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Miles Davis’ Birth of The Cool: Origins of the Cool Jazz Movement
by Jeff Winke
Hands down the best name for a jazz album is Birth of the Cool. It doesn't make it to The 100 Greatest Jazz Albums of All Time nor is it among the Village Voice's Ten Jazz Albums to Hear Before You Die, yet the Miles Davis album, Birth of The Cool, was a pivot point in American jazz. The album became an orchestrated departure from bebop, with the word orchestrated meaning both the use of orchestration and a ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis: In a Silent Way
by Nenad Georgievski
"Miles' audience isn't where it used to be but neither is his music" was used to market the new releases of Miles Davis' indefatigably changing music in the late 60's that caused seismic shifts in the world of jazz and completely had redirected it into new and fresh territories. In a career that stretched five decades Miles Davis did more than just become a star--this enigmatic 20th century icon fused an astonishing array of different musical styles, refused to be ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis: Legendary Concerts
by Chris May
Like the curate's egg, parts of trumpeter Miles Davis' 1980s recordings and performances were excellent, and others considerably less so. The 1985 Columbia album, You're Under Arrest--of which the CD/DVD set Legendary Concerts was a partial live performance, with one important personnel change--was the strongest of the early to mid 1980s albums, on which keyboardist Robert Irving 111's heavy on the back beat groove-arrangements, first heard on The Man With The Horn (Columbia, 1981), and Davis' increasingly minimalist playing, meshed ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis: Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2
by AAJ Italy Staff
Questo secondo volume (dopo Live in Europe 1967), nella serie denominata maliziosamente The Bootleg Series, comprende tre CD e un DVD e copre adeguatamente una lacuna discografica che si venne a creare nella fase dei grandi cambiamenti che portarono Miles a sostituire via via tutti i componenti dello storico quintetto che si era affermato nella seconda metà degli anni sessanta. Infatti, la formazione qui ripresa dal vivo, con il batterista Jack DeJohnette al posto di Tony Williams, non è mai ...
Continue ReadingLive in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2
by Chris M. Slawecki
Volume 2 in Legacy's Bootleg Series features Miles Davis' “great lost band" with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette, recorded in July and November 1969. This band, sometimes called Davis' “third great quintet," never recorded as a standalone ensemble, although it served as the core of the larger group that consolidated around the trumpeter's landmark Bitches Brew sessions in August '69. While preparing Miles: The Autobiography, Davis told biographer Quincy Troupe: ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2
by Doug Collette
It's little surprise that the recordings comprising Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 were captured in the wake of the recording of the jazz icon's seminal album In A Silent Way (Columbia, 1969) and prior to the release of the even more significant followup, Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970), in the spring of the following year.Miles Davis never waited around for reaction to his groundbreaking music in any era of his career and at this juncture, ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis Quintet: Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2
by John Kelman
While the quintet heard on this first-time commercial issue of four live dates from 1969 was, in fact, already uncovered on the November 4, 1969 Copenhagen concert DVD included in the Bitches Brew: 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition and Legacy Edition (both Columbia/Legacy, 2010) and a portion of Bitches Brew Live (Columbia/Legacy, 2011)--as well as in sextet form (with the addition of percussionist Airto Moreira) on Live at The Fillmore East, March 7, 1970: It's About That Time (Columbia/Legacy, 2001)--the performances ...
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