Miles Davis

[Jason]

We NEED a Miles thread here...

Seriously, how many jawdropping moments does this guy have on record? I could count them on about a thousand hands. From the trailblazing Birth of the Cool to the slinky 'Round About Midnight to the bombast of Porgy And Bess to the modality of Kind Of Blue, to the fusion of In A Silent Way, to the jazz-hop of Doo-Bop, Miles did it all.

My favourite performer in the genre by far.

Let's make it happen, folks.

[the captain]

As we speak, I'm listening to Miles in the Sky, with Filies de Kilimanjaro up next. I love Miles, and bought the vast majority of his available collection when I was in college (about 10 years ago) and immediately thereafter. It's funny you say "in the genre," considering he dominated and/or pioneered several genres under the single "umbrella genre" of jazz. And his second great quintet of himself, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams is, to me, the greatest ensemble ever. Period. Miles Smiles strikes me as one of the most brilliant albums ever, as do several of his others: Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, Miles Ahead, Birth of the Cool, the aforementioned Filies..., On the Corner. I love him. He may have been an angry, racist, violent, misogynist bastard, but the man was a musical genius.

[mikee]

I loved the story I read about the making of  the classic ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’.  Prior to these sessions, John Coltrane had officially left the band (as Bill Evans had done) to lead his own permanent group.  Miles had hired Hank Mobley to play tenor sax, and the band was now Jimmy Cobb –d., Wynton Kelly –p., and Paul Chambers –b. with Miles and Hank.  On the day that S.D.M.P.W.C.was  recorded, Coltrane dropped by the studio to visit.    He came in right when (what became) the released take was being recorded.  As per his norm, Trane had his sax with him.  Miles motioned emphatically, mid-song, for him to take a solo.  Miles played a short 2nd unscheduled solo as Coltrane put his horn together.  Keep in mind that Coltrane had not rehearsed the song, and probably didn’t know the key, or have the chord structure memorized.  He hadn’t even heard the first part of the take, having just entered the studio.  It was not a problem though as he laid out, once again, one of the most memorable and blistering sheets of sound in jazz history.  The next day he returned, at Miles request, to play on ‘Teo’ and he laid down another amazing solo.  It was the last time that Miles and Coltrane would play together.                       

[Mahalo]

I like the IASW Sessions 3-disk set....lots of stellar moments....wonder if Brian dug Miles?

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

"He Loved Him Madly" on the Get Up With It album is my favorite cut. Really transcendental.

[the captain]

^ Yes! It's fantastic. I haven't listened to that album much the past few years, but when I got it (maybe 2000?) I was just in love.

[Jason]

I love Miles' jazz period stuff, but my favourite album of his is Pangaea. That's just 90 minutes of blissed out jams. BRING ON DA FUNK!!!!!!!!! Miles in 1972-75 live was unbelievably amazing. Spaced-out voodoo music.

[Surfer Joe]

I've always been a huge fan of his fifties stuff and some after that.  I love In A Silent Way and will be picking up that box some time this summer.  The Gil Evans box is fantastic, needless to say. I've also got the Bitches Brew set, and was cheesed off at the total misrepresentation of what it is, but still love the content, regardless. 

Got to see him live twice...

[donald]

Any comments on Birth of the cool?   I just bought this on a compilation with some live material from the era.

Haven't really absorbed this yet.   I have listened to Kind of Blue hundreds of times, very often as background   
 for intimate moments 

Although I have heard lps from throughout this career, I tend to prefer the older stuff with Coltrane et al...

[Surfer Joe]

Having listened to Miles for 25 years, believe it or not, I picked up Birth Of The Cool about two years ago in the check out line at Walgreen's! Classic stuff, I love it.

I also prefer the fifties, just because that's what I happened to get into initially,  but in recent years when I hear the later stuff I'm more and more interested.   The guy that originally got me into him had once convinced me that Bitches Brew was the end of the road.

I assume everyone knows the story about Kind Of Blue being issued at the wrong speed?

[the captain]

Any comments on Birth of the cool?   

It's brilliant. Arguably the first of Miles' innovations.

[Surfer Joe]

Agree completely.

[donald]

Tell me about KOB being issued at the wrong speed.  Was that corrected?   I like the way it sounds on my remastered copy.  I think the speed, as I have heard it, is perfect.

[Surfer Joe]

I was hoping somebody more knowledgeable would leap into the breach here (Luther!)  but since nobody stepped up, I'll do my best.  I'm going from memories of stuff I read ten-fifteen years ago, so please insert the phrase "if I remember correctly" liberally throughout every sentence, and I'll expect somebody to jump in here if I mangle things too badly:

Apparently it used to be pretty common practice on Miles' stuff  to physically cut master takes out and assemble master reels from them.  As a matter of fact, when no decent master could be found for Miles Ahead, (If I Remember Correctly), they once issued a CD made of alternate takes and hoped no one would notice.  A more diligent search turned up the real thing.  Then they made a thorough  search for the Kind Of Blue master in the early nineties, having been stuck with a lousy master, and came up with the original. (Columbia went through all this with the Byrds and Simon and Garfunkel, too).

Well, according to ICE magazine at the time- wish I still had it- "Flamenco Sketches" and "All Blues" had always been sort of a mystery to jazz musicians who tried to play along and couldn't quite match Miles' tone. It turned out that after the first pressing, the album had been issued with side two a half tone off.  They had gone to a second master very early on and the mistake was perpetuated from there.  Amazingly, no one had noticed for all these years because- I guess- first pressings were relatively uncommon.  But the first pressings that were rounded up and compared confirmed that a certain number were issued correctly, and had been out there for more than thirty years.  All pressings since then have been issued with corrected speed.

Kind Of Blue was one of the first six CDs I ever bought, along with the first four Beatles albums and Carole King's Tapestry, in 1987, so I have both versions.  If anyone's interested enough, and it's considered arcane enough (twenty years out of print) to be an exception to board rules, I could upload the incorrect speed version of side two. Maybe someone could do a mash-up and we could hear the difference.

In the eighties, I don't think they even bothered with accurate cover art.