On the corner
| On the corner | ||||
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| Studio album by Miles Davis | ||||
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Publication |
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admission |
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| Label (s) | Columbia Records | |||
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Title (number) |
4th |
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running time |
54:49 |
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Studio (s) |
Columbia Studio, New York City |
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On the Corner is a studio album by jazz musician Miles Davis , recorded in June and July 1972 and released on Columbia Records later that year . The experimental album was panned by established jazz critics at the time of its release and was one of Davis' worst-selling works. Over time, the criticism softened as it was later viewed as a pioneer of hip hop , ambient , drum and bass, and electronic dance music . According to Die Zeit , it is even considered a "visionary masterpiece."
background
Davis claimed that On the Corner was an attempt to win back young black audiences who had largely lost interest in jazz. Although there is a recognizable rock and funk influence in the timbre of the instruments used, from a musical point of view the producer Teo Macero used collage techniques that were based on the concept of musique concrète .
Other critics believed they had found clues to the concept of minimal music : all pieces on the album had drum and bass grooves as their starting point and were equipped with melodic snippets from hours of studio sessions. “On the basis of simple, endlessly repeating funky bass patterns, an abstract soundscape was to emerge, a polyphony of disparate particles of different origins that float around independently of each other, clump together for moments, intertwine and then drift apart again, which are switched on and off again.” As Davis named the contemporary composer Karlheinz Stockhausen , who was in the recording studio with the trumpeter eight years later, and the arranger and cellist Paul Buckmaster , who wrote preparatory arrangements that were not used on the album, as musical influences . However, some of the grooves used come from his pieces. Buckmaster and Davis also recorded the song "Ife" in one session at the same time. The song did not appear on On the Corner , but was released on the 1974 album Big Fun .
On October 2, 2007, Columbia Records released additional material from the On the Corner sessions on the 6 CD compilation The Complete On the Corner Sessions , with recordings stretching from June 1972 to May 1975.
Track list
All compositions are by Miles Davis
- page 1
- 1. On the Corner / New York Girl / Thinkin 'One Thing and Doin' Another / Vote for Miles - 20:02
- 2. Black Satin - 5:20
- Page 2
- 3. One and One - 6:09
- 4. Helen Butte / Mr. Freedom X - 11:18 pm
Track 1 was recorded on June 1, 1972, Track 2 on July 7, 1972, and Tracks 3 and 4 on June 6, 1972.
reception
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Within weeks of its release, On the Corner became arguably the most controversial album in jazz history , with critics calling it repetitive crap and an insult to people's intelligence . Stan Getz even spoke of a sound pattern that resembles a herd of elephants meeting in the cemetery. The only positive review back then was not in a jazz magazine, but in the rock magazine Rolling Stone .
Decades later, however, Thom Jurek gave Allmusic five stars and wrote:
“It may sound weird even today, but On the Corner is the most street record ever recorded by a jazz musician. And it still kicks. "
“It might sound strange even today, but On the Corner is the most street-like album ever recorded by a jazz musician. And it's still great. "
The critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton only gave the album 2½ stars (out of four) in the Penguin Guide to Jazz and mentioned that the critics hated it and were mostly right; “ On the Corner is pretty unmitigated, chugging funk, and you have to dig into the experimental subtleties that are usually found in Miles' uncompromising recordings. While the electronics usually produce a dark underground sound, like at the apocalyptic concert in Osaka - documented on Agharta and Pangea , the sound here is thin and unfocused. "
Davis biographer Peter Wießmüller noted that the “careful approach to the springy soul rhythms à la James Brown or Marvin Gaye ” is not only evident in the gaudy cover design with the On the Corner and In Concert (September 1972) Cartoons of black dancing hipsters with slogans with Vote Miles, Soul or Free Me ; Miles also shows “a complete disinterest in melodic structures. Any solo gloss was banned in favor of a collective ensemble. Even Miles' trumpet, the sound of which has been alienated beyond recognition with wah-wah , and David Liebman's soprano voice are part of the collective percussion sound with phrase-like abbreviations . " accumulates into a tightly organized, resilient energy potential. "
“Miles' music developed and changed so quickly from 1968 to 1975 that Columbia was barely able to keep up with the production of records. The album 'On the Corner' (1972) makes excessive use of loops , delays and wah-wah effects. It was disturbing - not just to jazz critics - but to the audience and musicians alike. 'An insult to the listeners' intellect,' said Miles biographer Bill Cole . And Stan Getz scolded: 'It sounded like a gathering in the elephant cemetery ... This music is worthless. It means nothing; there is no form, no content, and it hardly swings at all. ' 'On the Corner' brought another revaluation of all jazz values. Much of what was so important in Miles' music until then (despite all the innovations) - improvisation and melody - faded into the background. Grooves and textures became even more important. Many DJs in the remix scene point out: 'On the Corner' and the many other records of the electric Miles anticipated what is now commonplace in contemporary turntablism with its loops, samples and grooves . And creative players in ambient music - Brian Eno, for example - and trance music emphasize how defining Miles' grooves and textures were of this time. "
Pitchfork Media voted On the Corner at # 30 on the Top 100 Albums of the 1970s.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Nate Chinen: Miles Davis - The Complete On the Corner Sessions. In: jazztimes.com. Retrieved December 28, 2014 .
- ^ A b Joachim-Ernst Berendt / Günther Huesmann: Das Jazzbuch - From New Orleans to the 21st Century, 7th edition, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 161.
- ↑ a b c d Christian Rentsch That's not jazz! Die Zeit, March 17th, 2008
- ↑ Dave Segal: A Fusion Supreme - Seattle Musicians Wax Ecstatic About Miles Davis's On the Corner. In: thestranger.com. Retrieved December 28, 2014 .
- ↑ Jeremy Allen Smith: Sound, mediation, and meaning in Miles Davis's "A Tribute to Jack Johnson". June 12, 2009, accessed December 30, 2014 .
- ^ A b Jörg Konrad: Miles Davis. The story of his music. Bärenreiter Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-7618-1818-3 , p. 136.
- ↑ a b S. Victor Aaron Miles Davis pushed free-form fusion to the very limit with On the Corner (Something Else! (2015))
- ↑ See Barry Bergstein Miles Davis and Karlheinz Stockhausen: A Reciprocal Relationship The Musical Quarterly Vol. 76, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), p. 502
- ↑ Michael Veal Miles Davis, The Complet On the Corner Sessions Jazz Perspectives Vol. 3, No. 3, 2009, pp. 265–273 ( Memento from December 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ The Complete On The Corner Sessions on discogs.com
- ↑ Paul Tingen: The most hated album in jazz. In: The Guardian . October 26, 2007, accessed December 28, 2014 .
- ^ Thom Jurek: On the Corner. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved December 27, 2014 .
- ^ Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 , p. 382.
- ^ Peter Wießmüller: Miles Davis. Oreos, (Collection Jazz), Schaftlach around 1985. P. 170 f.
- ↑ The 100 Best Albums of the 1970s on pitchfork.com (accessed June 13, 2018)