Best Miles Davis Album 1949-1974

its something I've been pondering over the last couple years, how rhythmic templates underpinning popular music change - the swing rhythm that was at the root of so much popular music up through the early 60s is now almost completely gone. You just don't hear it. Ballads aren't written with it, dance tunes don't use it, musicians don't know how to play it. It's weird.

... this is an entirely separate issue from Miles, obvy...

my favorite recordings of his are the 1965 plugged nickel shows; for me, the studio records of that band just never approached the danger of the live records. so, that said, i'm voting for jack johnson. and it wasn't an easy choice.

... this is an entirely separate issue from Miles, obvy...

There's at least a dozen that could be easily argued. My personal favorite is Sketches of Spain, right now at least.

* argued for

If only non jazz acts could have as many top quality albums in their discography as the jazz cats.
Pisses me off when there's either no jazz albums or just a token album in best album of all time lists.

but the Beatles invented the album dontcha know

of course, i forgot that.

Jack Johnson but it could have gone either of many ways for me

Another for In a Silent Way

Kind of Blue is really unique sounding. At this point I have probably listened to it, In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew the most. Other than He Loved Him Madly, the fusion stuff with Michael Henderson as bassist is one big beautiful tune, so which one can you vote for? I like them all.

I'm voting for All Blues and So What.

The Davis record I just got a few years ago that I have been burning up and I think is killer is It's About that Time: Live at the Fillmore East. Jack DeJohnette's drumming on that record is insane and it is great to hear them work that Bitches Brew material.

Milestones. Best hard bop record ever made.

There are others I probably like about as much, but that was the one I first connected with and it remains one of my favorite straight jazz albums ever. I guess I was an odd kid, but I connected way more in high school with Milestones and Monk's Music and My Favorite Things than I did with, well, really any other music, and that was before I even tried out for high school jazz band on guitar. I came to like the electric stuff later, toward the end of college.

As for what Shakey said - maybe kids should just learn to swing because it's awesome. It's true that acoustic jazz is not likely to have another heyday, but I think it will continue to thrive in its small way. I have noticed that most ILM types seem to relate way more to free jazz and fusion than to straight-ahead, maybe because they tend to come out of rock and punk backgrounds. I've always found it weird that I can find music so exciting that other people seem to find blah, but I guess that can be said about anyone's taste.

If only non jazz acts could have as many top quality albums in their discography as the jazz cats.
Pisses me off when there's either no jazz albums or just a token album in best album of all time lists.

There are considerably more Miles Davis and John Coltrane albums in those lists than albums by Bach, Mozart or Beethoven.
Oh, but I forgot they don't count because they didn't have rhythm....

Maybe because they didn't have albums...

Didn't prevent "The Four Seasons" from popping up high in Guardian's "Best albums of the millennium" list. Credited to Vivaldi.

Mozart was more of a singles band anyway.

What's the reason for stoppin' at '74, and leavin' off Aghartha and Pangea? Both those albums are nuts...

voted porgy & bess, could have gone w/ KoB or miles smiles and find the fusion stuff in gen. overrated tho love 'jack johnson'

This was a sorta fun thread:

Did Miles Davis release any bad albums before 1975?

What's the reason for stoppin' at '74, and leavin' off Aghartha and Pangea? Both those albums are nuts...

workin'

I'd normally vote for In a Silent Way or Get Up With It, but I heard Nefertiti most recently, so...

a 20 way tie for the winner in this poll then?

Went with Relaxin', but Silent Way was a close second.

What's the reason for stoppin' at '74, and leavin' off Aghartha and Pangea? Both those albums are nuts...

Personally I might have wound up voting for "Tutu", which was an excellent album.

christ this is tough!!! right now i'm torn between Silent Way and Get Up With It, and those two seem to be the ones i've tended to play the most recently. but Kind of Blue really is that good, it's completely perfect. six months ago I would have voted Jack Johnson.

miles is like an ongoing project for me, music i continually go back to and try to wrap my head around it. right now it's all about electric miles for me, but someday i'd like to spend a lot of time on the 60s quintet to try to grasp what's going on there.

Winner will most likely be Silent Way, Bitches Brew or KOB.

Johnson

Volume One of the Blue Note records. "Yesterdays" completely knocks me out every single time.

I wonder how the pre Kind Of Blue albums will fare in this poll.

This is impossible. It's like you're telling me to pick between essentially like 6 different artists.

I'm sure the 60s quintet stuff will get overlooked in general on this poll but yeah Mark it is definitely worth digging into - really strange compositionally and melodically, very unique.

This is impossible. It's like you're telling me to pick between essentially like 6 different artists.
That's the challenge!

KoB will not get as many votes as it 'should' in that ppl are unwilling to vote for it because its so 'well duh'

I think you might be right, but then lurkers don't think like that. Plus the likes of Bitches Brew and now even Jack Johnson has had loads of recent critical acclaim so they could do just as well from the lurker vote too.

between JJ and in a silent way for me, and i just cant decide right now!

60s quintet basically remapped how modern acoustic jazz is played, for one thing!

True, but the live records of that band are more exciting documents of that remapping than the studio records (which always struck me as relatively muted). It'll be interesting to see how the various groups fare in the live albums poll.

Yeah ok, I'll do the live albums poll when this ones done.

i voted for Bags' Groove, mainly just because I've been listening to that one the most lately. everybody shines on the title track. Could've easily voted for a dozen others though. Miles Davis! What a guy!

True, but the live records of that band are more exciting documents of that remapping than the studio records (which always struck me as relatively muted).

Fuck yes. Plugged Nickel sessions smoke.

yes

COOKIN W/THE MILES DAVIS QUINTET

(really a tie between cookin/workin/steamin/relaxin; like one album in four installments)

On The Corner ... because - years after having been floored by it for the first time - it still floors me. It's almost a physical entity, that record. Nothing in Miles' or anyone else's discography
sounds remotely like it.

Porgy & Bess. I used to play this at my office and ended up discussing with co-workers/directing them to Amazon. Also, I love the Gil Evans stuff anyway.

True, but the live records of that band are more exciting documents of that remapping than the studio records (which always struck me as relatively muted).

i dont agree with this at all. studio records largely were live recordings from this era and i would contend the difference is negligible, except the quality of the sound recording is worse.

i went with bitches brew, it is one of the albums i want to listen to the most frequently. in a silent way would have been second. i think both are far better than kind of blue.

i dont agree with this at all. studio records largely were live recordings from this era and i would contend the difference is negligible, except the quality of the sound recording is worse.

I'm not sure what you mean...the studio recordings of the mid-60s quintet were recorded...um...in a studio. They were most likely recorded "live," that is, without overdubs or too much editing. But there was no audience present, other than the studio staff. Their live repertoire rarely incorporated any of their studio compositions (there's a handful of exceptions, like "Footprints").

I don't dislike the studio records at all, but what I love about the live records -- especially the Plugged Nickel box -- is the precariousness of it all, the heightened sense of risk-taking. Tempos were taken faster than in the studio, solos were investigated more thoroughly, and the interaction was more probing.

voted for Filles de Kilimanjaro because i listen to it the most, but it was really a toss up between In a Silent Way, Get Up With It, Ascenseur pour l'Échafaud, Porgy and Bess, On the Corner, and probably a few others.... Hell, it would be hard for me even to pick the ten best.

Filles de Kilimanjaro deserves more love anyways...

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

In other words, nothing wrong it as personal preference but for a publication it’s saying something very uh bold about the values & preferences of its writers

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

What puts In A Silent Way over the top for this period is its length and cohesion. Bitches Brew is more, I don't know, "advanced" than In A Silent Way? And sprawling. It has more to offer. But spending all that time wandering through it, it's a pretty big lift. Pharaoh's Dance requires set and setting. Shhh/Peaceful doesn't. Maybe that's because I've listened to it more and because my synapses are already primed for it. I don't know. But the idea of a canon being self-reinforcing makes sense to me, my favorite records are the ones I've listened to the most.

OTC as a pick is just extending the line of ceaseless-boundary-pushing out as far as it goes relative to a preference for 'works', decisive steps, etc. (there are reasons to pick other albums from the back end of his 70s run but maybe that one covers more criteria better). much later and you're picking fine but underrated albums that almost no one lauds as groundbreaking. earlier and someone could always object, ok but that's not nearly so XXX as OTC.

Maybe it’s less “dismissive of the mass of Miles fans,” and more that that particular mass of Miles fans is generally dismissive of electric Miles.

nah. i think there are things abt miles that the electric miles fans tend to be not interested in or dismissive of, looking to appreciate miles songs in toto bc they dont really care as much abt the soloist as auteur, more concerned w/ album creator as auteur ... i def think there's a pretty distinct difference between how rock oriented fans approach miles' catalog vs artists who came up w/ his stuff as fans of jazz

OTC as a pick is just extending the line of ceaseless-boundary-pushing out as far as it goes relative to a preference for 'works', decisive steps, etc. (there are reasons to pick other albums from the back end of his 70s run but maybe that one covers more criteria better). much later and you're picking fine but underrated albums that almost no one lauds as groundbreaking. earlier and someone could always object, ok but that's not nearly so XXX as OTC.

― j., Saturday, October 19, 2019 4:30 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

dont disagree w this but i think that kind of reinforces what im saying abt it not being especially representative of his career on the whole ... like ppl dont generally expect coltrane fans to see 'interestellar space' as the best trane album, not that they *cant* feel that way but its making a pretty extreme statement

coltrane does have a similar rep for that but that story in his case also has a TOO FAR, TOO FAAAAR qualifier

Unchallenging opinion: OTC is my least favourite from this period.

I wish I could have afforded the OTC box set

porgy and bess is incredible

Honestly I don't even feel like "best Miles Davis album" is a question particularly flattering to a lot of his works. I'm not just talking about the not-album Birth of the Cool, but Miles put a lot of his best work on albums that aren't coherent or cohesive. I fucking love the song "Circle in the Round" and have since I first heard it through the Either/Orchestra but while most of the other people who have heard it love it, how many of us are there?

otm

'Ware the OTC box, Oor Neehy! At least to my ears, it starts intriguingly and soon gets less and less related by anything but the calendar: that's how quickly his music was changing, and you would be better off with the original releases (I always thought Live-Evil was way better than BB). Also beware of the early Columbia CDs, maybe especially initial Miles Ahead and Kind of Blue---Gary Giddens used to get so pissed off!
Worthy comps:Big Fun, Cirle In The Round, and my fave rave,The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions
I dig most Miles in all eras, and don't sleep on Sketches of Spain either.

Oor Neechy, that is, sorry

heh i started this thread dow. I have the complete columbia albums CDs box set, a few box sets and CDs on prestige. I have loads of miles.

the OTC boxgoes for silly money now I think so way out of my price range

I like Live-Evil but I never heard it until after the Cellar Door box so the album is a bit spoiled for me.

I'm one of those who found On the Corner interesting, but it only really clicked for me after hearing the full, un-Ted-Maceroed edits on the box set. Frankly I think they work far better as musical constructions there. On the Corner is a collage album, and it's a tremendous curiosity, but the real meat of the music, in terms of fully developed pieces with beginnings, middles and ends is there on Disc 1 of the On the Corner Sessions.

Live-Evil is one of the 1st CDs I bought in the mid 90s. £1.99 from Missing Records in Glasgow in one of their sales

all polls are bad especially polls that fail to include dark magus

Dark Magus is my favorite of the mid 70s live double slabs

to point out such a glaring omission might just be the spark in the powder barrel to kick off another bad poll... and so it goes on!

I love Agharta and Dark Magus.

i will not rest until all the polls on ilm are deleted for omitting dark magus

Its great to see mark being so pro-poll

I forget that is D Liebman on sax on Dark Magus. He's still doing lots of fine music on a regular basis.

I also forget what a cool album Agharta was as well.