Dark Magus

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Dark Magus
Live album by Miles Davis

Publication
(s)

1977

Label (s) Sony / Columbia Records

Format (s)

Double CD, double LP

Genre (s)

Fusion jazz

Title (number)

8th

running time

100: 58

occupation

production

Teo Macero

chronology
Water Babies
(1976) 		Dark Magus The Man with the Horn
(1981)
Dave Liebman about 1975

Dark Magus is a music album by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis . It was recorded on March 30, 1974 at Carnegie Hall in New York and released in 1977 in Japan by Sony / Columbia Records . It is now considered one of the best live fusional albums; the British music magazine Q included it in 2001 on their list of " 50 Heaviest Albums of All Time ".

The album

Due to illness, the live performance on March 30th was one of the few recordings that Miles Davis made in 1974; a studio session followed in June, during which his 30-minute homage to Duke Ellington ( He Loved Him Madly ) was recorded; In October, two more tracks ( Mtume, Maiysha ) were created in the studio , which then appeared on the album Get Up with It . His previous appearance on November 1, 1973 in the Philharmonie at the Berlin Jazz Festival had sparked a lively controversy about Miles Davis' musical development, which Davis biographer Peter Wießmüller documented: They ranged from "new horizons" ( Joachim-Ernst Berendt ) from the “instant form of an admirable star” (W. Panke) to “electronic aphorisms that should be abolished” ( Jazz Podium ) and Werner Burkhardt's rather cautious statement: “As autocratic as ever, he gives up the old riddles. Should one love or hate him? "

Miles Davis himself later responded to the allegations in his autobiography:

"The critics got on my nerves when they said that I was wrong, that I really wanted to be young and no longer knew what I was doing, that I wanted to be like Jimi Hendrix , Sly Stone or James Brown ."

One of the characteristics of this band was actually the use of three electric guitarists : “We were now focusing on African music ,” wrote Miles Davis, “on a heavy African-American groove that emphasized drums and rhythm rather than individual solos lay. Ever since I met Jimi Hendrix, I've wanted that guitar sound that draws you deeper and deeper into the blues . ”Davis brought in guitarists Reggie Lucas (who contributed the repetitive funk rhythm), Pete Cosey (as main soloist) and the African Dominique Gaumont .

“With this band I tried to get the most out of a chord, a single chord in one piece and everyone should focus on small, simple things like rhythm. We took a chord and worked it over for five minutes with variations, counter-rhythms, things like that. Al Foster played for example in the 4 / 4 -, Mtume in 6 / 8 - or 7 / 4 ¯ clock, while the guitarist accompanied in a completely different rhythm. In this way we got a lot of complicated stuff out of one chord. "

Miles Davis also hired a second saxophonist, Azar Lawrence, alongside Dave Liebman : "Both play [t] s alternately with painterly lines and haunted, short-winded phrasing , often in the collective competition for overblown effects." Miles Davis himself used the effects of the electrically amplified trumpet ( like wah-wah pedal), “to radically change the characteristics of his classic sound.” Finally, he also played the Yamaha organ himself, “cutting a breach in the musical flow with the palm of his hand, which suggests a rhythmic change to his musicians . These are no longer the great individualists of bygone days, but they know how to put his ideas in the limelight ”. The bassist Michael Henderson played a central role in the group sound , "with whom Miles is always able to create a dreamlike relationship."

In 1997 Liebman described the music, which had no dramatic beginnings and ends, as a "mixture of funk / pop rhythms, riff- like improvisation , electronic and percussive [tonal] colors, an in and out of improvisations on a key ."

" But what it really came down to was the relentness, screaming sound and energy of the music as well as the spontaneous direction of the leader. Miles would crouch over, foot on the pedal, play a few short rhythmic phrases, look up and wait, play a run, stop again, either look over at the next soloist or just start the next tune. He did what he wanted, when he wanted - never predictable - and the sideman had to be on the case all the time. We had no modus operandi - it went from night to night . "

The double album consists of the four parts that were given Swahili names, Moja, Wili, Tatu and Nne . Tatu (Part 2) contains the theme of Calypso Frelimo (from the album Get Up with It ); Nne (Part 1) that of Ife (from the album Big Fun ).

reception

Davis in Strasbourg (1987)

On the occasion of its reissue as a double CD, the album received mostly positive reviews in numerous reviews; so of Robert Christgau in The Village Voice , the downbeat (of it with four (out of five) stars Rated), Entertainment Weekly , Jazz Times ( favorable ), Pitchfork Media , the Rolling Stone and Spin ( favorable ).

In his review of the album, Davis biographer Peter Wießmüller called Dark Magus “very excellent music. Compared to the [previous] album In Concert , the sound is denser and more differentiated due to the balanced sound structures, which comes from the changed instrumentation “after Miles Davis had taken out the second percussionist, keyboard and sitar and replaced it with the three guitarists.

“Miles' endeavor is to present his audience with a kind of world music : blues accords, soul , funk, Caribbean impressions, bolero , boogie echoes and free play of the winds. The result is a strange magic mixture of ethnic all sorts, which is characterized by a constant, dazzling multi-faceted sound flow, which breathes, bounces, pulsates or hesitantly, groaning, complaining and hammering, surprisingly spreads in new directions again and again. "

Richard Cook and Brian Morton gave the album the second highest rating of 3½ stars. They found that the four parts of the album hardly differed; "Shadings and striations of sound and, as one gets to know these recordings better, one becomes almost fixed on the tiniest inflexions. Which is where Miles enthusiasts will find meat and drink in this. "

Thom Jurek called Dark Magus in his review in Allmusic , which gave the album four (out of five) stars, “a jam record” . He points out Liebman's finding that the Carnegie Hall recording (at the end of a tour) did not show the best performance of the band. Miles hadn't really rehearsed with his bands at this point; there are also no melodies apart from the three-note theme Wili and the few riff-oriented melodies in Tatu -

" The rest is all deep rhythm-based funk and dark groove. Greasy, mysterious, and full of menacing energy, Dark Magus shows a band at the end of its rope, desperate to change because the story has torn itself out of the book, but not knowing where to go, turning in on itself. These dynamics have the feel of unresolved, boiling tension . "

Gaumont's effect-laden guitar playing overshadowed the “real” guitarists in the band: Pete Cosey and his partner, the rhythmically inventive Reggie Lucas. Gaumont doesn't really fit in, so he's trying to dazzle. Note the way, wrote Jurek, how Miles Davis cut off his solos so abruptly. The author critically sums up the importance of the album for jazz rock :

“Ultimately, Dark Magus is an over-the-top ride into the fragmented mind of Miles and his 1974 band; its rhythm section is the most compelling of any jazz-rock band in history, but the front lines, while captivating, are too loose and uneven to sustain the listener for the entire ride. "

Scott Yanow wrote in the Allmusic guide to electronica that the spontaneous music contains strong moments between Davis and Liebman; drastically edited, the double CD would make an impressive single CD as it would be of considerable length. Dark Magus is not an essential album, but it is worth discovering.

"Wah-wah" pedal

In his review in Fortune (1997), Ed Brown looked at the Miles Davis album in the context of its live recordings, which were made between 1970 and 1974. Dark Magus was among the most prominent album and with its fascinating collage of wah-wah pedal, tom-toms and not be classified ejection of sounds "probably the best live fusion album ever recorded. Since it's not as polished as studio productions like In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew , the album had moments of raw grandeur that could compete with anything in Davis's extensive oeuvre . If you're ready to go where no other music will take you, you're ready for Dark Magus. "

Track list

  • Dark Magus (Sony-Columbia C2K 65137)
CD 1
  1. Moja, Pt. 1 - 12:28 ( turnaround phrase )
  2. Moja, Pt. 2 - 12:40 ( Tune in 5 )
  3. Wili, Pt. 1 - 14:20 ( Funk (Prelude, part 1) )
  4. Wili, Pt. 2 - 10:44 ( For Dave )
CD 2
  1. Tatu, Pt. 1 - 18:47 ( Vamp (Prelude, part 1) )
  2. Tatu, Pt. 2 - 6:29 ( Calypso Frelimo )
  3. Nne, Pt. 1 - 15:19 ( Ife )
  4. Nne, Pt. 2 - 10:11 ( turnaround phrase / tune in 5 )

literature

swell

  1. ↑ a b Review by Ed Brown in Fortune magazine 1997
  2. ↑ A Selection Of Lists From Q Magazine - Page 2
  3. ^ Miles Davis discography
  4. ↑ a b c d e quote from Peter Wießmüller: Miles Davis. Oreos, (Collection Jazz), Schaftlach around 1985. p. 172 ff.
  5. ↑ a b c Miles Davis, p. 443 f.
  6. ^ A b c Dave Liebman, Liner Notes.
  7. ^ Robert Christgau Consumer Guide: Dark Magus (October 1997). . The Village Voice . Retrieved February 5, 2011.
  8. ↑ Product Notes - Dark Magus ( Memento February 6, 2011 on WebCite ). Muze . Retrieved February 5, 2011.
  9. ↑ Tom Sinclair: Review: Miles Davis live albums (August 1, 1997) Retrieved February 26, 2011.
  10. ↑ Tom Terrell, Review: Dark Magus (October 1997). Retrieved February 5, 2011.
  11. ↑ Jason Josephes, Review: Dark Magus (1997) ( Memento from February 6, 2011 on WebCite ), the original ( Memento from February 15, 2001 on the Internet Archive )
  12. ^ Christian Hoard, Review: Dark Magus (November 2, 2004) . Rolling Stone : 215, 218.
  13. ↑ Erik Davis, "Freakin 'the Funk - Revisiting Miles Davis' 70s Visions (August 1997)." . Spin : p. 117.
  14. ^ Richard Cook, Brian Morton: The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, p. 382.
  15. ↑ Review of Thom Jurek's Dark Magus album at Allmusic (English). Retrieved December 13, 2011.
  16. ↑ Vladimir Bogdanov: Allmusic guide to electronica - the definitive guide to electronic music
  17. ^ Davis discography