Miles Davis: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3

[Rooster_Ties]

Mine arrived today. Didn't really need it yesterday and $26.82 was a good price.

I'd be curious to hear your reactions to this set, Chuck, when you have the chance to give it a spin and offer your thoughts.

[JohnS]

Finally getting a chance to listen through this.

OUTSTANDING!

I've had CD3 on repeat play for 3 whole days and now into the 4th - a record for me. Outstanding, for sure. One big highlight for me has been Steve Grossman's work on tenor and soprano.

Agreed Bob

[BFrank]

Finally getting a chance to listen through this.

OUTSTANDING!

I've had CD3 on repeat play for 3 whole days and now into the 4th - a record for me. Outstanding, for sure. One big highlight for me has been Steve Grossman's work on tenor and soprano.

Agreed Bob

Me, too.

Also Jack's drumming.

[jazzbo]

Also Airto's drumming. This was the first place I encountered Airto, over forty years ago, and Airto has led me to so many wonderful sessions in so many different styles of music. On this set he plays everything from traps to animal parts I think. Really made me think about percussion differently, hear beats differently too.

[sidewinder]

Heck, Airto even tootles away on his penny whistle on this one. To good effect, amazingly.

[CJ Shearn]

I agree 100% Lon. Airto taught me everything I need to know about percussion, even just listening to him on CTI albums when I was growing up......... but the work with Miles is even more eye opening to hear around the same period, since it isn't in just the role of a session player. Look forward to hearing him play drums on this set.

[Guy Berger]

I'm a purist.

A purist digging on Miles At Fillmore. Now that's Progress In My Lifetime!

In the liner notes to the 90s CD reissue of My Funny Valentine and Four and More, the author says something like "despite his recent fusion misadventures, the music Miles Davis will be remembered for are his small group work and collaborations with Gil Evans." Does anybody have this handy, and is willing to dig up the name of the author and exact quote?

[CJ Shearn]

I no longer have the blue border CJM version of that set (replaced them in 2005 with the single disc) I remember that passage though, it's disgusting.

[David Ayers]

Well, that was a common opinion. The fusion seems much tamer now and perspectives change.

[CJ Shearn]

Well, that was a common opinion. The fusion seems much tamer now and perspectives change.

Right, then there started to be serious critical reappraisal of the 1969-75 music once the boxes were released. And then, the Montreux box plus many other live releases show that live, there was way more to the 80's stuff. It's only been the past decade I've been into electric Miles, I still gotta check out the Cellar Door set through Pangaea/Agharta, but I love "Black Beauty", "It's About that Time", the Isle of Wight stuff and the Bootleg vol. 2 material very much.

[Guy Berger]

Well, that was a common opinion. The fusion seems much tamer now and perspectives change.

Fair enough, but even in 1990 (around when the liner notes where written) it already was a bit reminiscent of "get off my lawn!!"

[Rooster_Ties]

Is it just me, or does all this material from Vol 3 seem less "out there" now that we have the actual tunes and themes as they were presented live in their full context? Meaning as opposed to the cutdown/edited versions that Teo assembled?

That isn't meant as a dis to Teo, or anyone for that matter. I'm just saying that these particular dates from June '70 almost seem more "approachable" than the "Black Beauty" edited proceedings from April '70 -- or even the dates with Wayne from March 1970 (which may be partially the result of being recorded so 'hot', or whatever the SQ challenges were with that show).

In any case, I have to say I'm becoming more and more impressed with Vol 3, with every additional spin. Frankly, I was thinking I might hold off on buying Vol 3 (at least for a while), and it was only the UK deal that really pushed me over the edge. But I am really glad I jumped on this when I did!!

[jazzbo]

I think the editing to create "Miles Davis at Fillmore" was brilliant. I think it was meant to be a sort of "freak out," the wildest moments were showcased, it was meant to draw attention from those who were into the wilder aspects of the new sounds, and. . . well it worked for me. Between this and Filles and Bitches I became hooked and explored Miles with a real passion, which led me to so many other jazz artists and their work.

I don't feel they sound "tamer" in their complete form, but they do make more "sense" and are less jarring and in that sense less thought-provoking, reaction-inducing. I've listened to all this material I can in official and unofficial form over the years so it's hard for me to be really hearing it with new ears, so I may be not experiencing it in the same way. I'm so happy this is finally released.

[JSngry]

Teo was a genius in his own right, in his own way, and Miles gave him the right-of-way to apply it. Those assemblages of his stand consideration apart from the music itself, especially On The Corner, which is like, the more you hear the loops and splices, the more HOLY SHIT it becomes.

[jazzbo]

Yes, no kidding, that's an amazing assemblage. I remember how it amazed me and no one I knew in Ohio seemed to "get it" or "give a shit." Then I moved to Texas, in a year I had a job and my new partner turned out to be from Ohio, and one day I mentioned Miles and he said "On the Corner, that's the shit" and I had someone to talk to about this music that was sort of my own little unshared passion.

"On the Corner" really is "something else."

[JSngry]

I guess it's inevitable and even proper that it's taking time for the difference to be considered, but "Miles' Music" & "Miles' Records" are, like, two circles of a Venn Diagram that maybe don't intersect nearly as "comfortably" as all the assumptions that have been poured into the "jazz paradigm" would allow for (in THAT perfect world, we would only enjoy records that were not records, they'd just be magical vessels of sound waves that showed up in our ears somehow), but hell, there it is anyway. I'm like, both are brilliant, and if this Bootleg Series will show anything as it continues to unfold, it will be that, yes, different, but/and yes, also brilliant.

It's not like Teo was taking shit and turning it into steak, right? No, he was taking valuable metals and shaping them into jewelries. And really, progress was probably better served that way, because there was a lot of shit going on in those bands pretty damn rapidly and if everybody had waited for a "definitive" resolution of it all before recording it, no records would have gotten made, because the conclusions were often, usually, even, made after the fact, not during it. If that Fillmore band would have waited for all the internal decisions to be reached before making an "official" unedited "jazz record", it would have never have made one, period, because it wasn't until AFTER that band had ceased to exist that those in it reached their conclusions. And then you'd have another version of The Lost Quintet, which was a band that easily COULD have had that type of record if there wasn't so much other stuff going on in the studio, newer stuff still.

So hey, Teo kept finding ways to tell Our Story So Far. Much love to him for that, much love.

[jazzbo]

Nice points. I have a lot of love for Teo and his work as well. Hell, I even like his reed work.

An independent like Lion and Blue Note can waste his time and money making records and leaving things in the can in order to put out "what's happening," etc. Glad he could do that. The music he was cultivating was moving a little slower than these Miles growths and he and his artists could crystalize a record with less cutting and pasting than Teo. Columbia had all these raw tapes from Miles too, in the can. One of the great joys of the 'nineties was EMI and Sony putting out some of these recordings when finally there was a market.

Edited April 6, 2014 by jazzbo

[BFrank]

It was interesting to read in the liners how quickly the Miles Fillmore 2LP set was released after the performances. I had no idea.

Also interesting how much the engineers learned about recording electric instruments from the "It's About that Time" dates, which were way too 'hot'. Very important regarding how clean the Fillmore East dates are.

[medjuck]

Teo was a genius in his own right, in his own way, and Miles gave him the right-of-way to apply it. Those assemblages of his stand consideration apart from the music itself, especially On The Corner, which is like, the more you hear the loops and splices, the more HOLY SHIT it becomes.

Isn't Teo really responsible for "It's About That Times" as Miles played it in concerts? Listening to the original studio version on the In A Silent Way box set it appears that what Miles might have originally thought of as the theme sounds a bit like Chuck Mangione. Teo completely jettisoned that part and pulled out what we now think of as the theme from one of Miles's solos.

BTW George Avakian also created a lot of classic cuts using scissors, though nothing quite as creative as Teo.

[JSngry]

Yeah, that IASW box was a revelation for exactly that reason. There was all this other stuff making up that tune that you would have never even dreamed about. I nearly shit my pants the first time I heard it, some serious WTF????-isnmess going on with that for me.

I wasn't there at the time (alive, yes, but not yet knowing), but I guess there was some "controversy" about Side 1 of IASW repeating itself for the second half, like it was heretical (or on a more pedestrian level, a ripoff) to do that. But hey, the difference between a "record" and a "performance" coming to the fore, not sjut a splice, but a freakin' manufactured recapitulation - on purpose!

Teo, though/remember, had this whole other life as a "classical" composer/musician, and he knew about this stuff, this using the studio and tape as instrument from that scene, the early electronic/etc. scene. He was not flying blind, let's put it that way. A pretty interesting cat in his own right.

[B. Clugston]

Teo was a genius in his own right, in his own way, and Miles gave him the right-of-way to apply it. Those assemblages of his stand consideration apart from the music itself, especially On The Corner, which is like, the more you hear the loops and splices, the more HOLY SHIT it becomes.

Isn't Teo really responsible for "It's About That Times" as Miles played it in concerts? Listening to the original studio version on the In A Silent Way box set it appears that what Miles might have originally thought of as the theme sounds a bit like Chuck Mangione. Teo completely jettisoned that part and pulled out what we now think of as the theme from one of Miles's

"Shhh/Peaceful" was the track where Teo jettisoned the theme.

[David Ayers]

This set is a treat for me since I had heard all of the officially released early 70s Miles except Fillmore, so it's all new. As interested as I am in Miles though I remain a non-fan, of his whole career. What's great about this set is that it is a vivid document, not least because of the sound, and shows clearly how the band worked and what it was trying to do.

Hippies have a lot to answer for. Get a haircut!

[CJ Shearn]

Just received my set. Looking forward to hearing the whole enchilada, Lon. Thanks so much for putting a new perspective on the original 2 LP which is something I wouldn't have thought, intended to highlight the wildest moments. Still, I don't prefer the original album, but that viewpoint was great, thank you.

Edited April 7, 2014 by CJ Shearn

[jazzbo]

I'm not sure I prefer the original albums either, but they're part of my brain chemistry now! There is a real punch to the lp mixes that is presented differently in the new one, I think it would be very interesting if the new one was as close to the lp mix as possible. .. but it may be better this way for me actually, now that I think of it.

Just an amazing reissue. Jazz reissue of the year for me I think.

[tranemonk]

Is there anyone other than me that ordered from the Amazon site and still hasn't received their set????