Agharta (album)
| Agharta | |
|---|---|
| Live album by Miles Davis | |
|
Publication |
|
| Label (s) | Sony / Columbia Records |
|
Format (s) |
Double CD, double LP |
|
Title (number) |
4th |
|
running time |
97:34 |
| occupation | |
Agharta is a live double album by the American jazz musician Miles Davis . It was recorded on 1 February 1975, when the first of two concerts, which Davis that day in the Festival Hall of Osaka in Japan was. The second concert is documented on the 1976 live album Pangea . In both concerts, Davis performed with his septet , flautist and saxophonist Sonny Fortune , bassist Michael Henderson , drummer Al Foster , percussionist James Mtume , guitarist Reggie Lucas and Pete Cosey , who played guitar, synthesizer and percussion.
The concert was recorded by Sony under the direction of Teo Macero , who also produced the album. Sony's Japanese division proposed the title, Agharta , a mythological place considered an Aryan world center in occultism . The Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo took on the artistic design of the album . Agharta was first published in Japan in August 1975. Mostly panned by contemporary critics, the album found retrospective recognition as an important and influential jazz-rock album. It was reissued by Columbia Records in 1991 and remastered in 2009 as part of Miles-Davis boxed The Complete Columbia Album Collection on the Sony Legacy series .
background
After the release of his studio album Get Up with It and its poor reviews in jazz magazines, Davis planned a tour of Japan. Between January 22nd and February 8th, 1975 he gave 14 concerts for which he received good reviews from the critics. Japanese critic Keizo Takada praised Davis' band as "great and energetic".
At the time the album was recorded at Osaka Festival Hall, Davis was suffering from severe pain in his left hip that had been operated on ten years earlier. During the tour, he was unable to press his wah-wah pedal with his foot due to the pain . He partially dropped to his knees only to squeeze it with his hand instead. Davis took codeine and morphine , smoked, and drank large quantities of beer to relieve his pain and keep it going .
Track list
- Prelude (Part 1) - 22:34
- Prelude (Part 2) / Maiysha - 23:01
- Theme from Jack Johnson - 26:50
- Interlude - 25:59
All compositions by Miles Davis.
reception
In a contemporary review for the New York Times , critic Robert Palmer wrote that the album was largely marred by "sloppy one-chord jams" and incoherent noises and that the banality of the music was made clear by the impeccable Japanese technique. He also wrote that the wah-wah pedal Davis deprived of its phrasing ability and criticized the band as inferior "by rock standards", especially Cosey, whose overdriven lead guitar "whines and rumbles like a noisy machine shop" .
Later reviews saw the album in a more positive light. Robert Christgau said in 1981 that it was the "most vilified double album by Davis from the 1970s." It was reported that Davis was not satisfied with his own play on Agartha , but even if he did not give the hero here, convince the band with their virtuosity, especially Pete Cosey with his interesting noises. The music is "angry, detached, funky and the best of Davis since A Tribute to Jack Johnson ."
The Davis biographer Peter Wießmüller noticed that in the two live recordings “Davis' pronounced tendency towards a freely developing design continues. What was already hinted at by Dark Magus is further developed here, namely the complete integration of the dissonances inside and outside of the tonal range . "For Wießmüller, this music required more than previous productions such as A Tribute to Jack Johnson (1970) or Maiysha (1974, from Get Up with It ) a "change because it breaks all listening habits." Miles Davis is "technically and musically again in excellent shape"; On the D side "- within a context that is jazzy in the good old sense - Miles, carried by dancing rhythms, unfolds an extremely complex improvisation in flowing phrasing with unusual rhythmic accents." physical condition suffered, “which is why the energetic potential built up within the ensemble sometimes discharges too diffusely. The mood change between dramatic hectic rush and melancholy solemnity, which is so fascinatingly staged on Dark Magus , sometimes, especially on Agharta , does not really want to adjust. Miles' abilities as a catalyst are not able to penetrate the musical scenery as usual. " Pangea , the recording of the second concert, leaves a" more cohesive impression ".
The critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton gave the album 3½ stars in the Penguin Guide to Jazz (versus the highest rating of four stars for Pangea ) and stated that Miles Davis' trumpet playing on these "unscrupulous" records was of the highest and most experimental kind; his use of wah-wah - often interpreted as a sign of creative failure - is often incredibly subtle and creates "ebb and flow in a harmonious static line" and allows Miles to "create tremendously melismatic variations on a single note". In truth, apart from Sonny Fortune, the band is not able to understand the musical concept of the band leader. In summary, the authors state that there is a growing understanding of these admittedly problematic plates (which were originally only found to be worth selling in Japan), “but time will show how relevant these [plates] are in the entire movement of Miles' music. "
Thom Jurek wrote on Allmusic :
“While Pangea is awesome as well, there is simply nothing like Agharta in the canon of recorded music. This is the greatest electric funk-rock jazz record ever made - period. "
“Although Pangea is fantastic too, there is simply nothing like Agharta in the canon of musical recordings. This is the greatest electro-funk-rock-jazz record of all time - Basta. "
Individual evidence
- Jump up ↑ Jack Chambers: Milestones 2: The Music and Times of Miles Davis Since 1960 , William Morrow & Co., 1983, ISBN 978-0688046460 , p. 274
- ^ Robert Palmer: A Jazz Giant Explores Rock . In: The New York Times , April 4, 1976.
- ↑ Robert Christgau on Miles Davis
- ↑ Peter Wießmüller: Miles Davis: His life, his music, his records. Oreos, (Collection Jazz), Schaftlach o. J. (= 1988, 2nd edition) p. 176 ff.
- ^ Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 , p. 383.
- ↑ Thom Jurek: Review of Agharta. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved January 2, 2015 .