Miles Davis - In A Silent Way

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.