Agharta and Pangaea turn 50!

[Guy Berger]

The afternoon and evening concerts at Osaka’s Festival Hall turn 50 tomorrow (February 1st 1975).

Ive been listening to these albums for more than 25 years.  It’s taken me a long time to appreciate them.  (And I’d still say that I like some of Davis’s other electric music better - though I like them a lot.)

Some things I’m interested in:

 

1/ “this was just one day in the life of the band”.  My sense from lightly grazing recordings of other concerts from this Japanese tour is that these 4 LPs weren’t even the best performances.

 

2/ On a similar theme, a lot of our received history of post-1965 Miles Davis is because of a few releases.  So for a long time folks thought of these as the last word.  Now it’s more apparent there was a steady evolution from On the Corner to the summer of 1975 (final recording we have is from July).  It’s interesting to imagine what would have happened if Davis had not retired due to health/drug issues - maybe there would have just been a smooth transition to the more commercial early 1980s music.

3/ I remember listening to “Bush Baby” from Arthur Blythe’s Illusions for the first time and thinking, ok, that’s an obvious nod to this music!  A lot of Julius Hemphill’s stuff, too.  Though maybe just convergent evolution.

 

Edited Friday at 03:59 PM by Guy Berger

[Rabshakeh]

Agharta is a big one for me, for a complex net of personal reasons. The first record I listened to on vinyl. A favourite of my secondary school russian teacher, who used to bring the conversation around to "avantgyard djyaz founkt" during oral tests. A big obsessive record for my elder son, aged 5 (sadly since overtaken by Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind). One of my jazz loving aunt's most hated records (she walked out of the London show of the same tour).

But generally such a great record. I fell in love with it long before I enjoyed fusion or even electric Miles more generally. It is such a big aggressive soup. 

I'll give the birthday boy a spin tonight.

Edited Friday at 04:12 PM by Rabshakeh

[Gheorghe]

I have been listening to those two albums for 48 years if I am right. Maybe Agharta first in early 1977, and Pangheea a little later, it was much more expensive. 
I was still at high school when it came out and one of the first who had it. During intermissions between classes we tall and tiny long haird kids would act like "Miles" who was our hero , we had those huge sun glasses, would bend down and imitating that whah whah sound of the trumpet, and others would beat percussion patterns on the school tables until the prof for the next lesson our would come in and shout at us to stop 😄

[JSngry]

It is the burning sun of its own vibrating invitational ecosystem.

[mjzee]

I remember when Agharta came out.  It was like the fifth consecutive 2-LP set from Miles; such an odd release pattern.  It was hard to tell which ones Miles was committed to, and which ones were Teo & Columbia trying to make back their money (though the economics of releasing cheap 2-LP sets seemed to defeat that purpose).  I really really loved Get Up With It, and loved the groove and bite established by Agharta.  Pete Cosey was it!

[jazzbo]

Cosey was great . . . but I was always fascinated by the great supportive playing by Reggie Lucas. Wow!

[mjzee]

45 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

Cosey was great . . . but I was always fascinated by the great supportive playing by Reggie Lucas. Wow!

I never focused on Lucas.  Next time, I'll listen for him.

[JSngry]

Check out Mtume while you're at it. I might post that Mtume was to that band what Ron Carter was to the 60s band?

My maxim for that band is that "the music is in the middle". 

It really was its own ecosystem. The term "electric jungle" was not just a figure of speech...

[mhatta]

Agharta and Pangaea are great, but a bootleg known as "Another Unity" (from Jan. 22, 1975) is even better.  And music from the 1973 tour is also teriffic.  I really hope they release someday something like "Miles Davis Bootleg Series Vol. 9: Japan Tours 1973/1975".