special introductory
paragraph!
Birth Of The Cool
The Complete Birth Of The Cool
Diggin'
Workin'
Steamin'
Relaxin'
Cookin'
Miles Ahead
Milestones
Miles 1958
Porgy And Bess
Kind Of Blue
Sketches Of Spain
Someday My Prince Will Come
Quiet Nights
Seven Steps To Heaven
My Funny Valentine
E.S.P.
Sorcerer
Nefertiti
Filles de Kilimanjaro
Water Babies
In A Silent Way
Bitches Brew
A Tribute To Jack Johnson
At Fillmore: Live At The Fillmore East
Live-Evil
On The Corner
Get Up With It
Dark Magus: Live At Carnegie Hall
Agharta
Pangaea
You're Under Arrest
Tutu
Music From Siesta
Doo-Bop
Panthalassa: The Music Of Miles Davis 1969-1974 (reconstructed by Bill Laswell)
Oh it's true. I'm a rock music fan. I don't get jazz. I don't understand what they're doing or why it's interesting. I can get into the slippery groove for a few minutes, but then quickly lose my way in all the improvisations, solos and such. Plus there's not enough really loud guitars. I've tried though. I've got some John Coltrane, some Eric Dolphy, a little Herbie Mann, some Thelonius Monk, a bit of Ornette Coleman, a smidge of Cannonball Adderly, a dollop of Dave Brubeck - and WAY too many Miles Davis records. All for your pleasure! Having played and recorded from 1946 pretty darn regularly until his death in 1991, trumpet player/bandleader Miles Davis has an infinite number of albums, the entirety of which I have no intention of ever purchasing. However, my particular collection hits on what I'm told are the pinnacles of his career - his "bop," his early quintet "cool jazz" days, his orchestral work, his modal stuff, his fusion experiments and most importantly his Cyndi Lauper cover. So read on to see what a guy who doesn't know or care much at all about jazz has to say about one of the most famous jazz musicians of all time! With no further adoodoo, Mild David!
Lots of tootin'! This was recorded in 1948 and I suppose is what you'd call "Cool Jazz." All the tunes are mellow, with none of those loud trumpet blasts that make me hate horns so much. The musicians sound exceptionally well practiced, with nine different fellows playing the same melodies together until one of them gets his chance to solo, then they hop back in to the main riff. Some of these jazz melodies are really nice and catchy - not to mention COMPLICATED AS HELL (I'm particularly fond of the upbeat shindig "Move," the beautiful, slow "Moon Dreams," plus "Deception" and "Rocker," though I've forgotten what they sound like at the moment), but too much of this is just... I don't know. I don't want to throw the term "elevator music" around, but this crap is WAY before my time - way before even the advent of my beloved rock and roll. It's not that I hate the style. The style itself lends itself to some incredibly listenable, calming music. Everybody uses lots of mutes and nobody tries to blast your head off. So the style is fine. It's the actual songs that seem lacking to me. First of all, I have no interest in hearing people solo. I realize that it's a main component of jazz music (and even rock), but it's just not what I'm into. I prefer the parts where they do all kinds of complex stuff together. And there IS a lot of that on here. But not enough. Too many of the songs just don't DO IT. Tunes like "Venus De Milo," "Israel" and "Rouge" just don't seem to have any GrOuNdInG or HOOK to them. Nothing interesting to grab and squeeze. Maybe old people can dig it. I could see using it as background music, but not listening all that often. I guess that's what happens when you don't like jazz! Great damn production though, for how old it is! Everything's clear as a window pane!
this is real music (and i'm referring not only to this one album), effective, energetic, magical........ it does what all good music does: gets all up in you like a motherfucker just to dance dance dance.
This CD compiles that last album I reviewed, plus a bunch of live versions of the material. Pleasant enough background music, but soloing out the ass. Literally! BRAP! You know what? I was very tolerant about 20 seconds ago, but it's time to come clean about something: Everybody who likes jazz is stupid. Yes, if it's a rainy day and you need something smooth and inoffensive playing in the background, it totally does the trick. But if you sit there and devote all your attention to it, the music is just boring. All the songs start off really cool, then devolve into ridiculously unmusical, uninteresting jerking off before the band finally returns to the really good, complex part that you wished hadn't gone away for two and a half minutes so Junior Collins could show off how many disconnected notes he could blow out of that stupid metal toilet pipe thing he calls an instrument. I suppose jazz really isn't that bad, but it'd be better if they got rid of all those horns and replaced the piano with a bunch of really loud guitars and had a guy screaming and a drummer playing ninety miles an hour and had a big fancy lightshow and a flaming pentagram and a dead person bleeding all over the place. Speaking of great music, have you heard that Mark Prindle CD Nature's Smelly Ass? Now that's jazz. Who needs Gerry Mulligan and Lee Konitz when you've got the sensuous sounds of America's Sweetheart glued to the stereo of your sex organ?
2005 - Hi everybody. If you're a longtime visitor to www.markprindle.com/davis.htm#diggin, you may recall that in early 2001, I jokingly posted a page of basically honest but purposely over-the-toppingly insulting reviews of about 20 Miles Davis albums. It quickly became one of the most controversial things I'd ever done, thanks to (a) people who didn't realize that my insults were a joke (the key joke being that I, the reviewer, felt that it was somehow the music's fault that I didn't like it), (b) several passages that were more offensive than witty, and (c) people who care too much about things that don't matter. I accept full responsibility for problems (a) and (b), but the people who got actively ANGRY about the reviews need to reswizzle their priorities a bit, as far as I'm concerned. "You don't have to like Miles, but you better respect him!!!" Why? Isn't it enough that he's respected by, oh, EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD WHO LIKES JAZZ? I think he'll live without mine. Or at least, he'll remain dead without it.
But that's not my point. My point is that I have recently come into possession of 16 more Miles Davis albums. I've already done the "insult" schtick, however, so I'm not going to be doing that again. Instead, I'm going to try to, as clearly as possible, explain how each album sounds and why I do or do not like it. Obviously, due to my lack of genre understanding (I took a Jazz Appreciation course in college, but all we really ever did was memorize the beginnings of songs), I'm not going to be able to describe the records in actual Jazz terms (except "groovy" and "heroin addict"). But I'll tell you what I, as a rock fan, hear when I put each record on. And I'll tell you why I do or don't (mostly don't) like it. And then I'll toss in a few light-hearted insults for old time's nostalgia.
However, something interesting has happened to me over the past four years. Something that surprised even I, Mark Prindle, who share a brain and several lungs with the proprietor of this fine site. You ready for it? You might want to stand down.
As it turns out, I have even less tolerance for jazz now than I did when I wrote the original blasphemous reviews. So what I've decided to do is preface each of the new reviews with the year "2005." That way, you don't have to wonder why I would give, say, a 5 to Steamin' but only a 3 to Workin'. It has nothing to do with relative quality - it has to do with me no longer having any patience at all for jerks who bleat out a bunch of boring horn notes over a tepid 12-bar blues. If you see a new 2, read the description and you might be surprised to see that my opinion reads awfully similar to an old 5. That's just personal growth. Or lack of, one of the two. However, please rest assured that all grades higher than a 6 remain accurate. If I found something to be quite good in my youth, I continue to do so today. And any 2005 grades represent how I feel right now and for the rest of my life since people don't change once they hit 30. But I'll tell you one thing -- I'm no longer ashamed of my inability to "get into" jazz. I'm old enough now to realize that the problem is not the fact that I don't play any brass instruments, nor that I grew up surrounded by the sounds of rock and roll -- the reason that I dislike this music so much is because of all the soloing. To me, sitting down and listening to some asshole bleat, blat and bloop 4000 notes in no particular order on top of mediocre jazz chord sequences is no more a sign of 'cultured taste' than listening to a Joe Satriani album. Both styles of music are completely self-indulgent, violate nearly every rule of musical composition that I respect, and bore the living loving maid out of me. Does this then exclude ALL jazz from my taste cabinet? Actually, no. I really like interesting instrumental interplay, and I don't even mind a guy soloing as long as the other band members are playing a neat, hypnotic chord sequence. It's just the basic endless improvisation over blah music that makes me scream in violent impatience and sassiness.
Like, say, THIS ALBUM. Featuring Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean and Walter Bishop, Jr., it's a collection of very long hard bop songs, most of which begin life as a 12-second groovy riff and then immediately deteriorate into a series of showing-off sessions. Although there are seven different titles listed on the CD case, there are really only two different songs -- the slow one and the fast one. And the really neat thing is: I don't like either one of them!
As such, you'd think that I'd give the album a 1 out of 10. I actually considered doing so for several tentative hours, but changed my mind for one reason: this collection of Davis-penned horseshit (and "It's Only A Paper Moon") makes GREAT background music. It sounds like air! You don't notice it's there at all; you just know that your apartment suddenly FEELS cool for some reason. It's not until you devote 100% of your attention to the music that you realize it's a bunch of worthless throwaway crap. Let's put it this way -- which would you rather listen to: (a) a hilarious comedian with a finely-honed act who makes you laugh with every single pre-planned joke and nuance? Or (b) Robin Williams? See, as far as I'm concerned, Diggin' is as intellectually exciting and aurally stimulating as Reality...What A Concept. I know I'm supposed to "appreciate" it, but it just makes me want to scream, "DO SOMETHING INTERESTING OR SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!"
Also, Miles Davis smothered poop in his hair to attract stray animals to sodomize, a hobby I disagree with.
First of all, let me point out that rock and roll had existed for a good several months when The Miles Davis Quintet recorded this album so it would have been really nice had he acknowledged its importance and invited Eddie Van Halen to sit in with the band, but perhaps some people are just too old and set in their ways to accept change. Miles Davis was clearly one of these people. This little band featured a young John Coltrane on something called a "tenor saxophone," which I'm pretty sure is just a made-up name for him using both hands to exacerbate his womanrod (get his joke? "tenner sexophone"? funny guy, that John Coltrane. A regular Jackie Mason of Chicken Soup fame). There are also three other musicians portraying a pianist, bassist and drummer. The CD starts off excellent, with a lovely little straightforward Rodgers-Hart tune called "It Never Entered My Mind." After that, it turns into "jazz" though, with all the useless solos and boring key changes that that would suggest. The piano sounds great on the whole thing and I just love it when them jazz dudes play really fast note runs at the same time to show that they actually are pre-written and not just made up on the spot like a Frank Zappa guitar solo - but too much of the CD is just more of what I don't like about jazz. Individual showing off on the part of every performer. If I wanted showing off, I'd watch Greg Louganis die of AIDS, thanks! That wasn't the most sensitive thing I've ever written.
"THAT isn't music!! It's just. . . just. . . NOISE!!!"
Darn that fellow AND his Oleo--may they burn in Havana!
Now. About Workin. Jazz, in the right proportions, gives one what
doctors refer to as "Neat-o Syndrome". Being a big fan of "neat-o"
and that song from West Side Story that goes "cool.", I'd say this
album is rightly proportioned. It's not overloaded with air (Kind of
Blue), nor overloaded with lack of air (Blue Train), nor not loaded
with much of anything at all (A Love Supreme--twenty-eight minutes
short!!). It's just perfectly balanced. I can't say these songs are
the most well-written ever (I mean, it's JAZZ. They make it up on the
spot for Chrissakes.) But they give you a generalized "cool, neat-o",
or "cooeato" feeling, like your sweater just walked off your body,
snapped its sleeves to the beat, and said, "Let's groove." So I'd say
if I could pick any instrumental album to eat a romantic wild quail
dinner to, it would be this one as of now. Can you do that to
hardcore punk?? Can you, I ask??
Well, of course you can do it to "Damaged I." It's jazz too--but
dammit, my point stands.
Still playin' COOL, dude with more tunes recorded on the same day that they "cut" Workin' (more like JERKIN', if you ask me....). Not sure why this one is called Steamin' instead of Relaxin' - it's an awfully relaxed record! It also features one of my all-time favorite jazz riffs (yes, I do like a few of them!) - Thelonius Monk's "Well You Needn't." Elsewhere you'll find a rollicking, wildass rendition of "Salt Peanuts" that I honestly didn't recognize as "Salt Peanuts" at all, plus a gorgeous Rodgers-Hammerstein tune. However - and here's a shocker that may make you fall off your chair and bang your ass against my face as I peer up your trouser leg - the rest of the disc is marred by lots of haphazard hootin' and some other slow stuff that just doesn't cut the melodic mustard of my musical marmalade man. Speaking of which, I just got an email from the singer of the Crucifucks!!! Doesn't that kick ass, all you Miles Davis fans???
I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that jazz is a different type of music than rock. Inferior, yes, but no less different. Every song is always going to feature sixty-lillion solos and many of the melodies will seem non-melodic to me simply because they're based on "jazz scales" or some related non-rock silliness. This is yet another album recorded in two "MARATHON" sessions (where the whole band sat around eating Marathon candy bars) back in '56 when The Fonz was going "Aaaaaaay!". But it seems more consistent than the last two somehow. More catchy melodies and pretty passages. Maybe not, I don't know. Quite frankly, it's pretty hard to give an adequate summation of a bunch of albums I've only heard 2 or 3 times in my life. Especially a musical form as complex as jazz, where it could take a dozen listens for one to become familiar with all the changes, nooks and crannies of each song. Stupid old Miles Davis, making music whose qualities aren't readily apparent to me within 10 minutes of putting the CD in.
2005 - I am one exhaustible fellow. I don't know if it's the humidity, the lack of sleep or what, but something's got me feeling like an awfully tired attractive man. Actually, maybe it's all the tiny annoyances that have been infecting my life like a pus milkshake over the past couple of weeks. First there was a rigmarole with the dumbass asshole management company that overcharges us for maintenance every month. What happened specifically is that the pricks forgot to mail us a maintenance notice for May, then in early June sent us a notice saying that we'd logged a $25 late fee for not paying. So I called the asshole idiot bitch whore cunt slag lesbian woman who sent the letter, left her a very detailed voicemail and asked her to call me back so we could discuss the late fee and what-have-you. So she didn't call back. For a WEEK. So instead I decided on my own to not pay the $25 late fee, and sent in a check for two months' maintenance at the price quoted in her letter, along with a note explaining why I opted to forfeit the late fee. So the very next day, I got my official June maintenance notice -- and the amount was $200 MORE than her fucking dumbass letter had said it was!!! So I had to write (waste) yet another check for the balance, along with another letter explaining that I'd paid the rest of it a day earlier. How much you wanna bet I get a notice in July saying that I've logged $50 in late fees? How much you wanna bet this woman weighs 700 pounds and defecates through her nose?
But that's only the first annoyance. Next up would be my right ear, which alerted me during an otherwise lovely shower a few weeks ago that it no longer wants water to naturally drain out of it. So I've been walking around half-deaf for a couple weeks now, with my ear constantly plugged with - what? Water? Wax? A tick's nest? I don't know, but I've twice used this ear wax cleaning shit that makes it sound like there's a steak sizzling in my ear and the problem has only gotten worse. So don't try to shout "Watch out for that falling anvil!" because I can't hear a word you're saying.
Annoyance #3 is that my boss switched our payroll account to a new bank without telling me, resulting in two May paychecks being returned to me as having bounced. FUCK! Was I supposed to send in the goddamned things the exact day I received them!? Now she has to write me out a new personal check covering the past two payment periods, along with the $10 "bounced check" fee that my bank charges (because, after all, it's the RECIPIENT'S fault if a check bounces. Pricks.). Not to mention the fact that I still haven't been paid for LAST AUGUST. Which was, oh, ELEVEN MONTHS AGO.
And finally we reach Annoyance #4. Last night my wife gave me a lovely haircut about which I've no complaint. Unfortunately she then instructed me, a man whose fingers constantly shake and occasionally lop off, to "cut (my) own pubic hair." I agreed that with bathing suit season coming up it would be best if my short & curlies no longer dangled past my knees, and took to the task with gusto. Unfortunately, after the job was complete, a regrettable thought entered my head: "Say! Maybe I'll cut some of this BALL hair too!" So I began snipping away at the ball hair, carefully but clearly not carefully enough, as it was at this inopportune time that my wife began asking me if I wanted some "apple slices with cheese." Having never heard of such a ghastly vomitous snack in all my years, my mind conjured up images of sweet-meets-cheese, sour-meets-cheese, nature-meets-cheese and the next thing you know I'd nicked my ballsac. If you've never experienced the slicing of the great philosopher Testicles, I tell you what: it bleeds. Bleeds out the ASS, though not literally. So I applied pressure to my nutsac until it stopped bleeding, then cautiously applied a Band-Aid to my scrote. I've taken two showers since, and both times the fuckin' thing has started bleeding again. How am I supposed to go to Tae Kwon Do tonight? What if I do some awesome kick and my ballsac splits in two, flinging balls and nutjuice all willy-nilly over the rest of the class? Fuckin' scissors can eat a dick.
And these are just the MAJOR annoyances. Like everybody else, I regularly encounter the minor ones too. Like the way the stall door kept opening while I was taking an hour-long poop this morning. But I consider that less of an annoyance than a golden opportunity to showcase my colossal pecker for the other guys in the office. Hopefully they didn't see my ballsac Band-Aid. The last thing I need are rumors flying about a discount vasectomy.
So you put together all of these irritants into a big bag of plastic and what do you get? A Miles Davis album! Specifically Cookin', which finds Mr. Davis sharing his recipes for a variety of fine dishes including Shrimp Scampi, Trout A La Peppercorn, and Inability To Write A Decent Song. A further example of "hard bop," this record is yet another batch of Quintet performances from the October 1956 sessions that created Suckin', Blowin' and Jerkin' Off. Lord knows I love Philly Joe Jones Cheese Sandwiches and Christmasy Red Garlands, and everybody knows that a Coltrane John is necessary to keep the engineer from just pissing over the side, but I'll be both good and goddamned if Miles Davis isn't the messiest trumpet player God ever allowed to pick up an instrument. Is he just the Jimmy Page of jazz? Because I like Jimmy Page's messiness - it gives his playing a specific character. If that's the case, then way to go Miles! However, if he's just messy because he sucks, then up your ass Miles! Here's a non-hilarious joke not to ever say to anybody ever -- if you've been listening to music all day and it's midnight and this album is playing and your wife says "Come up to bed, sweetheart," say, "Sorry honey. I've got Miles to go before I sleep!" Then try not to listen as she grudge fucks your brother for an hour and a half.
Four tracks rest astride this album. Some of them have crazy names like "Airegin" and "Tune-Up/When The Lights Are Low"; others go for more traditional titles such as "My Funny Valentine" and "Blues By Five." Some are Miles Davis originals; others are the compositions of popular songwriters of the day like Rodgers/Hart and Sonny Rollins. Many of the tracks are slow as dirt with a pleasant enough piano line but ugly, raspy trumpet that's WAY too loud in the mix; several others begin with a piano line reminiscent of "The Woody Woodpecker Show" before shittaking into a boring 12-bar blues with solos a gogo; thousands more are fast boppin' big fuckin' yawnin' jazz chord changes of no consequences that suddenly turn into cutesy midtempo swing pop songs halfway through. But through all of these many, many, countless tracks, only one appeals (for more than 15-20 seconds) to the discerning ears of Mark "Mr. Jazzbo" Prindle. This is Sonny Rollins' "Airegin," a speedy Spanish Tango Hotcha Intrigue number that cruises along on groovy piano and rhythm section backing horns that actually return to the MELODY several times during the course of four and a half minutes. See? Not all jazz has to be bad! When the musicians finally stop masturbating all over each other and bother to play a hook, it can result in some darned nice ear candy! And this isn't the first time I've used the words "masturbating" and "candy" in the same sentence, so you might want to shop at a different grocery store.
Let this be a lesson to all you jazz players out there -- stop practicing your solos and start writing some killer riffs. With just a bit more structure and a few more actual songwriters, jazz could become every bit as popular as shitty modern R'n'B!
Also, Miles Davis forewent the traditional instrument case in favor of an orphaned boy's large intestine, a practice that I find lamentable.
Now this is the kind of jazz that I loathe. This is one of four LPs that Miley did with arranger Gil Evans and a 19-piece orchestra. An orchestra that keeps playing these piercing, annoying, loud, assholish brass blasts of screaming shit. I can't listen to it. Who has ears that can deal with listening to noise at this frequency? No wonder all jazz fans are like five billion years old - they're the only ones deaf enough to tolerate this earpiss! "New Rhumba" is awesome though. And the quiet parts are nice. Until the fucking BRASS SECTION COMES BACK IN TO YELL IN YOUR FUCKING EAR AGAIN!!!!!!
Featuring John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly, this album starts with an astonishing whirlwind flurry of way way WAY too-fast-to-be-human note runs in an incredible speed thrash death grindcore jazz song called "Dr. Jekyll." But after that, it's Business As Usual featuring "Be Good, Be Good, Be Good Johnny". The horns are a good 58 frillion times louder than the bass, piano and drums, so any concept of "melody" or "repetition" is kicked in the windpipe from moment two. And I don't know that I've ever sat through so much endless, mindless soloing in all my days. Thelonius Monk's "Straight, No Chaser" comes dangerously close to a hook (later quoted by Ray Manzarek in The Doors' "We Could Be So Good Together"!), so the band nips that in the bud superfast, dumping any semblance of catchiness for yet more frenzied, directionless blooping and bleeping. Fuck jazz up the ass. What a worthless piece of shit form of musical expression. Anybody who claims to like it is lying and probably very unpopular and smelly.
This, I hope you realize, is an unfair assessment of a perfectly valid form of musical expression as well as the people who enjoy it. I, for one, enjoy jazz a great deal, and I can assure you that I am not "unpopular" or "smelly." The fact is, Mr. Prindle, that the students at my school do not use profane language. Here at Brandon we have taught them to be respectful and kind. I fear your website will be a negative influence on the student body here, and we are taking steps to block access from the school computers. Mark Prindle's Rock and Roll Record Reviews are no longer welcome at Brandon High School. I hope this message will cause you to reconsider the harmful effect you are having on today's youth. Thank you for your time
I mean, I know Michigan's a hole (I live here, for God's sake), but is that
actually something someone wrote? I mean...it sounds like some kind of joke!
On SNL when it was good!
Wow. I just can't believe that - "the harmful effect you are having on
America's youth" - what is this, the fucking '50's?
It's appropriate that you can rearrange the letters in "Miles Davis" to spell "Saliva Demon" because every time he spits into that brass urinal he carries around, it sounds like HELL! King Midas himself would be proud of the way Miles miraculously changed everything he touched into shit. See if you can find old video footage of this era of Miles' development because you can clearly see a thick brown chunky liquid pouring out the loud end of his horn. His colleagues chalked it up to quirkiness or heroin, but I think Miles just had certain special talents that couldn't be heard on record. At least I assume so, because he definitely didn't have any talents that COULD be heard on record! (*is shot dead by Miles Davis fan*) Hey there! Prindle reporting here from Heaven. I was apparently due for Hell, but Miles is stinkin' up the joint so much, everybody else moved out. This album was released in Japan only, and features Miles sucking balls alongside such talented musicians as John Coltrane, Cannonball "Julian" Adderly, Bill Evans, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb and "Joe" Philly Jones. The band does a delicious job of running through such mellow, inoffensive elevator music as "Fran-Dance" and "Stella By Starlight," as well as some indistinguishable peppy-jazz-by-numbers tracks by the name of "On Green Dolphin Street" and "Love For Sale." The one honestly good tune is "Little Melonae," which -- almost startlingly -- has a HOOK! The rest just vacillates between pretty sax playing and horrendously fuckbad splatches of incorrectly performed trumpet. See, the great thing about rock music is that you can pick up an electric guitar or bass and just start thwacking around having never seen one before in your life, and the results would STILL be more pleasant on the ears than any note Miles Davis ever played on his trumpet.
2005 - Say! Have you heard this one? It's not bad at all! And they say I'm not "cultured" and can't appreciate "jass" music. Well, you can tell that to the Sheriff of Wrongtown because I'm all over select portions of this swingin' swayin' records playin' rendition of two white guys' "Porgy And Bess." Yes, two white guys have brought us many handy-dandy things in life -- wine coolers, "The Sounds Of Silence," Watergate -- but not since Adam and Steve have two white guys brought us such luxuriant, romantic splendor as select portions of Porgy And Bess. So let's hear it for two white guys! Huzzah! Wade ago! For they're a jolly good fellows, mailboxes etc.
Specifically, these two white guys are Rodgers and Hammerstein, the finest American pop song composers of their day, aside from the Gershwin Brothers of "Porgy And Bess" fame. And when Dials Mavis, Gil Evans, Cannonball Adderly, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb, Danny Banks and a whole lotta hornyass motherfuKKKas got together to ride the Gershey Highway on a custom-built jalopy of Orchestral/Big Band/Cool Jazz, the results were on many occasions as melodic, melodious and unmalodorous as other artists' pretty songs (ex. "Seagull" by Bad Company).
First of all, thank GODD for prewritten material. There ain't jackass wrong with billions of brass instruments if they're playing an actual *SONG* instead of leading the listener on a wild goose chase of random notes with no destination in sight. These arrangements are extremely well-done, with crazy syncopation, weird chords changing over groovy bass/drum combinations, and oodles of multiple-horn harmonies and interplay. I'm not afraid to say "Why are there so godmanydamned ballads on this fuckface?" for I find the Gershwin's old school balladry devoid of both humanity and hooks. But the great songs are so good, they're not half bad at all!
These great songs include: - "The Buzzard Song," with its sad trumpet vocalizing over REALLY nice multiple sorrowful horns galore playing odd, weepy, neat, interesting chords and sequences over a groovin' bass/drum combo arrangements -- and a tuba solo(!) - "Gone," highlighted by its kooky syncopation, intriguing and really fun stop-start drum breaks, odd songwriting and snazzy fast thingy - "Gone, Gone, Gone" which is not the previous track repeated three times but a very short dark melancholy ballad with some clever, spooky chord changes, lots of empty spaces and quieter moments, and even a little church music influence for the religious (gullible) at heart - the ultra-classic "Summertime," with its violently non-summerish eerie-as-an-ear ascending chord sequence that's impossible to ruin (even with a shitty frumpy trumpet tone) - "Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)," beloved for its awesome call-response intro (bizarre trumpet swooping and clucking, followed by harmonized response horns), evil tone, morbid drama and dark descending chord sequence, culminating in an extremely loud and bright ending that YELLS ALL UP YOU AS THE MUSICIANS DO THEY THANG! - and finally the itsy-bitsy "Here Come De Honey Man," a spider of a song that climbs up the waterspout of "Silent Night" until a rain of toodly-doodly horns come down and wash the spider of a song out, before the sun of VERY well-done instrumental interplay comes out and dries up all the rain of toodly-doodly horns so the itsy-bitsy spider of a song can climb up the waterspout of "Silent Night" again. However, the rest of the album eats shit off a spoon made of other, harder shit.
No no, I'm kidding! Parts are fine, parts are dandy. I've simply named the tracks that actually hold my attention all the way through from start to finish without running off at the mouth with improvised brapp crapp. Best of all, the remixed CD buries the trumpet where it belongs - ALONGSIDE the other instruments, rather than towering above them and smothering their beauty like a big ugly trumpet-playing stepsister hiding a beautiful horny Cinderella in the closet.
That was a metaphor, incidentally. When I said 'horny,' I meant as in 'trumpets' and 'trombones' and things.
That's what Cinderella was jamming up her twat in the closet.
Don't you love the phrase "jilling off"? It's great because its coy gentle cuteness makes it sound like girls can actually enjoy masturbating even with the knowledge that they could be nailing Mark Prindle right now.
Actually that's not true. I'm married and have a band-aid on my testicle. But otherwise - wham bam thank you man!
Shit, I fucked a guy.
I'm not gonna name any names here but a guy I used to work with wrote an entire book about this album. Again, no names will be discussed here because it's all water under the bridge, but I really, really, REALLY actively despised this human being while I worked with him. It was my first job out of college and he constantly berated me, treated me like an idiot, forced me to stay late to correct his mistakes, blamed me for his errors, yelled at me any time I didn't kiss his ass and essentially made me despise my life for a good three months until my boss finally canned his bastard ass. Chances are decent that he's an okay guy outside of work, but my god what an insufferable, egotistical prick he was to work with. You have no idea how happy I was the day he got fired - not just because it made my life much more pleasant but because he got the comeuppance that he so dreadfully deserved. Of course, now he's a published author and I'm writing press releases about online checkers, but at the time it certainly felt like vengeance! So if you happen to run across a book about this album, take a look at the author's picture and wonder to yourself if it just might be the fellow I'm talking about............ As for the record, it's another one with John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly that features a good forty minutes of group improv. Everyone seems to love this album and I'm happy for them but aside from the great main hooks in "All Blues" and the classic "So What," I have no tolerance for nor interest in hearing a bunch of guys making crap up on the spot. So watch for my book Kind Of Blew: The Making Of Another Miles Davis Album That Sounds Just Like All His Others in a bookstore near me loose!
These guys spoke novels practically, only if you can
open your mind up to them. Well, i could go on and on
about how what you're saying is offensive, but i think
i'll stop and actually review the album.
Well, this was the first jazz album i actually
purchased, and it's a great way to start a collection.
Everyone on the album is a master, EVERYONE. I like it
pretty well, although i'm not as big of a fan of cool
jazz as i am more up-tempo bop kind of stuff. But a lot
of memorable solos, whether you think so or not Mark. I
mean, i can hum along with a bunch of parts in trane's
and cannonball's solos. i'd give the album an 8.
Anyway, bottom line is, if you don't like jazz, fine,
but you better damn well respect the people behind it,
cause they deserve it.
But now it's an indispensable tangent of my listening tastes. It's
really true that you have to hear some songs (especially the more oblique
stuff by Ornette Coleman and Monk) ten or fifteen times to let them properly
sink in. But it's worth it; no music I've ever heard has so many surprises
stuffed in its cracks. Take Monk's Brilliant Corners, for example: one of the
most astonishing examples of composition/improvisation this country has ever
spat out, easily on a plane with Stravinsky and Louis Armstrong. When I first
heard that album I was annoyed with how difficult and plodding the structures
seemed to be and how Monk keeps playing the 'wrong' notes on the piano. But
some music just demands time to settle into the folds and crimps in your
brain, and most jazz I love requires rapt attention: Ornette, Dolphy, Monk
among them.
And Kind of Blue is a revelation, but like Mark I prefer the Bitches
Brew/Silent Way/Jack Johnson stuff just because at heart I'm a rock 'n' roll
fan too.
P.S.-Mark, this guy sounds like a real asshole!
BUT KIND OF BLUE GETTING FOUR LITTLE GODDAMN RED DOTS???
People: for once, listen to the critics. Kind of Blue is Miles Davis' masterpiece. He made
some other great albums, but had he only released this one he'd still be a jazz giant. Every song is a
standard, more or less. The style of playing, while not exactly revolutionary, crystallized and
immortalized the genre. Kind of Blue's only peer in the pantheon of jazz albums is John
Coltrane's A Love Supreme (not counting box sets or compilations, else Louis Armstrong's
Hot Five & Seven recordings would tower above them all).
If you only own one jazz record, this should...no, this must be it. Even if you don't like the
stuff, it's an essential document of twentieth-century music. And pick up Woody Guthrie's Dust
Bowl Ballads, which is basically to folk music what Kind of Blue is to jazz.
Until now. You need to take this nonsense - meaning all of your Miles
Davis reviews -- down from your site. Not only is it ill-considered -
demonstrating at times a regrettable culmination of some of the presumably
drug or alcohol induced rants elsewhere on the site -- it makes a badge of
ignorance. What chemical elicited from you the crazed review of
Agharta? How many times have you actually listened to Miles Ahead?
As much as I revere rock and roll, there is not one rock artist or group -
with the possible exception of Dylan -- who can stand shoulder to
shoulder with Miles. As a musician, writer, bandleader and innovator, he
simply towers above most rock artists. He is one of the truly great
artists of the second half of the twentieth century. And this reputation
is secure. You only do yourself - and others who may actually be
influenced by these reviews - a disservice by posting this bullshit.
As far as this album goes, I've only heard it once a couple of years ago
and I can't remember it enough to have an opinion.
One thing Mark is missing from his reviews is anything by the 60s quintet of
Miles, Wayne Shorter (tenor), Ron Carter (bass), Herbie Hancock (piano), and
Tony Williams (drums). They probably had the best rhythm sections ever.
Miles Smiles is the essential album by this group. Almost free sometimes, but
still grounded in hard bop and modal playing. Tony Williams was like 19 when
that album was recorded. Also check out the album 1964: The Complete Concert.
It's two discs originally released seperately, one with all ballads and
mid-tempo tunes, and the other with super-fast versions of "So What,"
"Joshua," "Four," and others. It has the Carter-Hancock-Williams rhythm
section, Miles, and some tenor player named George Coleman who preceded Wayne
Shorter in the group. It has amazing interaction between the soloists and the
rhythm section, especially Miles and Herbie on the first (ballads) disc, on
"My Funny Valentine" and "Stella by Starlight." Probably the Miles album I
listen to most, because of the searing intensity of the playing and the
ESP-like interaction among players.
Secondly: My approach to jazz is somehow similar to Mark's. So many of my favourite prog / fusion guys have praised Davis and Coltrane, I finally dicided
that it's my duty to find out, what's so great about them. I have listened Kind of Blue maybe five times through, but I still didn't get it. But look out, Mark: I'm
sure that it's not Davis's fault that I didn't get it.
I started my fan career idolizing Deep Purple, then I moved to Frank Zappa. On the way I have checked all the great prog and fusion acts of the 70's. Logically,
if I want to find something else of interest, I should find it in jazz. My ears (and Mark's) are simply so accustomed to wah wah guitars, that we can't appreciate
the sounds of toilet pipes called brass. When I listened to Coltrane's Visit to Scandinavia, I realised that I would piss my pants out of sheer happiness if Steve
Vai or John Petrucci played exactly these lines using his rock guitar sounds. Well, Petrucci sure wouldn't play 20 minutes solo. So, it's not Coltrane's fault if I
can't enjoy the noise he's making. The barrier is inside my head.
By the way, the most enjoyable and approachable era of the Davis catalogue is the early 70's, but again, that is because the format of music is closest to the
one that I've learned to love. And just like Mark, I found Miles Ahead brass blasts very painful to listen to. But Zappa was also using brass blasts with his '88
band and they were very enjoyable in Zappa context. My message is that you can learn to love anything. My grandma used to say that a man can get used to
keeping an icepick in his ass.
Well, a review is supposed to be helpful, right? At least I believe that s what most
people think. Now, if you re a Jesus Lizard fan or something and for some reason is curious
about jazz music, i doubt that really in-sight reviews by people who "get jazz" would be
of any help. What Mark Prindle does here is declaring that he s not a jazz fan at all, he
doesn t understand most jazz, but this is what he thinks of some Miles Davis records and
this is what he could, as a rock n roll fan, enjoy. Personally, I listen to music because
it s enjoyable, and I d much rather start my jazz excursion with something that I might
enjoy easily than with something considered a "classic" that I might need an advanced
education to understand. (I m not necessarily referring to this record.)
What I m trying to say is that these Miles Davis reviews are exactly the way they should
be at a rock n roll review site. Reading Mark s reviews could help you find something you
might like without "understanding" jazz. When you start really getting into the music,
you should of course start reading "serious" reviews at a jazz fan site instead, but it
takes some time to get into jazz (as with rock n roll, classical music, hip-hop, death metal
etc). You don t usually start with late Coltrane records.
All this said, Kind of blue is often considered THE classic (like, people write BOOKS
about it!!) but it doesn t give me half as much as most of the Coltrane records from about
1960-65 do. I like Bitches brew but mostly I find Miles Davis records, including this
one, OK but a bit boring. But I m not a jazz "fan" either, I just enjoy good music
(including some jazz)...
Is this the same guy?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0306810670/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/104-4450004-4699168?v=glance&s=books&vi=customer-reviewsl
I think you'll especially enjoy Jerry Engelbach and das hans president.
MykeyoardisFUKED. IhaetosayIfindtheauseyou'eolletedonthispagetiklesmetotheone.Idolikeja,ut it'sdefinatelyaformestappreiatedlie.Espeiallyinasmallpuwhereyouansit rightnettothedrummer. ThisistheonlyMilesDaisalumIhaeand,whilstitisrelaing,Idon'tfinditasamaing asyou'reledtoeliee. Itisgood,utitdoes'npossesmetotheetentIWANTtolistentoit. utJAisn'tallshit.Asaformit'saeautifulapproahtomakingmusi. MyfaoutieisharlesMingus. MINGUS. ASSPLAYER. reommended:MINGUSTHREE. Salute,omrade!
Ungh? Say what? Kind of Blow gets a 4? Hurm. I guess that's what happens
when you review his albums in chronological order. Me, I, just like ninety-
nine point one hundred percent of rock fans out there who want to look
all "cool," "collegey," and "frat dog" by having ONE JAZZ ALBUM IN THEIR
COLLECTION, have only heard this one. And I think I like it. It either
gets an 8.5 or a 9.
See, here's the thing about this album, Prindle. In order to be able to
tolerate it, let alone like it, you can't treat it as background music, even
though it IS stereotypical B.M. (British Metroleum). You've got to
concentrate on it with all thy might, otherwise it sounds like a bunch of
boring asshole music for jerks that suck. That's how it sounded the first
time I heard it three years ago, when my roommate put it on and nearly
ruined my grade in Soviet Politics by causing me to fall asleep on my
keyboard in the middle of the fuckin' mid-term. That, and the first two
tracks are kinda unimpressive--just snappy lil' bore jazz. It's only when
you get to track three that the EMOTION of Cool Blue Miles Brew from Nefer's
Titties washes over you. Yessir, tracks 3 and 5 are the essence of this
album. Cool calm minimalistically brilliant ambient tracks. VERRRY ummmm.
So that's it. Great album, but for the love of God, there's got to be
better jazz than this out there. This CAN'T be the best jazz album ever,
can it? Say! I wonder how many people flamed you THIS time!! Let's
see. . .
Mmm, not that many. That's the thing aboot jazz fans--they're cool and blue
as a cookin' steamin' bag's groove. That was not funny.
Side one is among the dullest classical music I will ever have heard after my life has reached its closure (which could be tomorrow for all I know, what with that Baretta guy gunning people down left and right), but side two is spaghetti western music! Three originals by Gil Evans (yep, it's another Gil Evans album, but luckily there's none of those big band blasts of high-end bleeting that I so despise) take Miles into Clint Eastwood territory - NO NO, I DON'T MEAN DIRTY HARRY OR THAT HILARIOUS CHARACTER HE PLAYED IN IN THE LINE OF FIRE!!!! OH GOD I'VE RUINED THE WHOLE REVIEW NOW!!!!
But, I purchased Sketches of Spain about 6 months back and loved it!
I've always had a soft spot for Spanish-tinged music and this CD didn't
disappoint me. I've since acquired six more Miles CD's and will
definitely buy more.
My favorite is Bitchs Brew (I got the box set for only 10 bucks more
than the 2 CD set). I place it right up there with Piper at the Gates
of Dawn, Gang of Four's Entertainment, and Huayucaltia's Caminos as the
most eye opening music that I've ever heard. The night that I first
threw it on I sat listening to it with headphones alternately laughing
hysterically and tearing up from the utter brazen glory of the sounds I
was hearing (what a wuss!).
I also really enjoy Miles' Kind of Blue, On the Corner and Miles Davis
at Fillmore. Not so much 'Round About Midnight or Porgy and Bess
(although I do like his version of Summertime).
I must also concur with RunsHisWordsTogetherGuy that Charles Mingus is
the hip! I currently own Blues & Roots and Mingus Ah Um. They are both
excellent and would be a great starting point for anyone trying to
expand their tastes into Jazz. They have very little of that sameness
quality that many people like to assign to Jazz music; each song is
quite different...
I only hope that when Mark is old and decrepit and most of his
high-range hearing is gone that he doesn't regret writing these Miles
reviews (with any luck dementia will take him first).
Well, I think I'll go throw on my lounge jacket and fire up my pipe and
listen to some Charlie Parker (being the presumptuous wanker that I
am...)
2005 - In 1961, on the eve of The Beatles' mighty success, Miles Davis gathered together pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, saxophonist Hank Mobley and drummers Jimmy Cobb and Philly Jo Jones to create a sort of "Jazz Fab Four" of his own. To battle the forces of "We Can Work It Out" and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" that would soon envelope the Western World in a fever of 'BeatleManicness,' Miles and his motley crue of thugs and salesmen laid down six wicked tracks of hard bop layered beneath a shiny white sheet of really fucking loud, crude, uglyass trumpet playing. Are you people absolutely CERTAIN that Miles didn't play his horn with his ass? These out-of-tune, weak "pfff-ARP"s and "bEEEP-bEEEEP"s are near-perfect imitations of intestinal gas. Thus, my 5000-page dissertation arguing that Miles Davis put one over on the American people, using a magic marker to draw a face on his buttcheeks every night before shoving his trumpet up his ass and performing the latest hits. What's that? You want to know if I have proof? Well, it depends on what you mean by proof. If you mean do I have Miles Davis's corpse in my living room with a trumpet sticking out of its ass, then yes, I have proof. Otherwise, no.
To be fair, I gotta give a hand to the saxophone players on this album (Coltrane plays on a couple) - their parts are very easy on the ears: full-bodied and cool. But Miles? Yikes! Maybe the problem isn't his lack of talent but just the fact that the trumpet is a grotesque, unlistenable instrument. Having never played one, I should probably give ol' MD the benefit of the doubt. Lord knows that time I tried to play a trombone was no walk through the picnic!
Still, far too much of this album is spent on dirt-slow yawners undermined by loud trumpet noise. As I stated out loud to my wife, "It's hard to make your ballad romantic when there's a Klaxon-like trumpet blasting 8000 times louder than everything else." But there are one or two winners (one, to be exact): the 9 1/2-minute "Teo" features a fun 3/4 time signature, a witty Coltrane solo that keeps bouncing back and forth between long, held-out notes and ludicrously fast runs up and down the neck (if you call it a neck -- on a guitar you do, and that's a REAL instrument), evocative dramatic piano chords and nice crisp drums pishin' and kackin' along. And I suppose the superfast and wildly groovy "Blues No. 2" has its moments as well -- one of Miles' very few excellent solos (it sounds like it's telling a little story!), stimulating drum breaks galore, and a bonus-ass piece of trumpet/sax call-and-response interplay at the coda. The song's too long though.
Otherwise, if you for some reason want to purchase this nightmare, be sure to bring a book and some earplugs.
Ah, place this comment under 'Someday My Prince Will Come', specifically because i've never heard it before in my entire life.
2005 - Okay let's get something straight -- there is nothing "cool" about "Cool Jazz." In a correct world, it would be termed "Amazingly, Even More Boring Than Usual Jazz." It's slow, first of all, which is the first sign of death in most cultures. Secondly, nothing ever happens. The musicians toot and blow, but they'd might as well be doing it to some sweet cocaine for all the aural excitement they're generating. Thirdly, it's old people music. There is NO WAY you can listen to something like Quiet Nights without thinking to yourself, "Jeez, this is my father's music." (Unless you're your father, in which case it'll make you feel right at home as you fuck your mother.) Have you heard of "Exotica"? An insipid, conservative form of 50s escapist music that was brought into underground vogue during the mid-80s by Angela Juno, Boyd Rice and other arrogant elitist pricks of the day? Well, that's what this album sounds like. Like the finest works of Martin Denny and The Three Suns, this is not music -- it's SCHMALTZ. Christ! Where are the melodies!? It's even dull as background music!
Quiet Nights is another orchestral "1001 Horns" jazz record conducted by Gilly Evans, but it doesn't hold a carouselambra to the not-half-badness of Porgy And Bess. Instead, this batch of poop penned by Davis, Evans, Eddie Barclay, Michel LeGrand, Eddy Marnay, Johnny Mercer, Pedro Goncalves, Marino Pinto, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Al Dubin and Harry Warren during a marathon session at Abbey Road is kitschy, devoid of a single hook, and so slow that even a nap-taking hare could beat it (and believe me, he would be napping. Probably by the middle of track two). The drummy person(s) is tapping on tabla or bongos or some ethnic rhythm crap, the songs are full of gross multi-horn disharmonies, and Miles turns in his usual slobbery shit performance. I'll admit that "Aos Pes Da Cruz" kinda makes me feel good inside with its light relaxed Mexican feel, but come on - it's Herb Alpert nonsense and you know it!
Oh hang on - I just got an email from Overbooks V. Beverage. Wow! It's a fantastic deal on Cialis Softtabs! Thanks for forwarding this, Mr. Beverage! So long, "Fingers Secretly Disguised As A Functioning Penis"! See ya later, "Condoms Secretly Filled With A Translucent Salt/Syrup Mixture"! Catch you on the flip side, "Homeless Man's Semen Secretly Injected Into My Wife's Vagina On A Semi-Annual Basis to Create Our Four Children"!
Which brings us back to "Cool Jazz." "Cool"? More like "DOOL!" (dull) One of the songs even has a harp in it, for Christ's sake. Was he high on PCP and hallucinating that he was in Heaven or something? Dude, I've been to Heaven and it sounds like the first DRI album, not this shizzizzatizza. Can you imagine St. Peter at the Pearly Gates trying to sit through "Once Upon A Summertime" or "Wait Til You See Her"? Christ, no wonder he sends all black people to Hell!
And Nine Levels of Hell. TURN THAT GODDAMNED TRUMPET DOWN! Sax? Sure, lovely low noise. Bass? Groovin' along, happy as day. Drums pippity-pippin'. Piano lazily making me feel like I'm in waiting room at the dentist's office (which i LOVE). But then that awful BRAPPING QUUUUUUEEEEEEKING trumpet comes in and destroys any possible sense of melodicism, beauty or restfulness that may have existed prior. He always sounds like the trumpet is about to fall out of his mouth! Every first note is blown to shit, and he clearly has no idea how far to stand from the microphone before blowing (and i DO mean "blowing") into that shit-covered toilet plunger he has the nerve to call a "musical instrument." More specifically, the album features three romantic slow songs and three fun high-speed runarounds. Or two, at any rate. I mean, I like "So Near So Far" a lot. And the title track isn't TOO bad. Victor Feldman - OOOOH!!! HERBIE HANCOCK PLAYED ON THIS!!!! George Coleman on the groovy tenor sax. Frank Butler and Anthony Williams getting in fistfights over who gets to drum. Ron Carter thumpin' the bass. And Miles Davis at the helm, wrongly believing that a performer's first responsibility is to himself and not to critics. What he doesn't realize is that the only reason music exists is to be criticized. That's what makes it "art"! And that's what makes HIS art "shit"!
2005 - After topping the alternative charts with 1991's saddy Loveless, Kevin Shields took a well-deserved hiatus before going slowly insa
After topping his preservative tarts with 1000's of Daddy Longlegs, Miles Davis took a much-appreciated shower before going quickly to a NAACP-sponsored benefit concert being held at the NYC Philharmonic to raise awareness of and money for voter registration efforts in Mississippi and Louisiana. No no, don't worry about the state of America -- this was actually in February 1964! Luckily, many things have changed over the past four decades, and lower-class African-Americans no longer run into any problems when visiting the voting booths. "God bless President Bush and God bless the United States of America!" - Johnny Ramone.
Another slow excursion into the Cool Jazz genre, this five-song LP conjoins Miles with future Mork And Mindy funnyman Tony Williams, future U.S. president Ron Carter, ex-founding father Herbie Hancock and future low-fat grill George Coleman for a wild, woolly tedium jamboree and characterless goodtime jubilee. If you're seeking a cure for your insomnia, the moss-backed tempos and deathless improvisations found herein will give any OTC pharmaceutical a run for its cashola. Otherwise, might I recommend getting out a blank cassette and making yourself a 35-second 'mix tape' of every interesting passage that is performed during what at least one amateur music critic has dubbed "A Brutal, Homicidal Hour Of Music." And that amateur music critic is none other than Mar
velously correct in his observation. Here are a few My Funny Valentine riddles so you can spend a happy day with your family:
Q. What do "I Thought About You" and Bill Cosby have in common?
Q. What do "All Blues" and a Catholic-made condom have in common?
Q. What do "Stella By Starlight" and the 1992 White Sox have in common?
Q. What do "All Of You" and Tom Cruise have in common?
Q. What do "My Funny Valentine" and Lindsay Lohan have in common?
If you have 63 minutes of free time, build a cat or something; don't waste it on My Funny Valentine.
Unless you're talking about Animals II guitarist Hilton Valentine of course! After all, who needs Eric Burdon or Alan Price when you've got a "II" at the end of your name?
Oh, I'm just poking fun at Mr. Valentine. I'm sure Animals II are fine. Can't be much worse than The Black-Man's Burdon, at any rate. "Say! You know that timeless Moody Blues ballad 'Nights In White Satin'? Well, how about... we make it SUCK really bad?"
"No no, wait. I've got a better idea. How about... we make it suck really bad... TWICE?"
That was my impression of the planning sessions for The Black-Man's Burdon. It's copyrighted so don't try any bullshit.
Prindle,
Thank you for being so fucking predictable. You could not only smell the
rating you would give (wouldn't you) to a Miles Davis work a mile away, but
on this particular one, you could also pick up the scent of an obvious MBV
reference well before reading the review. It's no wonder close minded
jerks who are no longer looking to expand their musical tastes and
ideologies, losers like myself who would rather be served their own ideas
instead of something challenging and worthwhile, keep coming back to your
site year after year.
Reading your site feels so good. It's masturbation
2005 - One fine day in 1965, a new Miles Davis Quintet was borne from the ashes (or "aske") of the old. First, saxophonist Wayne Shorter ran up to Miles in a busy intersection and shouted, "Yo Miles! I play the hangy-dick-horn!" Next, hog-pianist Herbie Hancock of "Rockit" fame did five backflips across Miles' lawn before greeting him with an enthusiastic "I tickle the ivories - and ladies' butts!" Third but not least, bassist Ron Carter drove by on his miniscooter and screamed against the Doppler Effect, "I PLAY THE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" And last and believe me, DEFINITELY least, (unless you go by talent), drummer Tony Williams said, "Let's form a band." And WOW, what a band! (That was just me being nice; I don't really think they were all that great a band) I mean holy SHIT what a band! All I needed was a band to lend a guiding hand. But they turned into a quintet and shintet! what a quintet - they wore me out! All they did was wreck my stereo, and in the morning kick me in the derrie-o. Oh Miles, I couldn't have tried anymore. You made a first-class fool out of me. And I'm as deaf as a fool could be. Your music sucked, and that's a pain I can do without! (mandolin riff) MILES! I WISH I'D... NEEEEVER HEARD YOUR HORN!
Wow, these hilarious "Weird Al" Yankovic-like parodies write themselves! No wonder it seems like he never puts any effort into it!
Do you believe in E.S.P.? I do. Because I own it. In fact, I don't just own it -- I BONE it!!!! (insert photo of self ramming cock through album, preferably the actual vinyl portion and not the hole) This album is hard bop but, according to All-Music Guide -- where you might want to look if you're interested in what a (*chuckles with superiority*) JAZZ FAN (*makes masturbation motion with all three hands*) has to say about the Miles Davis discography -- it's also the beginning of Miles' avant-garde period, which would find him trying weirder and wilder experiments before inventing fusion and, by association, grindcore. It feels like even the "melodies" this time are totally just made up crap thrown together on the spur of the moment. VERY loose constructions abound, usually with a tiny little "sax and trumpet together" bit at the beginning and end to make you think you're listening to actual songwriting. I'll tell you something about jazz. I suspect that some people are into it for its "free" "improvisational" nature, wherein you never know what's going to happen next. And I'll agree with that assessment - unlike formulaic pop/rock verse-chorus constructions, jazz allows the musicians to flow free and come up with any crazy thing their hearts desire. However -- did you ever notice that, no matter what direction they take a song in... it always ends up sounding EXACTLY THE SAME AS EVERY OTHER JAZZ SONG EVER RECORDED?!?!?!? "Hey check this out! I'm totally playing a bunch of notes over a piano playing some jazz chords and a bass player walking up and down his neck! Okay, I've done it for a couple of minutes -- now it's YOUR turn, person who plays a different type of horn!" With this kind of excitement, who needs tits? But it can work sometimes. If at least ONE instrument is holding down the fort with some sort of interesting repetitive grounding, then the "wild off in space" playing of the other guys can actually sound kinda cool in context. To my unseasoned ears, there are two examples of such "Wow! This actually WORKS!" performances on E.S.P.N. -- "Eighty-One" and "R.J." I know that one of my favorite readers, Chris Willie Williams, doesn't like it when I do song-by-song reviews, but I really would like to describe these two if I may, so I hope that's okay. "Eighty-One" -- what gets me about this one are the cool "tip tip tip KASH!" drumming, the relaxed piano rhythm that strikes chords slightly AFTER the beat, and the piano chords themselves, which manage to express neither sorrow nor happiness nor anger, fear or even plain old jazziness, instead creating this ambiance of "I guess I'll just hang out here and see if anything happens." As the bass rides all over creation beneath and the two horns explore the entire world of notehood above, it all just WORKS for me. Like a game of Tempest played in a teapot, the piece is wildly experimental yet grounded to a simple repetitive thingamajig that I can thingamadig. "R.J." - neat superfast sax intro with odd smart melody, then a fast bop song with everybody shooting baby ingredients all over each other while an approximation of a cool Birthday Party-style bass lick keeps running over to Hell for a few bars before returning to its ultra-bodily-hypnotic main riff down in the low notes. Some unique saxophone phrases pop around in the mix too, but it's the energetic drum tapping and lovable bass riff that keep my ears coming back for more. Not that I'll ever listen to it again, but if I did - WOW! The rest of the album is a little too unstructured and amelodic to hold my interest. The book-ending tracks have some neat moments, including wheezy air-filled trumpet blows, great up-down multiple-horn speedwork, and some pleasant alternating bass/piano "1-2"s in the song "Mood." (If the actual musical term is "1-2"s.) (If not, I fuckin' hate 'em.) The three remaining tracks are comprised of (a) two slow boring things that resemble ballads in that they're slow, yet don't actually evoke any kind of mood other than "slow," and (b) one aggressive as hell but worthless bunch of incorrect notes, wrong methods of playing, and sorely poor performances by five untalented hack musicians who fooled an entire nation into thinking they were actually capable of creating something less shitty than "Rockit" and a Cyndi Lauper cover. Wrong again, Jazz Nation!
I was reading some of the Miles Davis stuff, particularly with interest for the "asshole" non-jazz guy comments you made. I still have a ways to go - I've mostly just read the reader's comments. I've been at work all day. I haven't got around to exploring that page on my off time, but I'll get to it.
Anyway, this all reminds me of a great Frank Zappa quote that you might appriciate:
That's all. Carry on.
2005 - Beep Beep Beep! It's the "Surprisingly Halfway-Decent Miles Davis Album" alert! Beep Beep Beep! Time to whip out those wallet trousers and run on down to your local ebay store to purchase an honestly not bad at all release by The Second Miles Davis Quintet! Beep Beep Beep! SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BLAM TEWJTKLWRTLJRKTWH
(the 'witty' 'joke' being that it wasn't a "Surprisingly Halfway-Decent Miles Davis Album" alert beeping at all, but rather the horn of an approaching car)
(we don't think it's very funny either, but as long as Mr. Hope keeps returning from the grave with new material, there's not much we can do about it.)
This time around, Miles and gang bring you a hearty and diverse collection of truly AGGRO-GRESSIVE stuff, neat as beans HYPNOTICA material, a couple tracks of excellent "moodmaking," and, as an added surprise, some trumpet solos! Seven songs long, this forward-looking release and my inability to describe a jazz album as a whole due to a serious lack of knowledge on my part demand that I briefly describe each track for you. In so doing, I want you to try to gauge whether the LP might be of interest to you. That's my intention.
"Prince Of Darkness" - Although a godawful Alice Cooper song, "Prince of Darkness" is here driven along by a speedy rhythm, an oft-recurring sax/trumpet riff that pulls you in and sticks you there, and an almost surf-drummy level of aggression in the percussionwork. Man, I dig this drummer guy. He just has a great sound! Just constantly tif-tif-tiffin' away over there in the left speaker, then smackin' the shit out of the snare during the louder passages. Reminds me of Bill Bruford for absolutely no reason at all. Is Tony Williams considered to be a good jazz drummer? I hope so, because he's usually my favorite part of these songs! He just really keeps it moving and then suddenly throws in these awesomely reverbed "THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-SMASH-SMASH-SMASH!" breaks that make you feel like you're totally rockin' out instead of listening to old bag music. Excellent song that slows down only for a piano solo.
"Pee Wee" - Less a song than a "mood". A slow, atonal, smoky bar, hopeless, depressed, fatigued "mood". If you're in the right "mood" for it, it makes for GREAT "mood" music. But if you're in the wrong "mood," you may want to listen to the "Mood"y blues instead. Or watch a movie with lots of "Mood" women in it. Which means NOT Indiana Jones And The Temple Of "Mood"; the blonde woman never takes it (her vagina) off.
"Masqualero" - A FangoddamnedTastic nine-minute excursion of darkness, driven by a recurring bass riff that makes the whole thing feel a little on edge. Don't listen to it under a full moon. A WEREWOLF'll pop out!
"The Sorcerer" - Fast as shit but nothing interesting happens. Kinda like the Olsen Twins. ZING!
Sorry about that. Just doing a shout-out to Steve Zing, former drummer for Samhain. Keep it rockin', Steve!
"Limbo" - Da da da da limbo rock! Da da da da limbo rock! Da da da da limbo rock! Da da da da limbo rock! Da da da da limbo rock! Da da da da limbo rock! Da da da da limbo rock! Da da da da da da da dee! (*repeat*) That's a great song, as opposed to this Miles Davis composition which is merely passable. It's calamitous indeed with crackalackacracka drums and a couple minutes of interesting recurring trumpet runs up-up-up fast than swaying down-down-down like a leaf from a tree or drunkard from a hot air balloon. Unfortunately the other solos are so non-descript, the dictionary offers no descriptor sufficiently non-descriptive to apply to them. Actually, can "Christ, shut the fuck up you pricks" be used as an adjective? If not, let's party!
"Vonetta" - Vonetta. Sweet Vonetta Fart, she thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan. Picks for the fingers, good? Also, it's slow, ugly and boring. Except it gets interesting after a while when you realize that the trumpet and sax sorta ARE following the piano, but just way OFF, coming back to it only on key chords. The trumpo and Saxo Calrissian play a recurring depressed motif together too. Hell, there's even some marching beats in here! How can you call this song "slow, ugly and boring"? Are you HIGH!?! On The Devil's Weed!?! Which was created by The Devil!?! Unlike tobacco, which was created by God!?!
"Nothing Like You" - Speedy with GAYASS vocals!!! Seriously! This one's from 1962, and features some Southern white male vocalist who sounds fruitier than an apple that fucks oranges up the turd machine! Hilarious! Fantastic! And only two minutes long, so it's a rule! What a great ending to the album!!! It's like the ending of Apocalypse Now when Charlie Sheen murders Mistah Kurtz and that terrible Doors song comes on! Just a GREAT ending! You'll be laughing at its Dr. Demento-stylized qualities for a fortnight! GOD, you will! HA! Listen to this fuckin' guy sing! And I thought I was gay!
So as you can see, there are many Miles Davis albums, but most of them suck shit through a really long flexible straw extended down the toilet bowl pipes into the sewer, so it's a gas to run across a batch of honestly intelligent instrumental interplay like that found on this one. No matter what you're after - speed, malaise, hooks, improvisation, early bop, wildass Keith Moon-style drumming - you'll find it here on Sorcerer. That's why I gave it a 6 out of 10! That means "Pretty Good/Above Average"! Way to go, Miles Davis!
Also, you're nuts, most of Miles' output between 1965-1972 is untouchable. Except by Schoolhouse Rock: I can hum a few scant Miles melodies, but still know the Preamble.
2005 - Maybe you're a butt man, but I loves me some Nefer Titties! That would be hilarious if this album were actually any good. Instead it's just a non-truth. Characterized by some as hard bop, others as post-bop, some as modal music and others as modern creative jazz, Nefertiti features six songs, three of which wouldn't recognize a melody if it were the size of a house. "What's that catchy, musical thing that's the size of a house?" these songs would ask. "Hmm, it's got harmonies, repetition, riffs, hooks -- is it a typewriter?" But they'd be wrong. Because the correct answer is "A melody." But try convincing these three songs of that. Good luck. You'd might as well just stay here with me, staring at the hot black Nefer Titties all over the Sperm Channel.
Wayne Shorter, saxophonist, is a man who understands the actualities of creating a SONG. He is credited with three of the compositions on this record, and all three are about as full-on melodic from beginning to end as you'll find on any Miles Davis album. The awesome title track drags a sick, depressed, let's kill ourselves mopey downward riff into the muck of an alley as the sax and trumpet play it in different keys over and over and over again for eight minutes, to the point where the horns begin lagging behind each other on the changes, creating a delay/echo-style siren effect of hopeless small town doldrums. GREAT GODDAMNED SONG!!! "Fall" (my favorite band) is another terrific ACTUAL SONG, carrying forth with the lackadaisacal down-in-the-dumps feel of "Nefertiti" in a less obviously melodic way, but with plenty of repetition, specifically of a sweet lick that the trumpet and sax keep coming together for. If you're "all about" gloomy-sounding jazz music, these two songs are made for your alley!
Unfortunately the next three tracks are hideous, each beginning with maybe 20 seconds of melody before devolving into snappy, fast-paced fuckin' SOLOING SOLOING SOLOING over NOTHING INTERESTING AT ALL for up to NINE MINUTES AT A TIME. Have you ever put your hand on a hot stove and held it there for nine minutes? I bet you ten dollars that that's what the producer of this record (if not the Spirit of Music itself) was doing as the Quintet laid down these soul-numbing piles of unlistenable show-offy garbage.
The final track (Shorter's third songwriting credit) actually DOES have a melody; I just don't happen to like it. It's too "jazzy"! If you're gonna write "jazzy" crap, go play for Steely Dan, not the Dave Clark Five. Did he honestly think "Pinocchio" would fit alongside such British Invasion classics as "Over And Over," "I Like It Like That," "Bits And Pieces," "Glad All Over," "Because," "Everybody Knows," "Any Way You Want It," "Catch Us If You Can," "Do You Love Me," "Move On," "All Of The Time," "Stay," "Chaquita," "I Know You," "No Time To Lose," "Doo Dah," "She's All Mine," "Time," "Theme Without A Name," "I Need You, I Love You," "Forever And A Day," "Give Me Love," "I Can't Stand It," "I'm Left Without You," "Crying Over You," "Say You Want Me," "When," "Don't You Know," "To Me," "It's Not True," "Having A Wild Weekend," "New Kind Of Love," "Dum-Dee-Dee-Dum," "I Said I Was Sorry," "The Vagina Twist," "No Stopping," "Don't Be Taken In," "When I'm Alone," "If You Come Back," "Sweet Memories," "Don't You Realize," "On The Move," "Come Home," "I'm Thinking," "Your Turn To Cry," "I Need Love," "Maybe It's You," "Pumping," "That's How Long Our Love Will Last," "A Little Bit Of Love," "I'll Be Yours My Love," "Please Love Me," "Goodbye My Friends," "She's A Loving Girl," "You Know You're Lying," "I Am On My Own," "Please Tell Me Why," "I Never Will," "Looking In," "Ever Since You've Been Away," "Scared Of Falling In Love," "Devoted To Me," "Just A Little Bit Now," "Maze Of Love," "I Still Need You" and "Return My Love"? If so, he was RIGHT! GREAT ALBUM!!! In fact, it's THREE-RIFFIC!
2005 - I've got a bone to pick with "Weird Al" Yankovic, America's premier novelty music artist. It's not that he shaved off his mustache; I've come to accept that unfortunate show of maturity. It's not even that most of his albums aren't that great, though that's certainly disappointing in its own right. No, what's really burning my butt about "Weird Al" Yankovic these days is the fact that he has been in the hilarious parody songwriting industry for nigh on more than two decades now and has STILL, TO THIS DAY, not recorded a hilarious parody of James Brown's "Big Payback" entitled "Vic Tayback." It's an obvious move. A dog could do it. Heck, a corpse trapped under a boulder could do it. So why is our world still lacking such a much-needed commodity as that whose absence I have herein lamented? I blame lawyers and their fatcat attorneys.
I suppose that out of 16 new Miles Davis albums, I was bound to actually like one of them. And here it is - Filles De Fish. Richly educated jazz students inform me that this was both Miles' final album with his Second Quintet and his first album to mix bits of rock, pop, blues, funk and r'n'b into his jazz. The result? A heady brouhaha called FuSiOn! Tons of interesting riffs, harmonies, bass licks (on your grave!), drum breaks and organ melodies are to be found within these five lengthy tracks, which run the emotional gamut from calamitous funk to exploratory tearful soul to throbbing pulsating evil to happy-go-lucky moodmaking before finishing off with a preposterously long pop/blues bass'n'organ motif purposely performed at the pace of a slug.
Quick! Name these movies!
"Greg! Greg! Look at your hands! Our hands are bleeding! It's Montag! He's doing it!"
"Now you listen. And you listen WELL! You're damaged goods, and this is a fire sale!"
"I have a drug here. LSD. Perhaps you've heard of it."
"Have you ever had... an EGYPTIAN FEAST!?"
"Paula, I may be a bitch, but I'll never be a BUTCH. HA HA HA HA HA!"
You're gonna love Mr. Herbie Hancock trading in his piano for an electric boogaloo, working his way ever closer to his career high "Rockit" with the robot legs wearing pants and shoes and dancing in the closet (if memory serves). Another thing that will instantly strike you about this release is how well the musicians listen to each other. Just lend an ear to the first half of "Tout De Suite," first as the horns play that sad riff in harmony and the bassist "vamps" on his sympathetic bass motif, then as the horns suddenly start hitting nearly DISTURBING notes higher up in the spectrum, on into when the bass and organ begin exchanging quick instrument smacks while the drummer reduces his beat to a tense metronomic cymbal tick-tick-tick - It's almost "A Saucerful of Secrets"y in its 'structured chaos' construction! Unfortunately the song stalls about eight minutes in and turns into a series of boring solos, but later take note of a neat piece of bass/drum interaction that's far more musical than you might expect. Best of all, listen right near the very end of the song when it all of a sudden breaks out into a goodtime blues tune for about FOUR SECONDS for no clear reason! Hilarious! That's what Jazz is - hilarious!
In order to work with four other musicians on actual real-time pieces of improvisatory music, one must possess great concentration and attention to the task at hand. Did you see that they caught this asshole child molester guy who killed the little girl's whole family? Actually, "child asshole molester" would probably be a more factually correct descriptor, if adding salt to old wounds is your business. Speaking of pussy, check out the October 2005 issue of Hustler for a full-page interview with Neil Hamburger! Yesterday Henry The Dog ran across our shared terrace to bark menacingly at the kitty cat that lives next door and wouldn't you know it - the cat hissed, 'raowr!'ed and threw his front legs all over creation and next thing you know, Henry's got a bloody nose! Oh, this made him hopping mad it did, and he started barking like moonshine with a stack of mules on top. I tell ya what, when that mean ol' dog's got a hair a-crackin', don't come around here with your flabber wackin'!
Say - what are all these funny little shapes on the computer screen? Ha ha! They're funny! One of them looks like a little wiggly snake! . . . .
s
. . . . .
Augh! Snake on the lose! Somebody call the American Society for the Cruelty of Animal Prevention (ASCAP)!!!!
2005 - Today I got an email that made me say, "Uh-oh." It was from a British person who feels that my reviews have become unreadably self-centered and nonsensical. You see, here's what's happened. I've been doing the site here for nine and a half years, and have gone through many different phases. When I started, my goal was to say everything I could about an album; this generally resulted in my writing one sentence about each song on the record. Then I moved on into being a little sillier and adding in obvious jokes that I no longer find amusing at all. Then I took a long break, and upon my return I reviewed EVERY SINGLE ALBUM I LISTENED TO, RIGHT AFTER I LISTENED TO IT. So those reviews are all teeny-tiny, and of no use whatsoever as far as I'm concerned. Then I entered a phase of being as offensive as possible, writing all kinds of grotesque, pointless comments that weren't even really jokes so much as just unpleasant statements. And now here I am nine and a half years later stuck in what I thought was a perfectly good jokes+description formula, but now I'm starting to have my doubts. See, I really have been writing more about each album in my current reviews than I ever did before -- the problem is that I also feel the need to constantly entertain the easily bored, so I throw in all kinds of ridiculous horseshit just for grins and whatnot. This is fine if my reviews are still readable, but apparently they're getting to the point where they're not. So I'm going to try to enter a new phase wherein I actually READ MY REVIEWS after I write them but before I post them. What's your opinion? Are they getting too hard to read? Let a guy know. Me, preferably. Perhaps I could try to put jokes just at the beginning and end, and leave the review portion relatively alone. Thoughts?
As for this album specifically, it was recorded in a couple different sessions in 1968 but not released until nearly a decade later. This may be due to the fact that the songs (fusion and bop) are about as scintillating as a boring-looking bird. The title track includes an excitingly EERIE electric piano chord sequence, but the rest of the band just puds around. "Sweet Pea" perfectly hits a doldrum mood (especially in its evocative electric piano solo), but there's no melody and the rest of the band just plays with their dicks, fucking each other in the ass and then fucking their instruments, then fucking each other in the asses again with their dicks covered in spit that had collected in their instruments, even the bassist because he plays his bass with his dick, which is usually covered in the drummer's spit because the drummer's always blowin' him. And "The Dual Mr. Tillman Anthony Williams Rigmarole" or whatever it's called is a terrific, really really awesome, interesting, brilliantly designed half-paced experimental r'n'b groove cut into tiny pieces and reassembled with too much space between each portion; unfortunately it slithers along for THIRTEEN AND A HALF MINUTES, seemingly under the impression that twice as long means twice as good. And sure that's true for some things, like tube socks or liquid paper, but not anything else. "Two Faced" is EIGHTEEN MINUTES, for heaven's sake - and it's not even a song! And "Capricorn"? That's just 8 1/2 minutes of an astrological sign running away from a bee! Sure, it's fast and furious, but it also makes it clear why the Latin word "solo" translates into "urine sample." And yes, that is why your Pete Townshend albums smell so bad. That, and because he glued the sleeves together while looking at childhood photos of himself.
So you see, I've now entered a new reviewing phase -- one that will engage us all with its intellectual wit and 'on-focus' music critique. Here's to dagos!
To be honest, I don't even know what a dago is. I know it's a racial slur, but of what nationality I've no idea. Dagoricans, I guess? Sure! Fuckin' Dagoricans can eat my ass's shitass!
I've been reading your site for two years now, I think.
Here's what:
The reviews themselves are lousy... In fact, they suck.
I don't even know why I wrote this. But I think it's better than just a dull
review.
Keep on scribbling.
the last couple of updates, (i guess the june stuff),
was some of the funniest shit youve ever written,
possibly the funniest since the miles davis reviews...
i also think the beach boys stuff was really funny,
as well as the nirvana 'incesticide' poem, which i
have read out loud to friends and girlfriends (they
loved it).
i dunno, i love the stupid jokes and random crap you
throw in. i find most music writing preeetty effing
boring, both to read and to write.
i guess you should know that you had a big part in
inspiring me to take up and subsequently swear off
semi-professional rock reviewing (i wrote for NY Press
and boston's weekly dig. not anymore.)
did you go to any of those nyc Fall shows last year
where MES was on crutches cause of the broken hip?
that was fucked up yet somehow awe-inspiring. i
thought the actual shows kinda sucked though.
its 2 am and i have work in the morning, have a good
one.
Oh, and dago is a term for an Italian because "Diego"
was a popular Italian surname. And, for future
reference, wop is an acronym standing for "With-Out
Passport," referring to the status of Italian
immigrants arriving in America. Isn't racist history fun?
no,no and .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................okay.
(feel free to post this at the end of any of your recent reviews, or not so recent reviews. anyways i hope you dug your trip to alaska(if at least in a "time off from work" sense). currently loving life 'cause MY OWN GODDAMN MOTHER wants to help. but that's just me. lovin' you since i discovered your site looking for SUN CITY GIRLS info before they decide to brighten our idiocrastic need for their internet lexaconismistc
alright now i'm making stuff up. NOW i'm MARK PRINDLE!!
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
for my next trick as mark prindle i will trash the genre of thee boss ANOVA(steps on japanese building, hundreds of korean immigrants who relocated to LA run out screaming)
just kidding
i li(HAVE A GIANT BONER)ke your site mark. even if you stray from popular opinion(jazz) or state something clearly against my own aesthetic tastes(jazz). you still inject a certain gonzo slice of life that has made itself literately dubious in the most autonomous fashion if you take in since
i don't know, since i was born.
fuck it man, thank god for spell check.
And I don't know how long ago you did this page, but I do like this
questioning yourself and how you review albums in the midst of a review. I
think as long as you actually make some comment on the album at hand, then
the more dick jokes, insults and generall observations the better. And maybe
just once in a while another 'blackout' review like that Aerosmith one, so I
can have a chuckle at people getting really offended.
Finally! A Miles Davis Express that I can throw my whole-hearted endorsement behind! He has embraced the idea of such a thing as rock music existing! This band features a bunch of guys who ended up in outfits like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and The Weather Report - try this on your hatband and lick it! Herbie Hancock! Chick Corea! Wayne Shorter! Dave Holland? Josef Zawinul! Tony Williams? And on our beloved guitar, Mr. John McLaughlin, about which the members of Aerosmith once said, "Wow, he's good." See, this is worth investigating. What is it about jazz that so bugs Mr. Prindle? He's complaining about the solos, but most rock music has solos too and you don't see him bitching about those. So what is it? Well, here we go - music is an AURAL medium. And the sounds of jazz simply don't appeal to my ears. I do not enjoy the sounds of brass instruments except as background for lusher, more well-produced rock/pop songs (Beatles, Flaming Lips, etc). However, this album isn't a brass album. Out of the eight musicians who appear on it, only Miles and Wayne play brass instruments! The rest of the guys play electric piano, organ, bass and drums (really light drums though, just a metronomic "ship ship ship," much like the Titanic, although that particular ship turned out to make a better door than a metronome). So the music is smooth and cool while actually sounding GOOD to my brain -- much more like soul-influenced modal rock music than the Miles Davis works that are reviewed previously on this page here. However, there are still an awful lot of passages built on nothing but endless soloing in one key (that's what modal jazz is though) and they could have used a few more melodies like the superfunkycool keyboard lines that pop up once or twice throughout, and the extraordinarily pretty guitar runs that open and close side two. You don't hear me complaining though! (as long as you didn't read that last sentence) If you've gone this far wondering why I own so many Miles Davis records, it's because this is the first one that I ever heard. Then I bought a bunch of his `70s fusion stuff and dug lots of that too, before picking up a bunch of his earlier stuff in cheapy bins and discovering that jazz can go fuck itself.
Whereas you have a problem with jazz, I enjoy sucking its big, sweaty atmosphere. Cool! "Shhh Peaceful is boring except for Wayne's not-brass solo, but the title track is godly. More Wayne and even more John McLaughlin, which is good. Wow. 29 minutes of recording can make a fantastic 40 minute album. B+
From what I'm told to believe, this is the first ever "fusion" album - and it's a good one! Lots of the same folks from In A Silent Way play on this one (as well as some new faces!) and the music just rollicks and rolls like a steam train of hell's abandon. There's this wickedass shuffling polyrhythmic backbeat, John McLaughlin doodlin' away on his 6-string, Miles, Wayne and Bennie Maupin (famous for his lyrical work with Elton John) blowing air and spit into instruments of death and Joe and Larry whippin' out oodles of cool high-speed electric piano riffs and flourishes similar to those that fans of the only real music in the world (rock) might have heard at the beginning of Yes' "Sound Chaser." So I'm beginning to understand one reason why people might like jazz. It's the fact that there's this sort of minor backdrop thing going on that you can rely on, but in the front, you never know WHAT'S going to happen! I could give a shit about what a bunch of horn-playing jackasses might exchange between themselves, but when they're extrapolating and interplaying with the instruments whose sounds I enjoy (electric bass guitar, electric guitar, electric piano), I'm definitely interested. Parts can get boring if they aren't coming up with much, but on most of Bitches Brew, every instrument somehow manages to toss out lots of really neat sounds and riffs. I don't need lengthy solos, by any means, but when there are two or three (or four or five) talented guys doing their own things all at once, a lot of excellent, unexpected noise and joy can occur. And that ever-chooglin' drumbeat is a keeper. Jazz? My eye! This is exploratory rock music! Like Krautrock, but brassier! If only somebody would wise up and throw out Miles Davis and his confounded strumpet!
Unless it was a joke in which case the joke's now on
me. Apologies.
look: you don't have to "understand jazz" in order to get it. it's just music. don't you like music? for all the outrageous celebration mark does about how you really have to sit down and listen to the thinking fellers in order to understand it, one would think that he'd listen to his own advice. clearly, he hasn't.
if you are looking for a nice melody with some interplay, try listening to boplicity again. if that doesnt do it for you, i dont know what will.
I've been listening to John Coltrane today. I
downloaded 'A Love Supreme', but I figure he doesn't
need the money any more. After about two minutes, it
hit me what I hate about jazz, aside from the sneery
superior types who hold this music in such high
esteem. It's just all wrong. The saxophone is way, way
too loud. It hits notes that makes the synovial fluid
rush to the base of my neck and sit there, twanking on
my nerves until I just HAVE to turn it off. And it's
not that I can't take extreme or avant-garde music.
I've got everything Glenn Branca put out, though I
don't have to prove my credentials. It's just all
wrong. Any music where you place one instrument much
higher than the rest is going to suck. Whenever my
band get a soundboard mix through the PA, there's no
snare 'cos our drummer hits too hard and my voice is
always much too high over the top and it sounds
DREADFUL. Jazz - it does have some cookin' interplay,
moments where you think - "wow, a rock band would
never do that" - but it's largely drowned out by my
quick dash for the volume control, followed by 'stop'.
And the WORST thing is, jazzbos convince you that this
is the source, this is the real deal and the largely
white indie-rock I like is just fake shit. Well fuck
that.
Eh, I'm going to have to slightly agree with Mark on this one, but for
opposite reasons. These songs, to me, seem pretty much all catchy in
a "jazzbo" kind of way. Very little soloing, everyone tight as a
Cannonball Adderley drum. However, it kind of goes right through
one's brain like a Maroon 5 tune. All fun and games, no resonance.
Light as a feather, in other words. That "Darn That Dream"
sub-Sinatra shit at the end only reinforces that impression. I give
it a low 7 for sheer listenability.
As far as "Love Supreme" goes, in reference to the commenter above,
though, I must disagree. True, "Supreme"'s not nearly as perfect as
it's made out to be--it's less than half an hour long, for Chrissakes.
I think, however, the lack of any other instrument than the sax gives
it focus and keeps it from sounding boring and generic. At least
you've only got ONE asshole musically masturbating for twenty-eight
minutes, as opposed to six.
(Speaking of which, "Blue Train"--now THAT'S an overrated Trane album.
Whoever said its high sales proved its lasting quality must be
strapped to a chair and forced to listen to Guns 'n Roses' debut for
the rest of time. THAT'll teach 'em.)
A HA! I think I've just figured out the reason behind my impression
of Dirty Rotten LP. I'd just finished listening to Frank Sinatra's
Songs for Swingin' Lovers!! (1955). And you know what THAT man said
about rock and roll at the year in question. . .
Mark, are you sure that's water in your ear? I had that same thing going on a while ago and what it turned out to be was a virus that caused like post-nasal drip and made me cough a bit and that crazy thing happen to my right ear. I thought I was going deaf or something from my crazy rock and roll lifestyle but luckily I took some allergy medicine (or cold medicine, anything that dries mucus up) and it cleared up. If it really is just water stuck in your ear for no reason then I'm sorry and it appears life hates you. Also, way to go puncturing your scrote. That sucks. Next time use one of those adjustable electric razors like I do. Ok, I hope my retarded advice helps but it probably won't. Good luck.
Like others, I've got to give you credit for reviewing Miles.
It's unhealthy to worship a musician and you level some fair criticism against
jazz as a music. I too, though I try to play and study jazz, am sometimes
unnerved by the lack of melodies in solos and the sameness of a lot of tunes.
But there's nothing like a well-played jazz solo. And this album is full of
'em. All uptempo (except Sid's Ahead, which is a slow blues) swingers; kind
of the antithesis to Kind of Blue. If you were to purchase Kind of Blue, I'd
recommend picking up Milestones the same day. Where KoB is slow, soft, cool,
Milestones is fast, loud, and just fun. Milestones was recorded a year or so
before KoB and features almost the same personnel (Red Garland plays piano
here, and the great Philly Joe Jones is on drums). Some highlights of this
record: Miles's tension-filled solo on "Sid's Ahead," all of "Milestones"
(which might be called "Miles" on the label), Cannonball and Coltrane trading
choruses on "Dr. Jekyll." I understand and agree with some of your
criticisms, but try listening to the energy that's going on in all these
solos, and how they differ from each other (Miles plays shorter phrases and
develops them, Trane spits our run-on sentences from another planet,
Cannonball slides and shakes like a preacher). For rockers who want to get
into straightahead jazz, I'd recommend this record, along with any Charles
Mingus (especially Mingus Ah Um, Blues and Roots, The Clown, and Live in
Antibes) or John Coltrane (My Favorite Things or Blue Trane). If I had to
give a ten, this would probably be it.
As an administrator of a Michigan public school, I must complain to you, sir, over the content of your profane website which has become increasingly popular with my students, who are reading it with the computers in the school library, which is for research purposes only. I highly doubt my students have been assigned research papers on the subject of heavy rock bands such as Black Sabbath and AC/DC. These are not artists whom we would even be encouraging our students to listen to, due to their anti-social lyrical content. I browsed through your Miles Davis reviews and was shocked at some of your statements. Allow me to quote: "F--- jazz up the a--. What a worthless piece of s--- form of musical expression. Anybody who claims to like it is lying and probably very unpopular and smelly."
You are an extremely SILLY man Mark. Why have you bothered I wonder? This is the Mark Prindle Rock And Roll Review website after all. You haven't even reviewed Deep Purple or Alice Cooper. But I appreciate your audacity as always. Do not review Muddy Waters, do not collect $200 - head straight for shit's creek and pop a squat on your own paddle. Nice work! I will read all your Miles reviews for entertainment purposes when my boss stops circling my desk looking for more reasons to pass me over for one of the super size cubicles. I confess I had hopes though. There's gotta be other people out there who can get off on D.R.I. and be-bop alike. Especially "Milestones". Intense and scary shit lurks within these winds and brass sometimes. And Philly Jo Jones makes Dave Lombardo sound like Lars Ulrich.
Is that comment from the school administrator in Michigan an actual comment?
Sorry, the letters in "Miles Davis" do not rearrange into "Saliva Demon",
"Miles Davis" has no `o'.
ok Mark, now i've been a loyal Prindle Record Review
site visiter and contributor for years now, but i think
you've crossed some sort of line with these miles davis
reviews. Now i realize that you could very well be
joking around throught all these reviews, but i think
you're totally out of line here. Some of the things you
say just totally piss me off, for example: "I have no
tolerance for nor interest in hearing a bunch
of guys making crap up on the spot." The fact that you
would even dare to say that anything coming out of
miles', trane's, or cannonball's mouth is crap insults
me honestly. These guys are some of the most brilliant
musicians the world has ever known, and whether you know
that or not, you should respect them. I'm not saying
that you should like their records or like jazz for that
matter, just respect them and don't treat their work
like it's meaningless, because they put their heart and
soul into their work, and if you listen hard enough and
open up your mind a bit, you can hear their emotions. I
admit that most of the time when i hear jazz, i just
think it's cool cause they're such good musicians, but i
try to hear what they're saying...whether i do or not is
another thing. Which leads me to something you wrote in
the Milestones review: "Fuck jazz up the ass. What a
worthless piece of shit form of musical expression."
Ok, i'll tell you what a worthless piece of shit form of
musical expresson is. Try any punk band that ever
existed, even the misfits who i like. And every stupid
shit pop band out these days. None of those dumb fucks
could express the way they feel just by playing a note.
Look: the last thing I feel like doing is preaching about how jazz
should be listened to. I can perfectly understand the argument about how the
instrumental interplay is too homogenous, how endless improvisation seems to
overtake the central melodies sometimes, how goddamn piercing a saxophone can
sound after a while, etc. Hell, I hated the shit too at first.
Mark, I can understand your contempt for the Velvet Underground. I happen to like the band, but
most of the people to whom I've introduced their records hate them.
I'm not really into jazz (like you, Mark) and I'm a classic rock/prog rock fan (Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull
etc). However, I love "Kind Of Blue". It's the essential jazz album. My favourites are "Freddie
Freeloader" and "So What". And I have only two jazz albums! This and John Coltrane's "Blue Train".
Both are pretty good. Except Miles, there are playing various musicians piano, keyboards, saxophone,
drums etc. Listen to this album again. It will grow on you. A perfect 10 of 10.
I've read many of your reviews on this site with interest and
appreciation, and, more often than not, find compatibility with your
taste. Your style too is often brilliant, when it is not going off
half-cocked. At any rate, your insights in re: the Ramones, the Clash,
Pavement, the Fall, and others seem to me dead on target. I can cavil
over matters of subtlety in your opinion of the Stones (I'd argue Exile is
their best - and indeed the best rock album of all time), as well as Sonic
Youth (I place Dirty substantially above Goo, for example - I don't buy
for a second the view that they sold out to grunge), but you never stray
so far off base that anyone could accuse you of ignorance or bad taste.
I thought it was pretty cool that Prindle did this page saying what he's
saying. He is being very honest and in no moment speaks from a supposed
authority position or puts it in a way that might mislead you. He's
being clear about what HE likes in music and about what HE fails to find
in jazz. Instead of writing pages of half-assed theory (by which I'm NOT
suggesting all theory is half-assed) or making sad attempts at being a
poet among critics. He's not pretending to pass some definitive judgment
on these (or any) albums, which is a far worse and very common sin of
music critics. And I don't think he's being any bit as insulting as a
good part of the negative reviews I've read in my life. He's not saying
Miles sucks at what he does, he's saying he can't find much interest in
jazz at all. I'm sure he'll get enough complaints and insults to fill
books and books for this, but as far as I'm concerned that will be the
result of the readers' view of this music as sacred. Which is pretty sad.
This one is commonly called the greatest jazz recording ever,
but like Sgt. Pepper's, it ain't true. It's certainly great, amazing (all the
solos on "So What" blow me away), but there's no real burners, and the mood
gets real mellow on the second half of the record. But it's essential amazing
listening nonetheless. The way to listen to this album is just concentrating
one tune at a time, looking for all the intracacies in the solos, how they
build from simple phrases into longer melodies. But Mark, I think your
criticism that all jazz guys are just showing off and wanking is pretty
inaccurate when it comes to Miles. He's famous for leaving space in his
solos, playing short, odd phrases. I can see how you wouldn't like Coltrane's
playing, but his playing just sounds so urgent and otherworldly. Not many
other players can do what he does.
Listen, Mark. If you dont' fucking get jazz, DON'T
FUCKING REVIEW IT! Stick to your obscure punk bands
and classic rock'n'roll artists, but don't berate a
style of music you don't truly understand! This
doesn't go for me, 'cuz I'm a classically trained
pianist as well as rock aficianado, but while shit
like Black Aria and Pictures at an Exhibition are
okay to lambaste because they're done by rock artists
and you understand rock and are familiar with its
various styles and you know what's good and bad in it,
but a rock critic cannot pick up a Beethoven and
realize its true genius because he hasn't been exposed
to music so dull or methodical in comparison to his
other stuff, and therefore should not review it! MY
SENTENCES ARE BECOMING ILL-FORMED, BECAUSE THE FACT
THAT MILES DAVIS IS MAKING AN APPEARANCE ON A
ROCK'N'ROLL SITE AND BEING CALLED "STUPID" IS AN
UNBELIEVABLE THING! YOU'RE AN EXCELLENT FUCKING CRITIC
AND WRITER MARK, BECAUSE YOU UNDERSTAND ROCK'N'ROLL!
Now go apologize to Kind of Blue and retire to your
room without supper.
First I'd like to say here: This guy Mark is running a site called "rock and roll reviews" or something like that. Then he announces that he doesn't understand
jazz at all. People who understand and love jazz, should not look at this site to find proper reviews of jazz records. Go read Downbeat instead. Mark has
decided to say his humble opinion about some crucial jazz records, but nobody should take these opinions too seriously. If some far-out classic dude says
that Zappa is bullshit, I don't take it seriously either.
mark, you're a fucking idiot. you been sucking on too many kiss albums.
you wouldn't know greatness if it fucked you in the ass. the only people
i know that make you look like you have some intelligence, are all those
stupid bastards who tried to reason with about this album.
Someone here wrote: "If you dont' fucking get jazz, DON'T FUCKING REVIEW IT! Stick to
your obscure punk bands and classic rock'n'roll artists, but don't berate a style of music
you don't truly understand!"
Mark, I think I met the asshole who wrote the Kind Of Blue book. A couple
weekends ago, at the International Association for Jazz Education bigass
conference in Toronto, I was hanging out by the Da Capo books table in the
merch room. I'm flipping through books by Gary Giddins and Bob Blumenthal and
whatever, and I see a book called something like The Making Of Kind Of Blue.
So I thinks to meself, "Hey, I betcha this is the book by that asshole Prindle
was talking about on his Miles page!" I look through it, searching for some
assholic sentences and whatnot; it gets boring real quick, so I pick up
something else. Then this guy walks up behind the counter and gives the guy
manning the booth a high-five. "What's up, ______," says the guy. "What's
up, Ashley," says the clerk. Ashley proceeds to ask the guy about how the
booth is doing, whether they're selling many books, etcet. I glance at the
title to the Kind Of Blue book, and IT'S WRITTEN BY SOME DUDE WHO'S FIRST NAME
IS ASHLEY. "Holy shit, THIS guy is the asshole Prindle spoke of! This is
fucked up! Should I confront the bastard like the web-music-review geek I am,
and say 'Hey fucker, why were you such a dick to Mark Prindle??!!!???'" And I
don't say anything. Then Ashley pats me on the shoulder and says, "Hey man,
good book. If I may, this one is pretty decent too." He picks up the Kind Of
Blue book (which he wrote) and peeks into it with a thoroughly loving and
idiotic look on his face. He and the clerk share a laugh; I sit there silent,
thinking of something biting and sardonic to say, but say nothing. This
Ashley guy laughs and again and takes off, and I do too.
i don't really like jazz either mark. i had this album, the first jazz album i had and it's kind of dull. plus, these people who get so "offended" by mark's dislike of the jazz musicians need to grow up. why let some guy you don't even know bother you? I love peter gabriel, mark has made several biting remarks about him in different reviews. do i care? no because mark, like you, has the right to hate or love whatever he wants. so just because you think every note miles davis ever blew out of his trumpet is genius, and that it's offensive that so mebody else doesn't bow down to that belief then you're way out of line: not only are you being hypocritical, you're pushing your own opinion onto mark, an opinion he doesn't want.
Have you checked out the Amazon review's of Ashley's book?
FirstofallI'dliketolarifymyseeminglyshitekeyoardskilswiththefatthatIspli tawhilefukingottleofeeroermykeyoardandithasfukedup,aleitslightly.Ihaeyet touyareplaement.
hi. i was wondering if you could suggest any artists that have the same
calming effect as miles davis has with pieces like kind of blue or blue in
green. i would like to hear more. thanks.
No. You cannot get away with giving "Kind of Blue" a 4. You just can't.
AAAAAAH!! George Starostin looks just like ME! JEEPERS!! Except he has a
ponytail. That, and I can't speak foreign languages because I'm a goddamn
visual learner. Me and my complexes.
Every negative point made by Mark and the various respondents concerning
Jazz is true. But, then again, so are all of the positive comments!
(But, couldn't that be said about any genre of music?) It took me years
to warm-up to Mr. Davis and to Jazz in general. I bought Milestones 15?
years ago (actually I believe I got it "free" from the Columbia House
Record Club as one of my 10 choices when I agreed to buy "just 7 more
CD's in the next two years"). I listened to it once and then put it
aside until this year. I knew I was supposed to dig Miles (everybody
told me I should), but I guess I just wasn't ready for his music at the
time...
Hey Mark, these latest batch of reviews are some of the funniest things i've ever read in my entire life, and i've read the lyric sheets to several Phil Collins solo albums!!!
A. A whole lotta fuckin' around!
A. They both wear thin after the first minute!
A. A disappointing Sax performance!
A. If you encounter one of them, you're probably about to get a cavity filled!
Q. They both start off quite lovely before suddenly devolving into a depressing mixture of boring self-obsession and cocaine-fuelled ugliness!
"2005 - After topping the alternative charts with 1991's saddy Loveless,
Kevin Shields took a well-deserved hiatus before going slowly insa"
This is insane. How can a masterpiece of improvisation like “My Funny Valentine” get TWO STARS???
I have a new email address! Someone invited me to get a gmail account, so I feel special.
"Jazz is not dead; it just smells funny."
Your comments are very amusing. You remind me of a couple of friends that I used to have - before they died. It's like listening to infuriating, stupid, loudmouth conservative talk radio guys. I love to hate 'em. Keep it up. I always thought that rock 'n roll guys took themselves way too seriously. You're off the charts. I'm a fan now. Thanks!
the ultra "gayass" vocals on Sorcerer's "nothing like you" are by bob dorough, who was one of the original songwriters of Schoolhouse Rock, immortalized on such classics as "zero, my hero", "the shot heard round the world", and "Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here". If this influences you to reduce the original score you gave for Sorcerer, please take into account that "3 is a Magic Number" BURIES most of Miles' output (at least through 1965).
I don't give a shit about Water Babies and you don't have to put this
comment up if you don't want to but I don't really think any of your
reviews are hard to read, and I don't think they've gotten any harder.
Actually, the formula of purposely misspelling album and band info and
adding tons on non sequiturs and goofy jokes and the word "poop" in
the midst of stuff that is normally serious is what distinguishes you
from other rock critics and it's why I like your reviews so much even
though I disagree with you somewhere between 50 and 60 percent of the
time. Basically from reading your reviews it's obvious that you don't
like slow and barely changing stuff and don't have patience for loads
of pretence so if you hypothetically gave an album a one and made the
review say "HALALG I AM A HAMBURGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MLOOP DROOP" or
something ridiculous like that then I would think Well I guess that's
because he either wanted more melodies and better pacing and
production. In all honesty though your reviews have just gotten better
with time so I wouldn't change anything.
Hi Mark!
The dick jokes are still dick jokes. (How many ways are there to tell a dick
joke... TWO?)
You're honest. Very fucking honest.
Every time I'm reading one of your reviews, I think I'm reading somebody's
diary. That alone doesn't mean crap (I'd never read Cobain's diary for
example. First of all because I think it's pathetic to peak into somebody's
most intimate thoughts without his permission, and second of all cause I
think it would bore my pants off) but you manage to make it very
entertaining.
To put it (almost) like Starostin:
1. Diversity: everything from drunk ramblings (Zappa) to sugar-sweet love
confessions (DK, Ramones) to quiet hate (Velvet Undy's) and nostalgia (LuMP)
2. Readability: you're often obliged to put one too many "POOP!"'s or
"HA!"'s into a perfectly fine blank line but you're never boring. Starostin
and Denning occasionally bore. You don't. Never.
3. Resonance: I hardly ever agree with you, but I always want to. You really
got me with that "I was in 10th grade, depressed and chicks didn't dig me so
I turned to the Kennedys and the Ramones..." schlock. I still can't figure
out why. But it works!
4. Originality: Lester Bangs without the drugs and the dictionary. (?)
5. Adequacy: Strange category. But I still remember the 9/11 story in
Springsteen's catalogue. And it's still the best thing you've ever written.
hi mark, ive been reading your site siiiiince late 99,
when i was a senior in HS.
bring back the phase when you would smash the keyboard and get
dissapointed that you only left an h (i think) :)
Pay no matter to that British chap, I enjoy your
current style of writing. Most true art (and yes,
writing is an art, even when it's just silly record
reviews) is misunderstood by the masses...and with
nearly 10 years of reviewing under your belt, you've
got quite an impressive ouevre. The most enjoyable
aspect of your reviews is your honesty; the shifting
style of the reviews mirrors your growth as an artist.
If you were to change your style of writing for the
sake of pleasing your audience, you wouldn't be true
to yourself. If a few people think your style is too
masturbatory, take comfort in the fact that you've got
a legion of fans that long to be sprayed with your
text jism.
I don't really have any opinion on Miles Davis, but I've decided its time to
get into him seeing as many folks go on about him so much. So I'm trying
right now to work out where to start and I'm flicking between Amazon,
Rateyourmusic and yourself. To be honest I don't know if your reviews of MD
are really helping me much to work out what I'd like...but I know what I do
like and I like dick jokes. Big purple veined dick jokes, so keep 'em
commin'.
For my money, this is the best extrapolation of rock sonics and jazz
templates you can buy. The songs develop organically, built on astonishingly
simple melodic phrases (kind of like A Love Supreme), but they never lose
their immediacy and stay interesting throughout. To compare this to Krautrock
(that long-haired contingent of artistes like Can and Kraftwerk) is like
comparing Al Pacino to Ellen DeGeneres.
Hey! You say that only Miles and Wayne are playing brass instruments. Change that because only Miles is playing a brass instrument! John Wayne Shorter is playing a soprano sax, which is a woodwind instrument! That happens to be made out of metal but is still in the woodwind family! It has a reed! Brass instruments don't have reeds!
if you want a nice cohesive album that really goes in different directions and has a nice blend of strange
noises, exotic instrumentation, tight compositions, as well as a dose of that early seventies style group
improv plus funk that people who actually like early 70's miles like - then On the Corner is one to hear.
very different, very cool, very dated, but bad ass.
Not to put a dampener on proceedings but I believe it
was Bernie Taupin who wrote Elton John's lyrics. Not
Bennie Maupin.
Great album. It sounds like nothing else I've ever heard.
Despite the long track lengths, it's some of the most focused of Miles's
fusion. Get this one (and In a Silent Way) before you dive into all that live
stuff he did later (most of which is boring, with a few cool moments).
"Pharoh's Dance" is probably my favorite, because of the light groove and the
keyboard textures. It sounds like outer-space music. Wow. Listen to this,
then throw on Yes and you'll realize what wankers they are and how many
chances Miles and his East Side Crew were taking.
Naw, it's jazz, 'cause they employ modal improvisations in their jamming a la Kind of Blue. And this isn't quite the first fusion record--that would be Frank Zappa's Hot Rats
from 1969, although he'd been dabbling in that kind of thing since 1968's Uncle Meat. This didn't even begin what you might call jazz-rock--look at Chicago or Blood, Sweat
and Tears. However, Miles musical sound collages were certainly new, so there.