Conference 7.286::jazz

    
    can anyone comment on his latest live CD "Live around the world" ?
    The track listing is very impressive, I'm just not sured about this 
    live recording is any better than his studio version.
    
    sl.

    yeah, just back up a few replies to 66.201 and forward........
    
    pc
    

    Has anyone out there got the 'Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel'
    box set?
    
    mikef

    A week ago, I spent the best $23 bucks I had on "Get Up With It",
    Miles' 1974 CD album. They did a great job translating this to CD.
    Seems in the past, I'd seen this for $35-40 as a Japanese Sony release.
    This was a UK import (another CBS/Sony subsidy).  I forgot how much I
    loved this album! I'm bad. I don't spin my vinyl anymore.
    
    "Get Up With It" is a masterpiece.  For those who want to get an intro
    to Miles' mid-70's works, this is a perfect place to start. Complete
    with 2 pieces that are 32 minutes (2 sides of the 4 on vinyl); He Loved
    Him Madly (for Duke Ellington) and Calypso Frelimo.  There's not a
    piece I don't like on this album. 
    
    One of things that strikes me the most about this set, is that the
    music sounds very carefully architected - even though it's not. The
    way Madly is mostly a meditative but very nicely builds up steam and
    releases it near the end of the tune.  Calypso Frelimo, another great
    long piece has fire and has loads of nice pauses, variations.  Miles'
    trumpet playing is very strong - using the wah as to constantly change
    the shape of his trumpet sound.  He also provides alot of his signature 
    organ technique too.
    
    And then there's the "short" pieces like "Red China Blues".  Miles
    should have cut this as a single!  At one point near the end of his
    solo, he gets a very near guitar sound as he tips his heal back on the
    wah wah pedal. "Rated X" is a very neat piece which features no trumpet
    but Miles is one of the 2 organ players here - edgy stuff, percussion
    like you won't believe.  "Mtume" and "Billy Preston" are very neat. I 
    especially like the way Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas talk back at each 
    other with their chording.  The oldest cut (1970) on the album is a very 
    interesting one - "Honky Tonk".  Neat syncopated hooks that make way to a 
    'standard' rock & roll boogie groove for Miles to solo over.
    
    Some of the musicians you'll hear:
    Mtume - percussion; Pete Cosey, John McLaughlin, Reggie Lucas -
    guitars; Michael Henderson - bass, Al Foster, Bernard Purdie - drums,
    Dave Liebman - flute, sax; John Stubblefield - flute, sax; Badal Roy -
    tabla, Khalil Balakrishna - sitar; Airto Moreira - percussion; Herbie
    Hancock, Keith Jarret - keyboards; Steve Grossman, Sonny Fortune -
    sax,flute; Billy Cobham - drums
     
    Check it out...
    Paul
    

    Yeah, "Get Up With It" is a classic alright...one of the few pieces of
    vinyl I actually do give a spin from time to time.
    
    I've always wondered how planned out some of the stuff in Calypso
    Frelimo was...like the way they repeat a little theme, but play around
    with how much time goes on between the pieces of it or how fast the
    pieces themselves are played.
    
    Paul

  Any chance the music was architected after the fact, the way Teo Macero
  did with "Tribute to Jack Johnson" and other Miles releases, also Mingus's
  "Ah Um" ?

  I've never owned this album, but did encounter "Honky Tonk" on a Miles
  Davis multi-label compilation done by Len Lyons for Book-of-the-Month
  Club.  Enjoyed that cut immensely!
  
    Aside: Anyone remember when BOTM Club -- guided by Nat Hentoff, Martin
    Williams, etc. -- did excellent multi-LP, multi-label compilations of
    Miles, Billie Holiday, Fats Waller, etc.?  ALso the only domestic
    releases available for 2 whole decades of the Brubeck '48 Octet [the
    stuff that prefigures Miles' Birth of the Cool] and Ellington at Fargo
    1940?  The discontinuation of BOMC's recordings line is almost as
    lamentable as the discontinuation of Time/Life's Giants of Jazz boxes...
  
  Anyway, BOMC's 4-LP Miles box is the only multi-label Miles compilation
  I've ever seen (40s through 70s), and the best Miles compilation I've
  encountered so far.  Barring any "import" multilabel compilation I don't
  know about...  I wondered where "Honky Tonk" had been released.  The Miles
  discography in which I checked for "Honky Tonk" identified the session,
  but not the album release.

  I should've asked in here!   - Jay

    >Any chance the music was architected after the fact, the way Teo...
    
    Some of that might have gone on...but some things would've been hard
    to do like that.  One of my favorite moments in Calypso Frelimo
    involves:
    
        1) Miles playing an ascending major mode line in thirds on
    	   organ...
        2) ...which is concluded and then brought back down again
           by a 12-string guitar.  Then...
    	3) Miles plays his thirds again, but this time he plays up to
           the notes the guitar started on the time before and holds 
           them out for a while.
        4) Then, after letting the suspense really take hold, instead
    	   of the organ or the guitar doing what was done before, the
    	   the guitar plays a triad a half-step lower than the one
    	   Miles was just playing (so the whole picture of that change
           would be like  a   g#
                          f   e
                          c   b
    	                  c   c ).  Surprising, satisfying, and kind of
           ominous, all at once!
    
    Anyway, this all unfolds in a way that I think would have been a little
    hard for Teo to assemble from pieces.
    
    Paul

    Paul, agree with your observations.  I've heard a little about the
    magic Teo would do after the fact, but alot of what went down, just
    seemed too hip to be done by anyone other than Miles and his posse!
    
    Those moments you won't learn in music school. Think it qualifies as
    telepathy!
    
    pc
    

    Oh yeah, speaking of those expensive Japanese imports, I saw "Get Up
    With It" at Framingham's Strawberries for a meager $46!!! 
    Recommendation: shop around for the UK import version - the package is
    skinnier, you can read the liner notes and it's priced @ $25 instead!
    
    pc