Miles' "On the Corner"

Should note, btw, that Language Barrier was produced by noted On the Corner champion and Panthalassa "Conceiver," Bill Laswell...

I have a very nice Japanese CD of Agartha. It really sounds better than other re-releases. There are some truly sublime moments on Agartha, right up there with some of the spooky and for me incredibly evocative bits on "Calpyso Frelimo" off of "Get Up With It."

As far as liking '50s/'60s Miles better than the '70s...well, I relate more to the '70s stuff since it's closer to my era, I suppose. But there are great performances from the period when he had Bill Evans and Adderley in the band, I'm thinking of an amazing version of "Love for Sale" from '58 on which Evans is so fucking cool. I also don't love the Gil Evans soundscapes (except for the great, great "Miles Ahead"). The '60s stuff is actually somewhat like the "process" music of the '70s, just minimal "heads" and then out, with Tony Williams basically the main reason for listening. I have heard a boot of a '67 performance with Shorter/Carter/Williams/Hancock that for me blows pretty much everything else Miles did in the '60s away, completely intuitive long medleys of various tunes. It's called "No Blues."

But I think Davis did some incredible music during all his periods--I love "Aura," for example. I do prefer Monk and Rollins to Davis during the '50s and '60s, for the most part, and I like Wayne Shorter's '60s solo stuff better as well. So in the end, I do listen to the electric stuff way more than anything else by Miles.

(Love Pangaea, never heard Agharta, find Magus a little tiresome at bits but great at others.)

"Like a great hip-hop mix, every sound disorients you, suprises you, but somehow every sound fits so perfectly that you couldn't imagine it anywhere else (it's the Miles Davis effect, in other words, but the sounds themselves are the least Miles-like the group had ever come up with)."

On the other hand when the sitar and bells come out a bit more and the groove seems to be disrupted I kind of like it. Caught me by surprise.

'I didn't get this album until after I had gotten into Can and a lot of electronic dance music'

Did Macero and Miles know abt Can?

'To describe this album as "funky" seems odd as it I don't think it is very funky and I don't think it's supposed to be either. He was listening almost exclusively to Sly Stone and Stockhausen when he made it and it shows'

hey dada, what albs would you describe as 'funky'? I haven't got very far into funk so i'm interested. Not sure I'm hearing on Stockhausen either but its only on first listen.

Funky, to start: Bar-Kays, Meters, Lee Dorsey, Mer-Da...

thanks eddie.

I think I love Workin', Kind of Blue, Four + More, Miles Smiles, Jack Johnson, Pangaea, and Live Around the World all exactly the same.

Btw, I finally got around to get Art Taylor's book of musician-to-musician interviews Notes and Tones, and it's fantastic. It seems they were mostly done around the late 60s with Miles, Tony Williams, Richard Davis, etc. so there's a lot of great of-the-moment talk about the music, changing times, etc.

Also, he took most of the pictures included himself so there are all these brilliant candid shots, like "here's Art Blakey walking a small dog" and "here's John Coltrane crashed out on the couch".

except that fresh came out a year later

That's because Sly tended to get lost in a drug haze, and consequently worked a lot slower than Miles did. Miles was listening to advance tapes of "In Time" before recording On The Corner; when I interviewed Dave Liebman, he told me a bunch of stories of how Miles used to make him listen to Sly's newest stuff at the house all the time.

I like On the Corner a lot but it's probably pretty low on my favorites list of the period--I just always dug the live stuff a bit more. my 1-2-3 is In a Silent Way, Jack Johnson, and Dark Magus, probably in that order. the first 10 minutes of Magus is just jaw-droppingly ferocious, maybe the most GALVANIZING thing I've heard from anyone, damn near. but "Black Satin" is some kinda masterpiece for sure.

Get Up With It
On the Corner
Pangea
Bitches Brew
Live/Evil
Jack Johnson
Big Fun
It's About That Time
Agharta
In a Silent Way
Dark Magus
Live at the Filmore

They're all fuckin' great records!

But I like other Miles periods just as much. If you had to pick one 20th century musician, he's the man.

Yes, I'm surprised people are describing it as 'funky'. It sounds edgy and jerky, not quite fluid.

Also the first one or two discs in that mammoth Montreaux box are 70s era. I haven't heard them. My brother actually has that box, the nutball. I keep meaning to get him to burn me the 70s stuff.

Does anybody else but me have the bootleg More Live Evil, most of which is a Japanese concert from March '73? It's terrific. There's one track where Dave Liebman's soprano sax sounds like an electric violin.

An attempt: I'd say no, he hadn't heard them. The same artists always get rhymed off in Miles' bios (Sly, Stockhausen, Buckmaster) as what he was listenng to at the time. I just assumed that Miles, listening to Stockhausen, and Czukay, having been taught by Stockhausen, came to the same conclusions.

As for the question about whether Miles was listening to Can, I, too, would venture a "no fucking way." You'd have heard about it — Miles was insanely proud of his European listening tastes.

Phil, do you know if any of the stuff Miles did w/ Buckmaster ever made it to tape? I seem to recall from the reissue's liner notes that he was disappointed with the final outcome...

And I definitely think Can was listening to Miles Davis. A song like "Pinch" from Ege Bamyasi sounds like a jam that would happen during a Miles set from that period - except without the trumpet.

Don't forget Irmin Schmidt, too.

This had never occurred to me before, but I can see it. "Pinch" always struck me as similiar to the live 2-part track on the second side of James Brown's Mother Popcorn LP.

great anecdote! was this after a concert, or were you interviewing Teitelbaum?