100 Miles

My floorboards groan under the weight of Miles Davis records and the records that his music has guided me towards. Today marks the great man's centenary and to celebrate this milestone (excuse the pun) I've spent the last few weeks revisiting his catalogue. My go-to period runs from 1969's 'In a Silent Way' through to 1974's 'Get Up With It', seven studio albums and three live sets, the majority of them doubles and many of which have been greatly expanded in recent years by the release of multi-disc complete session box-sets. It's a truly monumental run of music and the albums immediately preceding and following this rich seam  are none too shabby either. 

Here's something recorded in 1969, though not released until 1974's 'Big Fun'. In spite of being given just the one title on the cover and label, it's actually a medley of 'Great Expectations/Orange Lady', altogether a sprawling, slightly eerie, piece, particularly when the 'Orange Lady' segment kicks in after around 13 minutes.

Great Expectations

Monday Long Song

Many years ago, when this 'ere blog was in its infancy, I had an idea for a post, a kind of Desert Island Discs if you will, but in my case allowing for ten personal favourite tunes rather than the traditional eight. I mulled my selections over for ages, whittled them down and then ultimately declined to put up the results, realising that I could get ten individual posts from this idea, rather than a single overwhelming one. True to my word, some of those songs have made appearances on theses pages, here and there, over the ensuing years and today I'm featuring, if push comes to shove, my ultimate all-time favourite piece of music. It's a bold claim I know, but I find it difficult to put into words just how many hours of pleasure Circle in the Round by Miles Davis has given me.

Circle in the Round was recorded in December 1967 with Miles' core band of Ron Carter on acoustic bass, Wayne Shorter on Sax, Herbie Hancock on keyboards and the magisterial Tony Williams on drums. The crucial additional factor in the session was 21 year old electric guitarist Joe Beck . The resulting epic piece was ultimately shelved, bafflingly remaining unissued for 12 years and then only is the abbreviated 26 minute form shared here today. The full 33 minute session finally saw the light of day a further 19 years later, in 1998.

If you're expecting to hear a straight jazz tune, you won't. If you're expecting some kind of jazz-rock freak-out, you'll be disappointed. Circle in the Round is unique in the Miles Davis canon, completely unlike anything else he recorded. Heaps of tension, very little release and a recurrent theme that will stay with you for days. Hell, I've spent over 40 years trying to describe this piece of music and I'm not getting any closer to the truth of it today. 

Do me a favour, mute all your other devices for a while and get an earful of this.

Miles Davis - Circle in the Round

Monday Long Song

I've felt a little all at sea these past couple of weeks. The small pile of records I picked up while in Edinburgh last month (including one generously gifted by our mutual chum Charity Chic) sit untouched and unplayed upstairs, awaiting my eventual attention. Half a dozen books lay scattered around the place, each with just a few pages thumbed through. It seems my powers of concentration have taken themselves off on an extended summer holiday. What do I traditionally do in these circumstances? I walk. But even this innocent activity has been curtailed somewhat in the recent blistering heat. 

The music I have been playing around the house is lengthy and largely instrumental - tunes to get lost in. Like this piece from Miles Davis, which was recorded on the final day of the 'In a Silent Way' sessions in February 1969, but bafflingly remaining unreleased until 2001. 'The Ghetto Walk' is a dense, humid, eerie meander of a thing, stifling and oppressive, much like several of my own recent local wanderings, photographic evidences of which are attached.

Miles Davis - The Ghetto Walk

Monday Long Song

The extraordinary 'Bitches Brew' by Miles Davis was released 50 years ago last week. It's particularly extraordinary because even from a vantage point of 2020, so much of the music contained on the double LP still sounds as if it's beamed in from fifty years in the future. You can call it jazz, you can call it jazz-rock, you can call it fusion, you could describe it as deeply funky, ambient, experimental electronic musique concrète - all those terms might well apply, yet are also simultaneously wide of the mark.

Using a band bolstered by such luminaries as Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul, the basic tracks were recorded across three days in the Summer of 1969, before being subject to a groundbreaking series of edits, splices, effects and loops in post-production by Miles and his producer Teo Macero. There's nothing quite like it.

Miles Davis - Pharaoh's Dance

All That Jazz #6 - Miles Davis / Reggie Lucas

Miles and Reggie on stage

Reggie Lucas, one of the two guitarists in Miles Davis' controversial 1972-75 band, died in New York last month at the age of 65. Great commercial success came to Lucas in the 1980s when he produced the majority of Madonna's first LP, wrote her hit single 'Borderline' and, with fellow Miles Davis alumni James Mtume, co-wrote 'Never Knew Love Like This Before' for Stephanie Mills and 'The Closer I Get to You' for Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway.

The music played on stage by Miles and his band from 1972-75 was often a dense fusion hybrid that, to many observers at the time, challenged the very notion of jazz itself. In contrast 'Chieftain', a studio recording from August 1972, but which remained unreleased until 2007, is a sparse, nervy piece, pushed along by the relentless tap-tap skittering of Al Foster's rim-shots and Lucas' periodic guitar stabs. Even if you're not a fan of jazz in general or Miles in particular, this may be worth a few minutes of your time.

Miles Davis - Chieftain

Come See, Come See, Remember Me - 1984 Part 3.

A last look at my favourite albums of the year back in 1984. This was my top ten, thirty years ago.

'Gravity Talks' was Green on Red's debut full length LP, released in the USA in 1983, before appearing in UK record shops to coincide with the band's first visit to these shores. Green on Red were another band that I saw live many many times and I was delighted to catch up with main man Dan Stuart once again, earlier this year (here).

Do I really need to say anything regarding the inclusion of The Smiths first LP in this list? I don't think so. Other than to note, perhaps, that it's way too low down the order.

The were a lot of good, retro-tinged, guitar bands coming out of Australia in the mid-80s and The Hoodoo Gurus debut LP arrived as part of that wave. Albums two and three, 'Mars Needs Guitars!' and 'Blow Your Cool!', were probably superior, but 'Stoneage Romeos' is still a fun ride.

I saw Miles Davis in concert twice during 1984 and the time spent in the same room as this giant of 20th century music, overshadowed virtually everything else all year. Hence the high position for 'Decoy', a good late period LP, but, in my opinion, not as strong as its predecessor, 'Star People', or successor, 'You're Under Arrest'. Great to see this clip again though.

Rank and File operated within the short-lived Cowpunk genre. 'Long Gone Dead', the second of their three LPs, is a lot of fun, but is absolutely not the fifth best album of 1984!

Unfortunately, the nearest I ever got got to catching the mighty Gun Club in concert was passing a worse for wear Jeffrey Lee Pierce in the entrance to Dingwalls one night, as I was on my way into the venue to see another band. Mind you, this performance was a pretty cool thing to witness on tea-time telly at the time. (Somebody tell Jools that his mic is still on!)

I've no qualms about the lofty positions occupied by Lloyd Cole's first LP and REM's second - both terrific pieces of work that still hold up effortlessly today. Which brings us to The Triffids, with two albums in the top 10. 'Treeless Plain', was another one of those records that only arrived on a UK label in 1984 following its actual release (in Australia) the previous year - and a stunning debut it is too. With the benefit of hindsight, it's obvious that there are serious omissions from this list and erroneous inclusions in it, but if I had to make the top 20 again today, the number one would be the same. I've watched this clip a few times over the past couple of days and still struggle to make it through without becoming emotional. David McComb - gone, but never forgotten.

(Addendum:  A wider look at the full sheet upon which my Top 20s LPs of 1984 are listed, reveals a 'late addition' scrawled in the margin - and what a belter it is. The Nomads are still rockin' today, thirty years on.)