Miles second quintet complete 6 cd box set - hmv (£12.00)!!!

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

For those who don't have all the orginal albums (ESP to Filles), HMV is now selling the "long" 6CD box Sony set of all Miles's 2nd GREAT '60s quintet (avec Shorter) etc. for £12 ENGLISH POUNDS! Wonderful set, including some fascinating out-takes (eg 2nd take of "Hand Jive")and in a book like folder. Miles+Band=Genius at this point.

Only problem is getting the CDs out of the box/book without breaking them.

(Miles's "birthday" today innit).

BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

need a link El senor Blues can not find it on hmv ...

[Pilchardman]

Maybe it's an in-store offer?

I doubt it'll be in my local branch, though, their jazz "section" only has Jamie Cullum and Kind of Blue.

[Serial_Apologist]

Maybe it's an in-store offer?

I doubt it'll be in my local branch, though, their jazz "section" only has Jamie Cullum and Kind of Blue.

Your local branch has A JAZZ SECTION???

[Pilchardman]

:D Very good! You win.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"need a link El senor Blues can not find it on hmv ..."

Calum, I did a search too and elsewhere it seemed to be selling at c. £45 plus (the box was released in 2004). I'm wondering if it was a (HMV Newport, Wales *) "misprice" so just glad that I grabbed mine, paid and ran. £12 for six CDs of peak Miles is truly Osborne Collapse Britain.

BN.

* Wouldn't surprise me as the guy in the shop who seems to order their "Specialist" muzak asked me, when I bought a Tubby Hayes CD awhile back , if "he was as crazy as Coltrane and did as many drugs as him...like acid?"(sic) That being a key selling point.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

a great score then El Senor!

¡la libertad! ¡la libertad del hombre!

[Byas'd Opinion]

Thanks for the tip, Bluesnik.

I managed to pick a copy up in the Glasgow Buchanan St branch for £12. They'd at least one other copy (but the Argyle St branch didn't seem to have any).

CBS/Sony seem to have a thing about putting out boxed sets in elaborately designed cases which look great but are impractical. This one's even worse than the Charlie Christian "amplifier" box, as you've often got to remove other CDs to get at the one you want behind it. Grrr!

I'm slightly embarrassed by how little of the music on it I've already got. My excuse is that my Miles purchases have tended to be of a representative album from each period/band rather than the complete output of any one line-up.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

MO MILES 2nd QUINTET - Picked up the BRAND NEW Sony box set of Miles's European Concerts from 1967 (4CDS inc dvd) - stunning stuff. Previously I only had the '67 Paris concert on an Italian bookleg cassette tape and it is up there (in full audio quality) with the Plugged Nickle tapes. £18 WELL spent of anyone's euros. Plus, there are concerts from Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Germany. Release of the year so far for me...

FROM SOMEONE'S AMAZON REVIEW..."This latest addition to my Miles collection is superb. Like his 'first great quintet' this band comprised 5 tremendously talented individuals. Like the first line up this one was never going to be a Miles Davis backing group. Each of these musicians brought something unique to the group. Comparisons with miles first great quintet are probably futile, they are very different animals. Several of my favourite studio albums (not just by Davis but by anyone) are from this group. Previous to this release the only officially released live material was the eight CD 'Plugged Nickel' boxed set, which has been unavailable for some years, although a double CD best of was released as part of the massive 72 disc 'Complete Columbia' box set a couple of years ago. This set however differs considerably from the 'Plugged Nickel set' which concentrated very much on older material from Miles' back catalogue. Whilst a few older tunes (round midnight, walkin', the theme, no blues, I fall in love too easily and on green dolphin street) do appear on this set, the music on these three well filled discs (all clock in at over an hour each) are culled from albums by this quintet. The music is tremendous, as you would expect from these maestros. Furthermore the sound quality accross all three discs is excellent. None of the music on the three CDs has been previously officially released, although some of it has been around for a while in sub-standard bootleg form. The DVD which was previously released as part of the 'Complete Columbia' set is equally as good, with excellent sound and picture quality."

BN.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

FROM THE NY TIMES REVIEW...

"As the subtitle suggests, some of this material has circulated in bootleg form; the DVD footage, from Germany and Sweden, was featured in one of the recent Legacy doorstoppers. But “Live in Europe 1967,” as an objet d’art, still feels momentous. The music sounds staggeringly contemporary, pointing toward some crucial attributes of our present jazz era even as it ratifies, more firmly than ever, the singular dynamism of Davis’s 1960s quintet. And as the first release in a series of previously unsanctioned music — the plan is to put out at least one a year for the next several years"


FANTASTIC STUFF.
BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

genius or demented twittering Wayne Shorter at the Barbican on Sunday ...any one go?

[charles t]

Calum: The follow-up comments to the 'review' revealed the strict dichotomy that exists with this art form - jazz.

From its beginning back in those New Orleans cathouses, it has been a social medium...mostly dependent upon some sort of audience...primarily economically generated.

Many interviews with musicians speak of the mutual rapport between the performers and the audience, etc. etc. etc.

As well as more soulful observations emenating within the group speaking of the interaction and interdependency of - say - rhythm section to the others...the absolute necessity of indulging in the art of (musical) conversation(s) within the group.

Many treatises of this process are in publications. Many.

As opposed to a classical composer, who after transcribing all the parts, can walk away and the piece exists within a fixed time-and-space.

[Imagining a performing jazz musician thinking in pure vulgar-eez:]

'Screw 'em, if they can't take a joke!'

[Ian Thumwood]

Calum

I would have to fall on the side of Shorter being a genius. The current quartet is probably the defining jazz group on the first decade of this century and the way that the four musicians "feel" the music has sent the standard to the way jazz should be played today. The only thing disappointing is that Shorter took so long to return to an acoustic setting.

I haven't had a great deal of free time over the last few weeks but the last time I sat down at the piano, I looked at the book I had of Shorter compositions and was taken at how the harmonies are so eccentric as to stear you in a direction that is outside of your comfort zone. It doesn't really matter if the audience isn't always able to grasp what is happening and sometimes it is difficult to really understand what is goin on. When they improvise, the themes come and go and they could be improvising on anything - a fragment of theme, a vamp. improvising over a pedal, etc. I love the way that they take liberties with the structure of the music. The music has progressed well beyong simply blowing over a set of changes. Indeed, this seems really boring these days - it is tedious hearing musicians just "running around the block" as my teacher used to say. It is just not what the music is about in 2011.

Listening to this group is one of the best live experiences in jazz at the moment even if it leaves a proportion of the audience behind. There are some excellent clips in "Youtube" land including a handful of gigs I have been at. This music is not a joke and there is no intent in hoodwinking the audience. My experience of this group is that they are creating total music - almost Bach - like in the way that the music solely serves itself. There is no show-boating, no pandering to popular taste or the whims of the audience and no shallow demonstrations of technique. This band is probably the purist , true musical experience in jazz at the moment. With Brecker passed on and the great Sonny Rollins very much in his winter years, Shorter is a link between the Goldon era of the past and indicative of how so much of the best jazz created today is on a par with anything recorded in the last 90 years.

[Serial_Apologist]

I was first really made aware of the subtle shift of this group towards greater abstraction the last time I saw Shorter, which was in 2006, and at the Barbican. Later comparisons between that broadcast and the one I'd taped in 2001 confirmed the direction earlier hinted at. Here the group is using inter-musical familiarity in terms of repertoire and improvisational challenge to further elaborate and thus enhance its own highly characterised sense of connectedness. In going beyond the continuous seqencing of established tunes I think it marks a next step beyond the "Second Quintet", one that bridges intervening years, but in such a manner as to make considerable demands on listeners, who are expected (one supposes, given references that pass among the cogniscenti?) to recognise themes from fragments, identify with the importance invested as much by repute as anything else in these particular musicians, and make a difficult bridge between two qualitatively distinct listening methodologies: one based on having no expectations and "going with the unforseeable"; the other rooted in stretching within still relatively conventional parameters, however unique Shorter's harmonic imagination as a tunesmith may make him.

That's imv where the difficulty probably lies for many of those who were alienated by the concert; and it's a difficulty I admit to sharing: a new sensibility is required, one which synthesises two dissimilar listening approaches, rather like being able to see the front and back sides of a 2-dimensional drawing of a 3-dimensional square as simultaneously interchangeable perspectivewise, or spontaneously getting the punchline of a joke unexplained.

Which is impossible - but I've probably drawn a false analogy there!

S-A

[Ian Thumwood]

S-A

I think it would be easier to suggest that Shorter's quartet is essentially managing to invest the kind of liberation alluded to in much Improv but with a far more defined sense of pulse and development, In my opinion this band manages to achieve far more successfully what many Improv musicians seem to be aspiring to but so often miss the mark. For me, much Improv is just like rehearsing or practicing scales. It can sometimes be interesting but it can also be mind-shattering dull. What it never is compelling or with the drama of Shorter's band. As a listener, I really enjoy the journey when this band are playing and there is always a "groove" somewhere underneath which anchors the music firmly within jazz.

There are some fascinating developments going on in the way improviastion is now being tackled. This band seems to be to be at the forefront but I can recall seeing the group with Hargrove / Brecker / Hancock also taking liberties with the structure of the music back in the mid 2000's which left many of the people next to me in the audience feeling that the way themes were disected and developed explaining that jazz was on the brink of a major sea change. You can also hear these kinds of liberties being taken by the likes of Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer on recent discs. Moran and Iyer's takes on Monk do not run the changes but use the motifs within the themes as a launch-pad for their extemporisations. That they can do this, maintain a convincing narrative thread and still swing is hugely impressive. Musicians seem better equipped these days to improvise more freely and whilst I have a degree of respect for the likes of a improvising gian like Cecil Taylor, the harmonic palette at the disposal of many of these players is far broader than 40-50 years ago when this music started to evolve.

I must admit that I don't share your difficulty in dealing with shorter's music. It can be difficult recognising tunes (I have a DVD of a similar quartet with Hancock and Holland which certainly confused the compiler of the disc!) but some of the themes Shorter composes these days are pretty sparse anyway. I agree that this music takesit's cue from Davis's second quintet but the music has become even more abstract. Makes is seem even more disappointing that both Davis and Shorter pursued a more rock-orientated approach in the 70's / 80's with increasingly marginal returns. The more I hear Davis's late 80's output the less it appeals - I caught a DVD in the FNAC department store in Lyon during my holiday and the music was going nowhere. Miles' last work shows an even great deterioration than the stuff Louis recorded in the 60's.