Miles' "On the Corner"

Those two records sound nothing alike.

Henderson's playing on the Herbie record is a dead ringer for Miles', right down to some phrases xeroxed from Miles records.

sextant sounds a bit more like some of miles OTHER fusion-era records, but not especially like those even, the synth prominence and the band makeup and the full on slow funk in the rhythm section makes sure of that

The synth prominence is the key difference in terms of the arrangements, and I'm not saying the two records are utterly indistinguishable from one another; more that Sextant strikes me as Hancock's more tidy and/or slick (not meant pejoratively) impression of what Miles was doing. ymmv, presumably.

the two recs that hancock made just before sextant - Mwandishi and Crossings - are even more milesean fusionoid.

slick?? are you sure you're even talking about sextant

Yep, relative to OTC.

One of the things I love about the first Mwandishi album is that Hancock hired Ronnie Montrose as a session guitarist on it, then had him play a little tiny clicking noise for 20 minutes, like the most minimalist possible interpretation of James Brown-ian rhythm guitar. Hilarious.

a lot of Sextant sounds almost like minimalist techno while On The Corner sounds like a full on industrial funk freak out

"Hornets" from Sextant is basically Hancock trying to do side one of On the Corner.

I have been casting around for other stuff like On the Corner the last few days myself - nothing quite does it, although some things are close. and I am now getting pretty annoyed that I can't find any of Alphonse Mouzon's stuff from the period on the internets

was listening to a couple tracks off Weather Report's Sweetnighter, which comes a little close

maybe stuff like this? rhythms upon rhythms but not the insane cocaineyness of OTC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S10OZqd8DS0

A couple of Alphonse Mouzon's MPS albums, which cover art would indicate are definitely from the mid 70s, are now available on iTunes; don't know if that helps.

Still trying to figure out how I never bought the box.

The Miles era of OTC/Big Fun/Dark Magus/Get Up With It is some of the most wondrous noise ever made, holy fuck!

Wonder if there is any chance they might reissue the box at a price in line with the reissues of the other boxes that came out around the same time. Would love a physical copy but I can't afford $100+
and I think the rest of the boxes are around €15-€25 or at least available for that price.

Yeah, the Complete OTC box is out of print, as is the Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (six CDs' worth of what became the bulk of Live-Evil). I have zero doubt they sold much worse than the acoustic-era boxes.

man bendy's story upthread is really bumming me out now

listening to get up with it right now, in some ways i prefer it. seems murkier and messier and denser than on the corner. such a weird album

this Larry Young album "Lawrence of Newark" was a great suggestion (waaaay upthread) many thx

I like the Fuel stuff too but that Lawrence of Newark is otherworldly.
His work with Lifetime when John Mclaughlin was onboard is great too.

and "love cry want" is a perpetual mind-melter

And Young's good on Jimi's Nine To The Universe---also McLaughlin's Devotion, with Buddy Miles! I've heard that at least one of the CD versions leaves out one of the Devotion LP tracks, but having any of it makes you one lucky cat. Deftly edited jams, tightly loose and more fun than any electric McL.-led sessions I can think of (although Remember Shakti's live collection on Ryko has many espresso acoustico thrills).
I was listening to Miles in the early 70s, but he was putting out so many, each with its own identity, OTC kinda got lost in the crowd. My orbit was more Live-Evil-centric for quite a while there. But! When Ornette formed Prime Time, and No Wave-punk jazz started converging, some of us dug up OTC again, and it was like, "Oh yeah, now I get it..."

OTC seemed radically simple, with some kind of black hole hold, once it drew you in (not that everybody liked every track equally well, but a lot of us got belatedly fascinated with the approach, and its implications).

johnmcL's devotion also has the tune that the fall ripped for "what you need". being more familiar w/ the fall number & hearing the john mcL # later left me awash in a sea of contrary emotions

not very OTC but sublime https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-V7Nxs4M5E

the weirdest thing to me in Get Up With It is Red China Blues when the fairly standard horn arrangement comes in. p odd after all the amorphous free-flowing clangor of all the other tracks.

Thanks for the vid. Get the LP and drastically (but appropriately) different CD of Gil Evans Orchestra's There Comes A Time, with Williams channeling the title track's vocal, among many other heavy things. As psychedelic as 70s Miles.

feel like the first tune is the only one on OTC that doesn't do as much for me. seems harder to grasp. the other ones have that fucking bass groove

so who was the audience for miles' electric stuff in the late 60s and 70s? like the actual audience? i know there's a ton written about old jazz dudes getting bitter about miles' new music and also about miles' intended black and rock audiences not actually signing on as he wanted, but he was still a famous and well-known musician, so who was really digging the kind of music on bitches brew, on the corner, get up with it, etc?

the children, who he was for, iirc

The post-Woodstock rock audience flocked to Bitches Brew, no doubt helped by his dates opening for Neil Young, the Band, Santana, etc.

But if the charts are anything to go by, that audience bolted immediately thereafter; BB hit #35, but his next record (At Fillmore) topped out at #123. He wouldn't crack the top 100 again until 1981 (The Man With The Horn, #53). Herbie and Mahavishnu were killing Miles in the charts (and on the road -- by 1975 or so, Miles was opening for Herbie).

So yeah, other than BB, I have no idea who was digging OtC, GUWI, etc.

I, and several of my friends, had this Columbia records comp in high school because you could buy it for like a dollar. Always thought it was interesting that alongside the rock and pop cuts they included a particularly noisy 3-minute excerpt of "Saturday Miles." Trying to push it to the heads, evidently.

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/comp/various_artists_f2/different_strokes/

lol and a 4-minute edit of Soft Machine's Out-Bloody-Rageous, wtf

That comp was my introduction to Soft Machine, so I have a bit of a soft spot for it. The "Saturday Miles" excerpt baffled the hell out of me.

this album is underrated:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/16/In_Concert_-_Miles_Davis.jpg

It really is. At Fillmore is terrible (though the recent 4CD set that contains the full performances is great).

who was his audience in the late 60s-early 70s The first Fillmore twofer was one of the first jazz albums I heard, soon after it came out: very intriguing, lots of great bursts, and though seeming to lack a center, hell of a periphery. (Same impression while working my way through the box on Spotify.) Lester Bangs' reviews tipped us to skip Bitches Brew:"that Cave of Winds"---John Litweiler called it a sickly sweet, cheap wine buzz( neither of which turned out not to be entirely true, but...). So, as Bangs advised, I went directly to Live-Evil. Still one of my all-time favorites.
As I said upthread:
I was listening to Miles in the early 70s, but he was putting out so many, each with its own identity, OTC kinda got lost in the crowd... But! When Ornette formed Prime Time, and No Wave-punk jazz started converging, some of us dug up OTC again, and it was like, "Oh yeah, now I get it..."
My gang was already into In A Silent Way, Zawinul, Get Up With It, and even the outtakes of Water Babies. Think we all missed Agharta and Pangaea when they first came out, and those late 70s double-LP Japanese imports of Dark Magus and Black Beauty were too expensive to do more than drool over (although I would go on to buy double-CD Japanese imports for $50.00 apiece, in 80s money, and worth every penny).

"neither of which turned out to be entirely true," that is.

Hey, just noticed: The Complete OTC and Cellar Door boxes may be OOP, but they're both on Spotify, whoo-hoo! Also notice that the OTC sessions incl "Red China Blues," later a ringer on Get Up With It, as Οὖτις, noted.

The copies of In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew and Water Babies belonging to my dad (a younger jazz/funk head born in 58) were my introduction to that period of Miles. I've never really asked how he received those albums although he played IASW a lot around the house when I was a kid (along with Sketches of Spain and Kind of Blue) and would later, as I was getting into jazz myself, refer to BB as "pretty out there".

feel like the first tune is the only one on OTC that doesn't do as much for me. seems harder to grasp. the other ones have that fucking bass groove

yea i'm thinking that whole 20 minute piece

"On the Corner; New York Girl; Thinkin' One Thing and Doin' Another; Vote for Miles" - 20:02

Really? I haven't listened to On The Corner for a number of years, and never before on headphones, but damn the first track is just slaying me at work this morning.

oh lord i'm not saying it's bad. it just seems harder to get a hold of than the other tunes. lots of miles i am just not ready for in a given moment. e.g. feel like i spent a long time trying to feel out the second quintet, which seemed flighty and insubstantial for a while and then the majesty of it came through to me

yeah I can't figure those 2nd quintet albums out at all yet, still waiting for the clouds to part

felt like a gateway track was "footprints" from miles smiles.

I started with Filles de Kilimanjaro and worked my way back. Helped me connect the dots between the quintet albums and in a silent way.