 |
| Miles Davis, 1986* |
One reason is the continued high
profile of his music. Within five years of his passing, the labels with which
Davis was affiliated began reissue projects of just about everything available from
his multi-faceted career. The prolific variety of at least 25 boxed sets and
reissues may seem overwhelming to casual fans, but the relentless boxing of
Miles is a delight to the jazz world’s compleatists, or at least the Davis
contingent. And for that, Miles might smile, or not.
A lengthy rundown of those
projects follows.
Columbia
started it
Columbia/Legacy began in 1996 an extensive reissue program of eight
ornate, multiple-CD, boxed sets that it dubbed the Miles Davis Series. They were
Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete
Columbia Studio Recordings (released in 1996); Miles
Davis Quintet 1965-’68: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (1998); The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions
(1998); Miles Davis & John Coltrane; The
Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961 (2000); The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions (2001); The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions (2003); Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings Of Miles Davis 1963-1964
(2004); and The Cellar Door Sessions 1970
(2005). After rolling out those metal-cased sets, the
label concluded the series with a limited edition 52-CD set, The Complete Miles Davis Album Collection,
in January 2010.
cSix months later, Columbia
was out with an ultra-limited edition (2,000 copies) 43-CD set called The Genius of Miles Davis, cleverly packaged in an individually numbered trumpet case. The 21-pound package also includes a custom-designed T-shirt, a fine art lithograph of a Davis painting and a replica of the "Gustat" Heim 2 mouthpiece that Miles used
during his career.
In 2001,
Columbia/Legacy provided a 75th birthday present for Davis fans who like their
music in tidy packages that take up substantially less shelf space, The
two-disc set, The Essential Miles Davis,
pulled together key chronological works he recorded for seven different labels
between 1945 and 1986. It’s all Miles - from his first days in New York with
Charlie Parker to his synthesizer-laden pop and funk bands of the '80s.
In the
fall of 2010, Columbia/Legacy released Bitches Brew: 40th Anniversary Collector’s Edition to celebrate Davis’s
genre-smashing project that blended jazz with the commercial rock world.
The boxed set included CDs containing the original recording plus six bonus
tracks, a previously unissued performance by his evolving septet at Tanglewood
in August 1970, a DVD of a previously unissued quintet performance in
Copenhagen, an audiophile vinyl replication of the original album, and reproduced
memorabilia. Why was so much attention paid to Bitches Brew? Davis had gone head-to-head with arena rock bands at major venues – and found a rock audience welcoming his new group sound. It spawned a new wave of jazz-cum-progressive rock that soon became known as fusion. It paved the way for Weather Report, the Brecker Brothers, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and many other adventurers. At the time, jazz purists were divided over his innovation, questioning where Miles was headed, but now we have a clear sense of its progeny and impact.
Fan
choices
In August 2011, another marketing twist entered the picture. Legacy Recordings
launched an online initiative called The Miles Davis Fan Project. It was
designed to introduce the trumpeter’s music to a digital audience via Facebook
and Davis’s official website. Forty classic Miles tracks spanning the post-bop
cool of Kind of Blue through the ferocious fusion of Bitches Brew
and other Davis explorations were featured on Facebook via the social sound
sharing platform SoundCloud. The tracks feature an active "like"
button that enabled fans to vote. The 10 recordings receiving the most
"likes" from fans online were assembled for Blue Flame, a
fan-selected, digital-only album.
The
Bootleg Series
Columbia/Legacy was far from done. It began issuing a Bootleg Series of recordings by seminal
Davis bands, captured in fine form of previously unreleased (or only bootlegged)
live performances. There are five so far. Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1, released in 2011, included recordings of three separate
concerts in Europe by Davis and his "second great quintet,” consisting of
saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and
drummer Tony Williams. Live in Europe
1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2, released in 2013, showcased a rather different band: Shorter, bassist Dave Holland,
drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Chick Corea. Davis had never recorded in
the studio with this "third quintet" roster, making this its first
officially released music.
Miles at the Fillmore – Miles Davis 1970: The
Bootleg Series Vol. 3, released
in 2014, featured the trumpeter’s four-night stand at promoter Bill Graham’s
legendary Fillmore East music emporium in New York City for the first time in
its entire full-length unedited form. The boxed set includes one disc for each
of the concerts, June 17-20, 1970, that Miles and his group performed at the
Fillmore East, when his band opened for singer-songwriter Laura
Nyro. These performances featured the double keyboard powerhouse with
which Davis toured for a few months. Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea played
electronic organ and Fender Rhodes, respectively. The other band members were
Steve Grossman on saxophones, Dave Holland on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums
and Airto Moreira on percussion. The box also includes three different tracks
from an April 11, 1970 concert at Graham’s Fillmore West venue in San Francisco
by the same band minus Jarrett.
On
July 17, 2015, the 60th anniversary of the
trumpeter’s breakthrough performance at the Newport Jazz Festival,
Columbia/Legacy Recordings released Miles
Davis at Newport 1955-75: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4. It consists of live performances in 1955, 1958,
1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973 and 1975 in Newport and at festivals carrying the
Newport Jazz Festival brand in New York City, Berlin and Switzerland. Most of
the material contained in the four-CD set was previously unreleased. A July 17,
1955 all-star jam session at Newport teamed Davis with saxophonists
Gerry Mulligan and Zoot Sims, pianist Thelonious Monk, bassist
Percy Heath and drummer Connie Kay. Together, they explored “Hackensack,”
“'Round Midnight” and “Now's The Time.” Columbia Records’ A&R man George
Avakian signed to a recording contract shortly after that appearance. In
promoting the material, the label touted Davis’s “20-year association as an
artist at impresario George Wein's renowned Newport Jazz Festival.” It actually
was a 35-year association, but the compilation does not include any material
from Davis late-career performances at Newport in 1984, 1986 or 1990, or at
other Newport-related festivals during that later timeframe.
On
Oct. 21, 2016, Columbia/Legacy releases Miles Davis Quintet: Freedom Jazz Dance: The
Bootleg Series, Vol. 5. The three-CD set will include performances from three
albums: Miles Smiles, Nefertiti and Water Babies, which
were recorded between 1966 and 1968. They feature Davis’s Second Great Quintet,
which included Shorter, Hancock, Carter and Williams. The label says the
collection “provides an unprecedented look into the artist's creative process,
drawing on full session reels including all rehearsals, partial and alternate
takes, extensive and fascinating studio conversation and more.” In one
instance, the session recording of Shorter’s composition “Nefertiti,” captures
Davis stopping the band and suggesting the approach they ultimately took: there
would be none of the customary solos, turning it into what journalist Nate
Chinen called in his New York Times piece “a kind of flowing drum concerto for
Mr. Williams.”
Mono
Miles
In 2013, another remastered compilation called The Original Mono Recordings included
nine albums that he recorded for the label between 1956 and 1961. In this case,
‘Round About Midnight, Miles Ahead,
Milestones, Jazz Track, Porgy and Bess, Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain,
Someday My Prince Will Come and Miles
And Monk At Newport were presented in their original monaural sound. That’s
the way virtually all popular music was recorded and intended to be heard at
the time. The boxed set put each album in a mini LP-replica jacket with
original art. The excellent sound quality gets rid of any manipulations and
tinkering that took place when Davis’s classic material was released later in
stereo LP or CD formats. In this context, it all sounds fresh and new.
The Prestige years
In
2006, the Prestige label released a 4-CD set called The Miles Davis Quintet, the Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions featuring
material that the trumpeter recorded
between 1955 and 1958. They included The
New Miles Davis Quintet, Workin’, Steamin’, Relaxin’, Cookin’, Miles Davis and
the Modern Jazz Giants, plus a disc of previously unissued recordings of
eight tunes recorded on appearances on “The Tonight Show with Steve Allen” and
at club date in Philadelphia and New York. The band for these sessions included
tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers and
drummer Philly Joe Jones.
In May 2016, the month that would
have been Davis’s 90th birthday, Prestige reissued the trumpeter’s
first albums as a bandleader in a
boxed-set called The Complete Prestige
10-Inch LP Collection. The remastered set compiles the 10”
records that Davis released from 1951-1954. The 11-LP set includesone bonus record, saxophonist Lee
Konitz’s The New Sounds, on which Davis was a guest artist. The collection includes a 16-page
booklet and a print of a painting by Davis.
Blue Note and more
As part of its 75th anniversary celebration in 2014, Blue Note Records began issuing a series of Blue Note Select collections of multi-CD sets by some of its major artists through the years. It began in May 2014 with Miles Davis / Take Off: The Complete Blue Note Albums. The two-CD set is a collection of Davis’s three Blue Note 10-inch albums plus all alternate takes issued on subsequent 12-inch albums and CD reissues: a total of 26 tracks recorded for Blue Note on three dates in 1952, ’53 and ’54. This is the first time Davis’s10-inch albums – Young Man With A Horn, Miles Davis Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 – were issued in their original sequence since the early 1950s.
As part of its 75th anniversary celebration in 2014, Blue Note Records began issuing a series of Blue Note Select collections of multi-CD sets by some of its major artists through the years. It began in May 2014 with Miles Davis / Take Off: The Complete Blue Note Albums. The two-CD set is a collection of Davis’s three Blue Note 10-inch albums plus all alternate takes issued on subsequent 12-inch albums and CD reissues: a total of 26 tracks recorded for Blue Note on three dates in 1952, ’53 and ’54. This is the first time Davis’s10-inch albums – Young Man With A Horn, Miles Davis Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 – were issued in their original sequence since the early 1950s.
Germany’s Membran
label got into the act in 2006 with its release of Just Squeeze Me, a 10-disc set from Davis’s early-to-mid 1950s
period. Those studio sessions bridged his formative jazz years and the
stylistic tangents that consumed him a few years later. The no-frills boxed set
includes his two Blue Note albums (without alternate takes) and his Prestige albums
Dig!, Walkin', Bags' Groove, Modern Jazz
Giants, Relaxin', Workin' and "Steamin' in their entirety.
In
December 2014, Trapeze Music & Entertainment’s Acrobat label released a
four-CD boxed set of live recordings by Miles Davis Quintet from a spring 1960
European tour. All Of
You: The Last Tour 1960 was compiled from six hours of radio
broadcasts and private recordings that the label said “have previously been
available in a patchy and piecemeal fashion.” Those concerts featured Davis and
John Coltrane at the end of the saxophonist’s five-year association with Davis.
The quintet also included Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and
Jimmy Cobb on drums.
The
Warner Bros. years
In 2011, Warner Bros.’ European division released a five-CD boxed
set Miles Davis The Warner Years: 1986-1991. This project was first planned in 2001
as a six-CD set that was shelved due to legal and licensing issues. The
compilation lacks a bit of the originally planned material. The Warner Years offers the complete
albums Tutu (1986), Amandla (1989), Live Around the World (1996), the historic Miles and Quincy Live at Montreux (1991), on which Davis revisited
his 1950s repertoire with Gil Evans for the first time in decades at the
Montreux Jazz Festival. It also included Doo-Bop
(1991), plus seven selections from the soundtrack of Dingo (1991) and five from Siesta
(1987). Disc 5 included four previously unreleased songs plus 10 performances
on which Davis accompanied Scritti Politti, Cameo, Chaka Khan (and Prince),
Zucchero Fornaciari, Kenny Garrett, Marcus Miller and Shirley Horn. There is
much here to enjoy from Miles’s final creative phase when he further blurred
the jazz star/pop star boundaries.
With some more tweaks, Rhino/Warner Bros. in
December 2015 released The
Last Word - The Warner Bros. Years, a definitive eight-CD boxed set
documenting the trumpeter’s work after he left Columbia in 1985. It includes
remastered versions of his five Warner Bros. studio recordings – Tutu, Amandla, Doo-Bop, the Dingo and Siesta soundtracks; and three discs of live recordings, including
his octet’s full performance at the 1986 Nice Jazz Festival, plus music from the
historic Miles and Quincy Live at
Montreux.
* Miles Davis photo copyright Ken Franckling/1986
* Miles Davis photo copyright Ken Franckling/1986
# # #
No comments:
Post a Comment