Miles Davis - Live At The Fillmore East (March 7,
1970). It's About That Time [2CD] {2014 Japan Jazz Collection 1000
Columbia-RCA Series}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 586 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 215 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 219 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2014 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICP 4184~85
Jazz / Fusion / Jazz Rock / Jazz Funk / Trumpet
Special
priced-down reissue available only for a limited period of time until
December 21, 2015. Comes with liner notes. Finally, a non-bootleg issue
of one of Miles Davis' greatest electric performances ever. In fact this
is the very first of the Miles Davis Quintet's electric gigs -- it was
also one of the last four performances of this great band. Not just
recorded, but performed. The band, consisting of Davis, Wayne Shorter on
soprano and tenor, Chick Corea on Fender Rhodes, Dave Holland on both
acoustic and electric bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. With
percussionist Airto Moreira providing color and texture, the band became
a sextet.
This night is auspicious because audiences -- most of which were there
to see the Steve Miller Band or Neil Young and Crazy Horse (Davis' group
opened for both) -- were familiar with the electric side of Davis
because In a Silent Way had been issued late in 1969 and had introduced
the world to John McLaughlin. Bitches Brew, which had been recorded the
summer before, would be released a month after these concerts, and an
unsuspecting rock audience had no idea what to expect. If they were
expecting In a Silent Way -- played by an octet that included three
keyboardists -- that's not what they got here. This is the most
muscular, hard, and funky of Davis' early electric outfits. His own
playing is stunning, punching out the footlights on Joe Zawinul's
"Directions" or his own rambling deep-in-the-modal blues tune "Spanish
Key." Whatever Davis thought about John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and
the avant-garde was allowed full play in this band as long as the
intense, deep funk of the rhythm section was adhered to. Davis himself
follows Shorter, smattering out notes in outrageous harmonic signatures
on "Masqualero." This band has a drive, and their playing reveals that
they have something here, something new to bring to the table that has
never been heard before. And indeed, even now, since this particular
band never recorded in the studio as a unit, this sounds new even. Yes,
it sounds like jazz, but it's got energy, drive, and pumped up,
intricate polyrhythms -- thanks to the otherworldly percussion stylings
of Moreira. When Davis takes out the first set with "It's About That
Time"/"The Theme," listeners are hearing these tunes as if for the very
first time. The sextet's arrangements have been shoved to the margins
and new elements of harmony and counterpoint are brought in to account
for the driving tempos and amplification of the instruments. Davis
screeches through his solo at a blinding tempo as Chick Corea paints it
with huge, extended, and augmented sevenths and flatted ninths, touching
off a solo himself so full of knotty arpeggios that it's difficult to
know what to make of it except that it smokes. Shorter's solo is so
passionate and full of fire you would never have guessed he would be
gone from the band four nights later, jumping ship to create Weather
Report with Zawinul. The second set gets off to a moodier, darker start
with Zawinul's "Directions." Spare keyboards and drums DeJohnette plays
like a dancer who has the power of a bulldozer on this night -- ease in
the mode before Shorter slips in a note or two and then Davis himself
cuts into the center of things with a blur of notes and a riff picked up
on by Moreira. After this band enters into the melody line it becomes a
Corea-Davis fest, trading fours, eights, and twelfths -- no matter how
fast Corea can lay it down, Davis is already in response mode and
harmonically alters his framework so Corea has to shift too. The sound
of the band is so dirty, so raw, it comes off as guttersnipe jazz with
the overdrive of the best rock & roll. Without a guitar, this band
is clearly blowing the doors off the room and making it very hard for
Miller or Young to come out and play afterward. The rest of the set is
almost a medley, beginning with "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," collapsing
all previous notions of modalism contextual freedoms, then traveling
deep into a "Bitches Brew" that could have been played by James Brown's
Flames, so hard and skittish is it's funk with a starker, more dissonant
reading of "Spanish Key" before taking it out with "It's About That
Time?"/ "Willie Nelson." (Perhaps a tribute to Nelson's battles to get
Charley Pride a gig at the Grand Ole Opry as its first black
performer.). In any case, so much of this is wasted on the audience at
the Fillmore, responding with a confused, bewildered applause, with a
couple of rowdies calling for an encore. It doesn't matter. The
historical significance of this record is paramount. It is unedited and
released as the gig happened on that day -- which makes it virtually
unique from every other electric Davis live performance. This is music
is as exciting, revelatory, and dangerous today as it was on March 7,
1970. It's about that time.
Personnel:
Miles Davis - trumpet
Wayne Shorter - soprano sax and tenor sax
Chick Corea - Fender Rhodes electric piano
Dave Holland - acoustic and electric bass
Jack DeJohnette - drums
Airto Moreira - percussion
tracklist:
CD1
01 - Directions
02 - Spanish Key
03 - Masqualero
04 - It's About That Time-The Theme
CD2
01 - Directions
02 - Miles Runs the Voodoo Down
03 - Bitches Brew
04 - Spanish Key
05 - It's About That Time-Willie Nelson
|
No comments:
Post a Comment