Miles on Columbia

[Chuck Nessa]

After disposing the single cds after obtaining all the Miles "metal spine" sets, I found myself missing the original programs. Now I have found most titles available on Amazon for $3.79. A bunch of 'em are on the way.

[felser]

5 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

After disposing the single cds after obtaining all the Miles "metal spine" sets, I found myself missing the original programs. Now I have found most titles available on Amazon for $3.79. A bunch of 'em are on the way.

I also ended up keeping the single CD's when I got the boxes.  They still very much serve a purpose to hear the original distillation, as the boxes are so far-reaching.

[Shrdlu]

I have all of those sets. The disks were so hard to remove that they came out once and never went back in.

They should have included the first version of "Billy Boy". Everyone and his dog knows the version on the "Milestones" album. It would be interesting to hear an alternate.

[Late]

I noticed those Miles titles for $3.79 as well. Sometimes the label is listed as Legacy, sometimes Columbia/Legacy, sometimes SMG, sometimes Sony UK, and sometimes Imports. I wonder why the variation.

[felser]

29 minutes ago, Late said:

I noticed those Miles titles for $3.79 as well. Sometimes the label is listed as Legacy, sometimes Columbia/Legacy, sometimes SMG, sometimes Sony UK, and sometimes Imports. I wonder why the variation.

Not all of them got later Legacy releases.   

[Rooster_Ties]

I had a TON of those Miles albums as individual titles, incl. a fair number as Japanese imports too.  Directions I especially remember being a bear to find on CD, and I even had the Japanese editions of Sorcerer and Nefertiti about a year or two before they'd ever come out in the US on CD.

Anyway, while I completely agree the boxes disagreeably discard the original album-sequencing, I ultimately couldn't justify owning ALL that material twice -- for reasons of space/storage as much as anything.  I never got rid of jewel boxes, and was probably up around 5,000 CD's by the time I decided to part with all those individual Miles albums on CD.

Do I regret not having them any more?  Sure.  But given our tiny 630 sq-ft, 1BR apartment here in DC, there's no way in hell I could justify having that much duplicated material.

I've burned a couple CDR's here and there, with the original sequences, but not all that many.  Sorcerer and Nefertiti both fit wonderfully on one CD (sans "Nothing Like You...").  And a number of other key albums are in the original LP-sequences on the metal-spine boxes.

And I did keep Kind of Blue, of course - which for those rare times I want to hear it, I really want to hear the actual album as intended.

No big regrets, but I totally understand the impulse to have a lot of them as originally sequenced.

[soulpope]

Guilty for stocking some (not all) individual releases too ....

[jazzbo]

I have many Miles Davis discs, and even though I have culled the collection considerably. . . still have a lot.

There are Japanese releases that sound considerably better than any of the US release, at least to me in my system, and I will keep them and listen to them when I want to hear that music.

[JSngry]

I guess this is why I've kept my LPs.

[Chuck Nessa]

45 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I guess this is why I've kept my LPs.

Sold much of my vinyl about a quarter century ago to finance this;

[JSngry]

Well, that's a good reason.

[felser]

20 hours ago, soulpope said:

Guilty for stocking some (not all) individual releases too ....

I didn't hold onto them all, but do have the individual CD's of the core releases through about 1971 (so didn't keep the redundant individual CD's of things like 'Jazz at the Plaza' or 'Circle in the Round').  And I did not keep the crazy expensive On The Corner box, kept the individual CD's instead for economic reasons.

[David Ayers]

The resequencing of some of these famous and familiar albums (even dividing some across two sets, let alone across CDs in the same set) is wearing to say the least. I don’t care much for most Miles but did retain many of the legacy discs for this reason, as well as buy the mono box. 

[David Ayers]

For clarification: I do have most though not all of the boxes. The ones I got most out of were those I was (up to that point) least invested in (Seven Steps, Jack Johnson). Maybe the one I got the least out of was the second quintet, which opens up with a resequenced ESP and tails off into quite a lot of stuff that doesn’t work that well. 

[king ubu]

Well, that's one opinion ... another one (i.e. mine ) is that the session sequence allows to follow chronologically a most fascinating journey, starting with "Filles" and morphing through various stages until the full stop after "Agartha" and "Pangaea" ...

Albums I kept are just a few, "Someday My Prince Will Come" (not covered in any box), "Live-Evil", and also I did get the CD editions of "Big Fun" and "Get Up with It" -- why? Since I never knew those configurations before buying them boxes.

I did get the mono albums  box later and am quite happy about it though, a fine addition (but also a remembrance that if you stick to LP configurations, you're missing out on the best track from the 1958 session with Trane and Evans  "Love for Sale").

[Gdgray]

I wish I only had duplicates. I recently sold off a bunch of Miles Masterpiece cds and duplicate metal spine boxes. Now I just found another batch of single Miles CDs I had forgotten and SACD/Japanese issues as well. Like some on this forum downsizing due to economics. I really hate the selling part especially pricing. I struggle because I think everyone must have all of Miles music.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Gdgray

[JSngry]

5 hours ago, king ubu said:

...if you stick to LP configurations, you're missing out on the best track from the 1958 session with Trane and Evans  "Love for Sale").

Not if you have this one on LP as well:

Then if you have to hear them all together, make a cassette!

[mjzee]

If you only have the Jack Johnson box, then you don't have the version of "Go Ahead John" that's on Big Fun.  The one on Big Fun is indescribable: Teo and Miles and mixers and weird electronic boxes create a gumbo that's irritating and fascinating at the same time.  I wonder what Jack DeJohnette thought of the final version?  The pieces on the Jack Johnson box are tame in comparison.

[jazzbo]

I've had "Big Fun" since the 2 LP was first released. "Go Ahead John" has never irritated me, it still delivers excitement in listening for me.

[danasgoodstuff]

I've got a CDR of the raw takes of "Go Ahead John" from the Jack Johnson box plus the final mix from Big Fun, often just leave it in in the car to hear random bits of it's annoying, astounding glory.

[king ubu]

On 14.12.2019 at 4:36 PM, JSngry said:

Not if you have this one on LP as well:

Then if you have to hear them all together, make a cassette!

True, but to this CD generation collector, that was never easily obtainable ...

[sidewinder]

On 14/12/2019 at 9:32 PM, jazzbo said:

I've had "Big Fun" since the 2 LP was first released.

Same here - and that 2LP UK CBS set is still my go-to version.

[felser]

On 12/17/2019 at 1:00 PM, king ubu said:

True, but to this CD generation collector, that was never easily obtainable ...

'Circle in the Round' can be easily found on CD for under $10.  'Directions' is the tough one.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/176984/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=miles+davis+circle+in+the+round&_sop=15

https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?sort=price%2Casc&limit=25&master_id=62333&ev=mb&format=CD

[Rooster_Ties]

5 hours ago, felser said:

'Directions' is the tough one.

I'm almost positive I had Directions on CD at one point, which I sold after I'd gotten everything from it via all the metal-spine boxes.

Funny though, I can't for the life of me very specifically remember when I got it -- or when I got rid of it.  Used to be 15 years ago, I could look at any CD in my collection, and tell you not only about when I got it (within a year or two), but also WHERE it was that I bought it.

Now, I can barely do that with 30% of my collection any more (if that much, even).

[danasgoodstuff]

2 hours ago, Rooster_Ties said:

I'm almost positive I had Directions on CD at one point, which I sold after I'd gotten everything from it via all the metal-spine boxes.

Funny though, I can't for the life of me very specifically remember when I got it -- or when I got rid of it.  Used to be 15 years ago, I could look at any CD in my collection, and tell you not only about when I got it (within a year or two), but also WHERE it was that I bought it.

Now, I can barely do that with 30% of my collection any more (if that much, even).

You & me both, I just bought two things I could swear I owned at one time but can't find or remember getting rid of...  Hell getting old, but it's a pleasant surprise to realize that I'm married to the most perfect woman (for me) ever!