition of the modal strategies of Kind of Blue.

[Clive Davis, of CBS Records] told Miles that his records had not been selling up to par, and compared to almost any of Columbia's rock acts had been hardly a blip on the screen. After this discussion, Davis (that is Clive Davis), states that Miles set about to record first In a Silent Way and then, and most importantly, Bitches Brew, which became the bestselling jazz record up until it's time and which saved Miles's niche at Columbia.

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And yet they still played the standars in such a fuck-you style.

Maybe it's also that some of those originals were so complicated?

Also, IMO that the quintet's records weren't really selling as well as Miles' earlier records had more to do w/the way rock music developed in the 60s than in the way Miles' band's music did. (which is maybe one reason I have a hard time putting a timeframe on his "experimental" period)

But they both tie into the experiments with modes; so it's an accessible experimental phase.

What the hell took me so long to get around to Get Up With It? And why did it take me a Lou Reed interview in The Wire to do it?

ha, that lou reed jukebox interview was funny. "this is MILES?????"

finally got around to dark magus and feel like a douche for not getting around to it years ago

just checked out the Tingen electric Miles book from the library today!

One of many great things about Miles Davis: you pick up a record once in a while that you haven't heard before and it's another "Where you been all my life?" moment.

another great thing about those 70s electric albums like Dark Magus & Get Up W/It: there's enough to chew on that you'll be listening to em the rest of yr life

Been really feeling Big Fun lately.

dark magus is really helping me to ~get~ this period even more because the cacophony is scaled back enough that i can actually hear the incredible solos being played

"He Loved Him Madly" is my turn-the-lights-down record of choice (30 min vinyl side, yar)

haha i fucking KNEW geir would be on this thread saying shit like kind of blue wasn't experimental because it's mellow

Can anyone comment with any authority (or indeed point the way to an article) detailing exactly what it was Laswell actually did on the Panthalassa CD Remix/Reconstruction. Always been curious about that record.

He took a bunch of album cuts and some previously unreleased material (though not a whole lot, so don't start drooling just yet) and shaped them into three long medleys and a 13-minute edit of "He Loved Him Madly." A lot of it is sort of Laswell-ized, in that it has just a little bit more of a traditional (and bass-heavy) groove than it did when Miles and Macero released their versions, but he didn't bring in any of his friends and associates to play on top of it or anything like that. It is ultimately just a remix album, and it's not awful. I play it sometimes.

i like it (i know some people round these parts loathe it) -- it's not a replacement for the albums, but I think it's a nice-sounding re-imagining of this era.

I love the Laswell disk; it works well when I want something time-compact to listen to from this era.

btw the Miles exhibit at the Cité de la Musique in the Parc de la Villette Paris is terrific and I hope it now travels elsewhere. They have a room with "On The Corner" playing really loud with surround sound and it's glorious. They also have a room set up playing a pretty-big-screen and LOUD movie of Miles' last set at the Parc de la Villette in 1991, shortly before he died.

wow, that sounds great! hope it comes to the states ...

yeah it's closed here but they had so many great pieces together, I hope it will travel around now.

One thing they had showing was this awesome interview on the Arsenio Hall show (this clip has the performance too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uxC2MYO7hA

This exhibit has traveled here now (Montreal) and its pretty great. Sounds a little different though... footage from his appearance at the Jazz Festival here in the 80s, "Bitches Brew" room rather than "On The Corner". There was a big screen playing concert footage from the 70s (Isle of Wight maybe) that was pretty spectacular.

Just started to chew on my Columbia box set (birthday present), but it's daunting in it's sheer scope, like sharing the house with the monolith from 2001.

Agharta & Pangaea are super-ripping over-the-top feedback-painted funkjazzkraut beauty.