Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West
Live album by Miles Davis

Publication
(s)

1977

Label (s) Sony Records / Columbia Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Jazz fusion

running time

(CD)

occupation

production

Teo Macero

Studio (s)

Recorded live at Fillmore West , San Francisco

Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West is a jazz album by Miles Davis . It contains a concert recording from April 10, 1970 from the The Fillmore West concert room in San Francisco and was released in 1977 on Sony , then the Japanese subsidiary of Columbia Records .

Prehistory of the album

Clive Davis , the president of his record company Columbia at the time , was able to persuade the trumpeter to perform in front of a rock audience instead of in small clubs in larger venues like New York's Fillmore East ; on May 6, 1970 there was a strange gig there, because the program also included the Steve Miller Band and Neil Young's band Crazy Horse . Davis' band included Chick Corea , Dave Holland , Jack DeJohnette , Airto Moreira , and Wayne Shorter ; However, this left the Davis band shortly after this performance to found the fusion band Weather Report with Joe Zawinul . Miles brought in the young saxophonist Steve Grossman , who was influenced by John Coltrane , for him and introduced the new formation in April 1970 at the "rock temple" Fillmore West in San Francisco. At the same time his epochal fusional album Bitches Brew was released . At the time, however, there was little noticeable of rock influences in Miles Davis 'music, Davis' biographer Peter Wießmüller noted, "on the other hand, he amazed his audience for the first time on the background of a percussion magic with completely freely designed sections."

Davis in Rio de Janeiro (1974)

A little later he persuaded the young pianist Keith Jarrett to expand his ensemble to a septet and appeared in New York's Fillmore East in June 1970 ; the concert recording was released under the title Miles Davis at Fillmore .

The music of the album

“Making music with Miles during this time was a lot of fun and experimentation. He always found ways to make them interesting for himself and us. When the band was performing, Miles never took long breaks between pieces; he just played a few notes of the next track he wanted to play, and the band should then slide into it. This helped the band and also the audience focus on the constant changes that always happened as the group played. Sometimes Miles' concerts were like a single long suite, a concept that was previously only used in classical music. "

- Jack DeJohnette

The Black Beauty album begins with the Joe Zawinul composition Directions ; it contains a longer solo by Steve Grossman on the soprano, framed by the abstract funk abbreviations of the electric piano played by Chick Corea, which then appends his improvisations.

Corea's brittle, metallic tone on the Fender piano forms the sound background for the live recording; Peter Wießmüller wrote: Chick Corea “convinces again and again in the abstract sections with glowing intensity with new ideas”. Davis biographer Eric Nisenson explains that Corea “began to play solos on the initially unpopular instrument that sounded like electronic versions of Cecil Taylor's atonal thunder […] Miles was interested in the tonal possibilities of these instruments, especially in connection with the Quasi-rockbeat, which he used more and more often. "

Airto Moreira; 2007

The design of the subsequent Miles Runs the Voodoo Down is very different from the original version of the Bitches Brew album; Grossman and Corea have great solo freedom here for extensive improvisations. The bandleader takes a step back again and again and indicates a change in tempo with his instrument. Miles Davis returns in the funky Willie Nelson , his solo performances are answered by Corea's electric piano in a call-and-response manner. The eventually put Dave Holland and Corea, the Willie Nelson theme meet and play it through, used to Corea metallic shrill to a solo. The standard I Fall in Love So Easily by Jule Styne / Sammy Cahn forms a solo insert - quasi as a resting point after Corea's attacks ; Miles continues the theme over the next played Riff of Willie Nelson , with whom he brings the musical activities of the rhythm section to a standstill. His solo is only accompanied by Corea's e-piano hints.

Immediately afterwards, the trumpeter intones the Sanctuary theme (from Bitches Brew ) that Wayne Shorter composed for him. Grossman and Davis work out the theme variations in unison ; they lead to “a fantastic, communicative phrasing between trumpet and e-piano”, says Peter Wießmüller to Sanctuary , which he considers to be the climax of the recording, “in the following soprano solo, the whole group plays itself in an intoxicating groove until the ostinato - Bass figure transferred to the contemplative "It's About that Time". From the Sanctuary onwards , the concert takes on a suite character that runs through to the end ”.

After It's About that Time , which originally comes from In a Silent Way , an interpretation by Bitches Brew begins ; the variant on the title track of the album, which was released at the same time, quickly diverges from the original. The title is introduced by Corea's e-piano attacks, before Miles Davis briefly introduces the actual Bitches Brew theme and he starts improvising. Steve Grossman follows him in the session-like piece; After eight minutes Miles signals a change of pace, Chick Corea has a final solo when Miles starts again and finally leads over to Shorter's Masqualero and thus increases the pace. The trumpeter only briefly alludes to the subject, has a brief solo before Grossman joins him. Similar to Masqualero , the last piece of the concert recording Spanish Key , also from Bitches Brew , is rather abstract compared to the studio model; Miles signals the end of the concert to the band with a short theme .

Rating of the album

Jack DeJohnette 2006

Eric Nisenson highlights the influence of the Brazilian percussionist Airto on Miles Davis' music; “Airto's playing on countless South American rhythm instruments blended well with the electronic effects. Airto Moreira filled in the free spaces and could literally create interesting and often bizarre sounds with anything, often even with any objects he found on the street. "

The critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton, who gave the recording the second highest rating in the Penguin Guide to Jazz , comment on the music "that the Bitches Brew formula is expanded with lively rhythms and staccato trumpet marks". Scott Yanow noted in the All Music Guide , which gave the album 4 stars, the completely abstract design of the themes compared to the predecessors In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew and criticized the fact that the band members sometimes get lost in the maelstrom . At the latest from the medley from Sanctuary to It's About That Time , Bitches Brew , Masqualero and the final Spanish Key / The Theme , Scott Yanow misses the harmonies and the often conceptless design of the melodies in the abstract structure of the titles. The young Grossman is a bit overwhelmed in his game because he thinks he has to show everything he can in every solo. Nevertheless, it is an impressive document from a band that plays with great force but does not fully understand their music themselves.

title

The original double album from 1977 (CBS Sony SOPI 39-40), which is used for Columbia Records to fill the years of the trumpeter's retreat (1975-1981) with old publications, dispensed with detailed title information and numbered the tracks Black Beauty to the sides of the record. Only the new edition in CD form offered an exact track list with proof of composition.

Dave Holland 1976

Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West (LP: Sony SOPI 39-40, CD: C2K 65138)

Disc one

  1. Directions ( Zawinul ) - 10:46
  2. Miles Runs the Voodoo Down (Davis) - 12:22
  3. Willie Nelson (Davis) - 6:23
  4. I Fall in Love Too Easily ( Cahn - Styne ) - 1:35
  5. Sanctuary ( Shorter ) - 4:01
  6. It's About That Time (Davis) - 9:59

Disc two

  1. Bitches Brew (Davis) - 12:53
  2. Masqualero (Shorter) - 9:07
  3. Spanish Key / The Theme (Davis) - 12:14

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ allmusic: Black beauty. Retrieved October 25, 2018 .
  2. ↑ See Nisenson, p. 166.
  3. ↑ Quoted from Wießmüller, p. 164.
  4. ↑ Quoted from Jack DeJohnette. liner notes 1997, Miles Davis at Fillmore
  5. ↑ Quoted from Wießmüller, p. 164 f.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Nisenson, p. 165.
  7. ↑ See Wießmüller, p. 164 f .; All Music Guide; Nisenson.
  8. ↑ See Nisenson, p. 176.
  9. ↑ Quoted from Cook & Morton, 6th edition. P. 380.