Miles Davis - The complete Jack Johnson sessions - 5 discs??

I also assume that for anyone not wanting to invest in 5-discs that Columbia will eventually reissue the single album like they did for In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew.

The thing is, they ARE remastered (I was just listening to them this morning and checked b/c the same thing had occurred to me, too). Sure, it was 1991, but the sound is decent.

If anything, they're mixed differently/worse than Dark Magus et al b/c there's a ton more hall sound in the mix. As a result, they sometimes sound like you're about 200 yards from the speakers and Miles' trumpet--so distorted and wah-ed on Live Evil and Dark Magus--is a little lost amidst all the reverb.

I really like the Jack Johnson box (if you wanna know how much, read my review in this month's Wire). My favorite thing about it is the Sonny Sharrock material, followed closely by the various chunks of "Go Ahead John." All the tracks that were assembled into the final mastered version (which is one of my favorite Miles pieces anyway) are heard separately, and without the speaker-switching effect that annoys so many people (not me).

my favorite album from this period btw is Get Up With It.

Jack Johnson was one of my very favorites. I played it constantly, but it's gotten a bit less mileage in recent years. I'm most likely getting the box, though.

I am drooling to hear this stuff. Supposedly it's six CDs worth of material, all live from the Cellar Door over three nights. Only two of the six discs will feature John McLaughlin.

what other boxes are planned?
i am wondering about the "seven steps to berlin" box which is going to cove the period between the two quintets. will any sam rivers material be on there? did he even do anything in the studio with miles? or is there just that one hard to find "live in tokyo(?)" cd?

sean they expect you to buy the second quintet box which doesnt have the material on the silent way box that was on Filles ;-)

>There are 6 versions of one track, 5 of another.

Well, what you're hearing isn't "alternate takes" as much as tracks which were heavily post-produced by Teo Macero, broken down into their component parts. For example, "Go Ahead John" appears in five chunks on the box, but they're not separate takes because all five were combined to make up the Big Fun version.

I will admit, though, that I could have done without all the little pieces on Disc Four (the various versions of "Sivad" and "Nem Um Talvez"). There's this incredibly ugly noise-skronk track called "The Mask" on Disc Five, though, that's amazing. Makes "Rated X" seem like Muzak, in the beginning anyway (later it settles into a groove).

Keith Jarrett has said that the band from this period was actually better w/o McLaughlin -- that he disrupted the band's flow to an extent (a theory borne out, to some degree, by "Gemini/Double Image" on Live-Evil). He thought the McLaughlin-less group really hit its peak on a week-long date in Boston that was recorded by audience member and future Weather Report bassist, Miroslav Vitous. Even if the sound-quality isn't fantastic, I bet it would be a fascinating listen.

But hell, I'd love to hear the unedited "Sivad"...

I like the disruption of the band on Live-Evil. I don't think Jarrett really liked being in Miles' band very much. I know Miles antagonized him - telling other players (Michael Henderson in particular) not to follow Jarrett when he began a keyboard solo, etc. Note that after leaving Miles' employ, Jarrett abandoned the electric keyboard for good. While his contributions were occasionally interesting, I think Hancock and Corea did much better by Davis in the 70s. And I think the best stuff of all is when there's no keyboards at all (like the 1981-82 band heard on We Want Miles), and a lot of the Jack Johnson box.

There's another album by that band, recorded in June 1969 in Juan-Les-Pins, France, available on a few different bootleg labels. Funnily enough, the one I have (on the German Jazz Door label) is also called It's About That Time.

I have both of 'em. The one you're describing is Vol. 2; it's half from 1970 and half from 1971. Vol. 1 is all 1971, and I like it a little better. "Directions" is not one of my favorite pieces these days; I've been listening to tons of live boots for research, and it's on every single one of them, so I'm at the point now where if I hear that melody one more time I'm gonna tear my ears off my head.

Ha! But you have to admit, the moment where the tempo shifts down and DeJohnette turns into Clyde Stubblefield is fucking aces.

jfc what is going on in the "Willie Nelson [insert 2]" track

is that the stuff w/ sharrock? that stuff is nuts. think miles comes out of the haze at some point and is like "that's some nasty shit, y'all"... which must've pleased everyone involved, haha.

haven't looked up who's on what - it has a bunch of atonal guitar scraping/noise combined with what sounds like some kind of analog synth but I'm not really sure tbh

wiki sez it's McLaughlin? and no synth credit so maybe it's all pedals idk

think sharrock is doing the echoplex-y action on "willie nelson" (tho maybe not the take you're talking about). and it's probably chick corea doing the nutso organ.

yeah it does sound like an echoplex

and probably mclaughlin on that wah-ed out guitar... pretty crazy stuff.

yeah, it feels like the most aggro thing on here.

ha Miles mumbling at the end of some of these tracks is a treat.

ha Miles mumbling at the end of some of these tracks is a treat.

How is there not a Having Fun With Miles Davis In The Studio type release? Surely there's enough "Let's hear some of that, Teo" to fill an LP.

plus 20 minutes of miles' finger snaps counting off tunes

love that "Willie Nelson" disc of the set so goddamn much

yeah so good. disc four of this set gets a little dull, but for the most part it is a great great thing.

I think I've asked this before but does anyone have any idea why Miles would name a song after Willie Nelson? I mean the music obviously bears no relation, it just seems like a random name to use

they had the same manager at the time, weirdly enough. but i think i read somewhere that miles liked willie's phrasing.