The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6

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The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6
Live album by Miles Davis & John Coltrane

Publication
(s)

2018

Label (s) Columbia / Legacy

Format (s)

4 CD

Genre (s)

Jazz , modern jazz , hard bop

Title (number)

23

running time

03:40:46

occupation

production

Steve Berkowitz , Michael Cuscuna and Richard Seidel

Location (s)

Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm

chronology
Freedom Jazz Dance: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5
2016
The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 -

The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 is a live album by Miles Davis and John Coltrane , which was released in 1960 at Olympia in Paris (March 21), Konserthuset , Stockholm (March 22) and Tivoli in Copenhagen (March 24) ) and was released on March 23, 2018 on Columbia Records . The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 is the first official release of the recordings from Miles Davis' European tour in 1960, which had circulated in numerous bootleg versions in the previous decades .

For almost five years John Coltrane played the tenor saxophone in the band of trumpeter Miles Davis. During this time - from 1955 to 1959 - the two recorded a number of legendary jazz albums together, including 'Round About Midnight (1955) and Cookin' (1956). But Coltrane was looking for new musical directions after his own recordings in 1959 ( Coltrane Jazz and Giant Steps ). "The tension between the two men, who had recently recorded Kind of Blue together, shapes the music on these four CDs," wrote Deutschlandfunk . "What you hear," wrote co-producer Michael Cuscuna , "is a band at the end of their career, and you hear this genius Coltrane, how it is about to break up and move on."

background

In early 1960 Miles Davis received the offer to take part in a European tour entitled Jazz at the Philharmonic , which the impresario Norman Granz had organized and was produced by George Wein . The other headliners of the tour were Oscar Peterson and Stan Getz ; From March 21 to April 10, 1960, they performed in France, Sweden, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, Norway, Italy, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands, sometimes twice a day. This gave Davis the chance to "gain a foothold on the other side of the Atlantic" .

Coltrane, although he was in the process of putting together his own working group , allowed himself to be persuaded to come along, but was not exactly overflowing with enthusiasm. In the last time they performed together in the United States, on March 5, 1960 in Oakland , the saxophonist had already booked his own gig with his new band at the New York Club Jazz Gallery . Coltrane had initially recommended Miles Davis to take another tenor saxophonist with him, Wayne Shorter , then 26 , whom Davis then brought into his band in 1964. But Miles Davis needed Coltrane because he was familiar with the band's material; in the end Davis was able to persuade Coltrane to play in the band one last time on the European tour. Coltrane reluctantly accepted; According to Jimmy Cobb, Coltrane always expressed his displeasure on the tour by looking out the window of the tour bus in silence and playing oriental-sounding scales on the soprano saxophone. "He sat next to me and looked like he could throw in the towel anytime."

The Paris Olympia in a recording from 1968. This is where the Miles Davis Quintet's European tour began on March 21, 1960.
“At the first appearance, which took place at the Paris Olympia, there was almost a scandal when Coltrane tried to play his boss against the wall. The room shook, but Davis seemed content with the role of supporting actor. Coltrane was hardly known, but became a hero after the performance, recalls a viewer in New Yorker magazine ” . Davis began his game loudly with his elbows outstretched, and Coltrane responded in his solo by acting wildly, like running the gauntlet . His performances had the success of a scandal; After a few long and furious solos, the audience responded with whistles, but there was also exuberant cheers. For some, Coltrane was the hero of the evening. “On stage he blew into a tenor saxophone as usual and seemed to want to play all the notes on his instrument at the same time. Since that was not possible for him, he played them one after the other - at breathtaking speed. ” “ On the 1960 tour, you not only experienced amazing things on stage, but also in the auditorium, ” wrote Ashley Kahn . "The audience reacted directly and unfiltered to the emotionally charged, high-energy performances of the band."

Davis had chosen a lot of well-known material for the tour, such as "Bye Bye Blackbird", "On Green Dolphin Street" or "All Of You" were standards from the 1940s and 1950s, while "So What" and "All Blues" however, came from Kind of Blue . "Of course, the pieces continued to develop over the course of the tour, Davis was again the focus, while Coltrane gradually moderated himself or looked for a" spiritual essence "in his solos, as one critic described it". At the next gig to Paris, at the Konserthuset in Stockholm, "Davis seemed to be somehow cautious, not by fear of not keeping pace, but vigilant, as if he had to reckon with the fact that musical boundaries would have to be defended," wrote Richard Brody in the New Yorker . “On the other hand, Coltrane followed his Parisian outburst with noble, philosophical joy in playing by taking up a few runs of the melody and repeating them, [...] working them out piece by piece, until he had developed an extraordinary complexity that amazed even himself when she raced past him. "

Finally, John Coltrane has his say in an interview with Swedish radio. "Are you angry?" Asked the DJ Carl-Erik Lindgren. "No I'm not. Maybe it sounds angry. The reason I play so many sounds is because I try a lot of things. Simultaneously. I'm looking for what makes sense to me, ”was the reply of a relaxed-sounding Coltran.

Coltrane also had another experience on his last tour with Miles Davis. “Before he left, I gave him this soprano saxophone,” the trumpeter wrote in his autobiography, “the instrument that would ultimately mark Coltrane's turn to spiritual jazz.” His relationship with Coltrane was to give the impetus to [after his departure] to reinvent again. "A little later, none of the stars should sound like they did before" .

Music of the album

Wynton Kelly Trio
with Wynton Kelly (left), Jimmy Cobb
and Paul Chambers
Photography ca.1957
(Shaw Artists Corporation,
New York)

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

The staff of the Davis band included Coltrane largely from the cast of the 1959 recorded album Kind of Blue ; Pianist Wynton Kelly , double bass player Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb . The tour was absent from lead pianist Bill Evans and alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley . The repertoire consisted of the numbers " So What " and " All Blues " recorded in the studio the year before , as well as the standards " 'Round Midnight ", " On Green Dolphin Street ", " Bye Bye Blackbird " and " All of You ", " Walkin ' " and " Oleo ".

Thom Jurek described what happened on stage using the example of “All of You” from the first show at the Paris Olympia: From the first moments of the play, it is clear that what happened was not planned. "It should surprise everyone, possibly with the exception of Coltrane," and with Coltrane's solo stretching for over five minutes, the piece ended up being 17 minutes. Coltrane's solo contains "dissonances, sharp peculiarities, and an untypical furor (at the time) when he tried out new sounds, grips and breathing techniques." According to him, Wynton Kelly brings the piece back with his own solo, as he is light-footed, flowing, act competently and swinging.

“All of You” is followed by a blazing, 13-minute version of “So What” in Paris, “which reveals the enlightening contrast that should characterize this tour: the reinterpretation of standards of the 1940s and 1950s combined with more open, less melodic, modal material, embodied in the Kind of Blue material. ”In the first version of“ All Blues ”, Miles Davis follows Chambers and Kelly, “ by putting more physicality into his playing without sacrificing his lyrical inventions. It foreshadows Coltrane's wailing solo, full of multiphonics , horn noises, rows of multi-layered scales that interweave East and West. The short interpretation of the bop standard ' Oleo ' is the only place in each of the two Paris concerts where saxophonist Coltrane controls himself. “All Blues” from Copenhagen is also faster; Chambers' short solo introduction is picked up by Kelly with broad repetitive figures and Cobb's stuttering beat, before Davis picks up the reduced melody and expands it; with that he opens the door for Coltrane, who begins slowly before breaking open the structure of the piece. Once again it is Kelly's grooving solo with glorious flourishes with the right hand that balances the piece. "

production

The three producers Steve Berkowitz, Michael Cuscuna and Richard Seidel had selected the available material according to criteria of sound quality and musical substance; then it was decided to record the five concerts in Paris, Copenhagen and Stockholm. In Copenhagen they came from a recording on the Danish radio.

reception

Giovanni Russonello wrote in The New York Times that this tour was "an epochal moment in jazz," apparently pointing out two different paths for the future of music. Davis had a close group structure and was enjoying the warm reception of his new album Kind of Blue ; “Coltrane, on the other hand, looked in a completely different direction, tore apart his playing technique and looked for a new form of transcendence . On these recordings he splits tones and repeatedly stormy, arrhythmic phrases; you can hear the audience in Paris and Stockholm reacting with confusion - and occasionally screaming, whistling and booing. "

Werner Stiefele wrote in Rondo , Coltrane blase “not only those shimmering clusters of sound that set him apart at the end of the 1950s, but also spices them up with polyphony and rough intonation between the elegant lines of improvisation. Miles Davis, too, was already exploring the limits of hard bop in long, powerful, intertwined solos, while pianist Wynton Kelly, double bass player Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb formed a flexible rhythm group that accompanied the soloists both confidently and calmly reacted and in trio passages Wynton Kelly also came to the fore. All of this makes the notes not just a document for that quintet. Every concert is - despite and because of the overlap - worth listening to. "

Thom Jurek wrote in Allmusic that the sixth edition of the Miles Davis Bootleg Series from Columbia / Legacy closes the circle to the Edition Miles Davis and John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955–1961 . The decision to play the jazz standards in order to have a basis for greater openness was a wise one and is demonstrably particularly evident in the three versions of " On Green Dolphin Street ". Interestingly, although the tour established Miles Davis's international reputation, it was Coltrane who benefited most from the tour - he was well known before, but never forgotten afterwards. This made the historical recordings one of the most important of the Bootleg Series .

For his album Giant Steps John Coltrane was in Amsterdam in 1961 with an Edison Award

Andy Beta said in Pitchfork that the tension between Miles Davis and Coltrane that can be heard in every piece of the recordings makes the edition a fascinating listening experience; it is a live document of two musicians who are in the process of making the tectonic shifts in their respective styles. After the joint record Kind of Blue , John Coltrane began to manifest his own development in the album Giant Steps in the same year . There is a latent tension in the recordings of The Final Tour ; it manifested the audible break between Davis and Coltrane in almost every title in the edition.

As an example, the author gives the four takes of “So What”; While Wynton Kelly gave the title a bluesy and exuberant feeling at the first appearance at the Paris Olympia, Miles Davis again climbed into the high registers and the tempo picked up, Coltrane entered with a bluesy phrase that was briefly based on Davis before he started his vibrato spreads widely. Coltrane then begins to push the boundaries of the composition and a variety of notes come faster and faster.

“Coltrane sounds a bit restricted in the changes, as if he were tense not only to break out of the song, but also out of the gravitational force of the earth. After about nine minutes he elicits a few horns and whistles with his overblown and dissonances. Meanwhile, thanks to people like Ornette Coleman , Cecil Taylor and the Sun Ra woodblower John Gilmore , the "New Thing" in jazz was already stirring and gaining power, only a few in the European audience had experienced the new sounds live. "

Coltrane's harsh dissonances flashed in “Bye Bye Blackbird” too; only in 'Round Midnight ' is his game tight and concise, Andy Beta continues. "Whether it was the promoters, the press or Davis himself, who had never uttered a good word about the free jazz formations of a Coleman or Taylor, Coltrane felt a little more restricted after that night." Wynton Kelly, in turn, plays "All Blues “(In the original Bill Evans had the part) with rather ascetic lines on the piano and thus gives the title a new facet in which it gives the winds enough space to develop. Meanwhile, Coltrane's solo restlessness acts like a bumblebee in its prime, attacking the song from different perspectives, while Kelly plays playful cascades and dazzling chords.

Paul Chambers

The author criticizes the predictability of the processes of the individual titles; the order of the solos remains the same (first Miles Davis, then Coltrane, Kelly and occasionally Paul Chambers). Nevertheless, sometimes unusual things also happen; For example, Davis quotes a line from “Dixie” in a version of “Walkin '”, Kelly throws in a phrase from Thelonious Monk's “In Walked Bud” in “So What”, Coltrane quotes “ Willow Weep for Me ” in Stockholm . And in the midst of Coltrane's nocturnal missions through “So What”, he again laid the seeds for something that was to become one of his classic pieces in a few years, “Impressions”, created on the same harmonious structures as the title from Kind of Blue .

Enrico Merlin, in his book Miles Davis 1959: A Day-By-Day Chronology, went more into the stylistic changes in the bandleader: Miles would be “very creative in a solo, and very focused during the theme / exposure sections.” “1960 Miles was as far from Kind of Blue in expressive terms as Trane was. ” Co-producer Steve Berkowitz highlighted the role of Wynton Kelly after leaving Cannonball Adderley in the fall of 1959, giving the pianist a broader role as a soloist in the band received. In the winter of 1959/60 Davis had again brought the band to the size of a sextet when he added the vibraphonist Buddy Montgomery . The younger brother Wes Montgomery only played in a few appearances on the west coast of the USA and was also scheduled for the European tour when he was overcome by fear of flying in the departure lounge of New York's Idlewild Airport and stayed in the States.

Colin Fleming ( JazzTimes ) also goes into the changes affecting Miles Davis' attitudes towards the freedom of group members and compositions / improvisations: The trumpeter, for his part, certainly listens carefully in order to use the improvisational skills of his band and for to use his compositions. These are important prerequisites for the "Second Great Quartet" (with Shorter, Herbie Hancock , Ron Carter and Tony Williams ) in that phase . “Davis was less of a writer of set words than someone who composed by simply marking what others had written in red ink, overtaking their designs. Compose by modeling. Trane taught him to walk this route. The saxophonist had already gone in his different directions, as you can hear. "

Giuliano Benass said the only flaw in this compilation was that it only took into account the first few appearances on the tour. The sound quality is extraordinary, because the concerts were recorded for the radio. As usual, the people in charge at Legacy / Columbia would have put a lot of effort into processing the sound of the material and adding pictures and an accompanying essay by the expert Ashley Kahn .

For Ashley Kahn , who wrote the liner notes , the importance of the tour is primarily due to the fact that the trumpeter rose from the American jazz club circle to the level of an international music star who played in larger theaters in the capitals of Western Europe. Richard Brody wrote in The New Yorker that the entire band was “a delight. Kelly's solos, which followed Coltrane's, have a rippling, song-like, light-footed but astonishingly varied lyricism; Chambers reveals solid melodies and percussive counterpoints , and Cobb shows a rhythmic foundation [...] ”. Regarding the selected recordings from that Final Tour , great and essential as they are, Brody notes that they are "just part of the story" ; “I don't want to miss out on Coltrane's furious outbursts from Frankfurt, Germany, in the following week, or the concerts at the end of the tour in early April, when Davis manages to get out of Coltrane's shadow and in the three pieces that might end Munich originate. At the end of the tour, Coltrane seems somehow reshaped - his playing sometimes doesn't seem appeased or suppressed, but rather turned away from a spiritual form of being, “ thus anticipating the mood and content of much of what he should and ultimately express with the music of his own classical quartet should arise in the summer of this year. With regard to Davis it shows that he should soon take new musical directions; it culminated in the new quintet that he was supposed to put together in 1963/64.

Awards

When Reader's Poll of the magazine Down Beat was The Final Tour 2018 winner in the category Historical Album . In April 2018 the album reached position 1 on the American Billboard Jazz Charts, where it stayed for six weeks. Also in 2018, the album was nominated for the Reader's Poll by JazzTimes , but it won Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album by John Coltrane. In the National Public Radio's Jazz Critics Poll , the album came second in the Rare Avis category .

Track list

  • Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 (Columbia 88985448392, Legacy 88985448392, Sony Music 88985448392)
The Tivolis Concert Hall in Copenhagen; the Miles Davis Quintet performed here on March 24, 1960.

CD 1

Olympia, Paris, France March 21, 1960
First Concert

1 All of You ( Cole Porter ) 17:05
2 So What (Davis) 13:06
3 On Green Dolphin Street ( Bronislau Kaper , Ned Washington ) 14:59

Olympia, Paris, France March 21, 1960
Second Concert

4 Walkin '(Richard Carpenter) 15:52

CD 2

Olympia, Paris, France March 21, 1960
Second Concert

1 Bye Bye Blackbird ( Mort Dixon , Ray Henderson ) 14:01
2 'Round Midnight ( Bernie Hanighen , Cootie Williams , Thelonious Monk ) 5:37
3 Oleo ( Sonny Rollins ) 4:22
4 The Theme (Davis) 0:50

Tivolis Concert Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark March 24, 1960

5 Introduction (By Norman Granz ) 0:59
6 So What (Davis) 14:37
7 On Green Dolphin Street (Kaper / Washington) 14:35
8 All Blues (Davis) 15:31
9 The Theme (Incomplete) I (Davis ) 0:31

CD 3

Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden March 22, 1960
First Concert

1 Introduction (By Norman Granz) 1:11
2 So What (Davis) 10:35
3 Fran Dance (Davis) 7:25
4 Walkin '(Carpenter) 16:21
5 The Theme (Davis) 0:53

CD 4

Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden March 22, 1960
Stockholm Second Concert

1 So What (Davis) 15:20
2 On Green Dolphin Street (Kaper / Washington) 13:40
3 All Blues (Davis) 16:10
4 The Theme (Davis) 0:59
5 Interview (with John Coltrane from Carl-Erik Lindgren) 6:13

Editorial notes

In addition to the 4-CD edition of Columbia / Legacy, an LP ( The Final Tour: Copenhagen, March 24, 1960 ) and a double LP ( Miles Davis & John Coltrane - The Final Tour: Paris, March 21, 1960) were released ) at Vinyl Me, Please as part of the VMP Classics edition as a subscription in a 180g vinyl version.

attachment

The Bootleg Series

Columbia / Legacy's Bootleg Series with recordings by Miles Davis currently (2018) includes the following editions:

  1. Live in Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1 (ed. 2011)
  2. Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 2 (ed. 2013)
  3. At the Fillmore - Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 3 (ed. 2014)
  4. At Newport 1955–1975: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4 (ed. 2015)
  5. Freedom Jazz Dance: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5 (rec. 1965–68, ed. 2016)

Tour stops and previously made and unauthorized publications of recordings of the European tour of 1960

The Kurhaus in Scheveningen in a recording from 1959. The Miles Davis Quintet performed there on April 9, 1960.
The Stuttgarter Liederhalle recorded in 1961. Coltrane performed here for the last time on April 10, 1960 with Miles Davis; six days later he played in Manhattan's Town Hall with his own band.

The overview (which does not strive for completeness) documents previous editions of recordings of Miles Davis' European tour with John Coltrane.

  • Olympia (Paris): March 21 - Miles Davis in Concert avec Europe 1: Olympia Theater 1960 (Trema (F) 710455)
  • Konserthuset (Stockholm): March 22nd - Miles Davis & John Coltrane Live in Stockholm 1960 (Dragon (Swd) DRLP90)
  • Njardhallen (Oslo): March 23rd
  • Tivoli Konsertsal, Copenhagen: March 24th - Copenhagen, 1960 (Royal Jazz (Dan) RJ501)
  • Niedersachsenhalle (Hanover): March 25th
  • Weser-Ems-Hallen ( Oldenburg ): March 26th
  • Sportpalast ( West Berlin ): March 27th
  • Musikhalle (Hamburg): March 29th
  • Kongreßhalle Frankfurt: March 30th - The 1960 German Concerts (Jazz Lips [E] JL 776)
  • Teatro Dell Arte ( Milan ): March 31st
  • Rheinhalle , Düsseldorf: April 1st -
    • It was on this occasion that John Coltrane's only recordings with Stan Getz ("Moonlight in Vermont") were made. Other participants in the session included Wynton Kelly, Oscar Peterson (on "Rifftide"), Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. The recordings were made in a WDR studio and appeared in various combinations as Miles Davis - The Complete 1960 Holland Concerts (Green Corner 100890, ed. 2014), 1960 Duesseldorf (WDR / Jazzline (G) N77002) and John Coltrane: European Tour 1961 [sic!] ( Le Chant du Monde (F) 5742745.5)
  • Exhibition hall Cologne: April 2nd
  • Deutsches Museum , Congress Hall (Munich): April 3 - dto.
  • Karlsruhe Theater: April 4th
  • Donauhalle Ulm: April 5th
  • Stadthalle Vienna: April 6th
  • Exhibition hall Nuremberg: April 7th
  • Kongresshaus (Zurich): April 8 - Zurich 1960 (TCB (Swi) 02312)
  • Kurhaus Scheveningen : April 9th ​​(evening) - Miles & Coltrane Quintet Live (Unique Jazz UJ19, Jazz Door 1226)
  • Concertgebouw (Amsterdam): April 9 (midnight) - So What - Jazz at the Concertgebouw (Netherlands Jazz Archive (Du) NJA1301)
  • Liederhalle (Stuttgart): April 10th -

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. a b Giovanni Russonello: Unreleased Jazz Treasures Are Arriving: Here's a guide. The New York Times, August 29, 2018, accessed November 1, 2018 .
  2. Hans-Jürgen Schaal : The last tour - Miles Davis and John Coltrane 1960 in Europe. SWR, October 27, 2018, accessed on November 1, 2018 .
  3. ^ Andreas Müller: Jazz in March. Deutschlandfunk Kultur, March 26, 2018, accessed on November 1, 2018 .
  4. a b c d e f g James Hale: Miles Davis & John Coltrane: Display of Different Minds. Down Beat , June 18, 2018, accessed November 1, 2018 .
  5. Mike Jurkovic: Miles Davis: Miles Davis & John Coltrane - The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6. All About Jazz, March 13, 2018, accessed November 1, 2018 .
  6. a b c d e f Giuliano Benass: A legendary stage duel. lsut.de, March 23, 2018, accessed on November 1, 2018 (English).
  7. a b c d e Richard Brody: Listening to Miles Davis and John Coltrane's Final Tour. The New Yorker, March 15, 2018, accessed November 1, 2018 .
  8. Miles Davis & John Coltrane - The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6. legacy Club, December 19, 2017, accessed November 1, 2018 .
  9. a b Andy Beta: The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6. pitchfork, March 19, 2018, accessed on November 1, 2018 (English).
  10. Columbia / Legacy's Bootleg Series continues with Vol.6 Miles Davis & John Coltrane - The Final Tour. Jazzwise, December 8, 2017, accessed November 1, 2018 .
  11. a b Review of the album The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 by Thom Jurek on Allmusic (English). Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  12. Werner Sziefele: The Final Tour - Miles Davis, John Coltrane (The Bootleg Series Vol. 6). Rondo, March 19, 2018, accessed October 24, 2018 .
  13. Colin Fleming: Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 (Columbia / Legacy) - Review of box set from the legendary trumpeter featuring Trane, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. JazzTimes , April 14, 2018, accessed November 1, 2018 .
  14. Down Beat Archive
  15. ^ Billboard Jazz Charts
  16. 2018 Readers' Poll Results. JazzTimes, January 31, 2019, accessed February 10, 2019 .
  17. ^ Francis Davis: The 2018 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll. National Public Radio, January 5, 2019, accessed March 24, 2019 .
  18. 'Miles Davis & John Coltrane - The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6' Out March 23. Legacy Recordings, December 8, 2017, accessed November 1, 2018 .
  19. The source of discographic information especially that was jazz discography of Tom Lord used for the tour data, see Lewis Porter : John Coltrane: his life and music. The University of Michigan Press, 1998 ISBN 0-472-10161-7 (English original edition).
  20. Hans Hielscher: Historical jazz recordings: jewels in the cellar. Spiegel online, November 10, 2010, accessed November 1, 2018 .
  21. ^ Lewis Porter : John Coltrane: his life and music. The University of Michigan Press, 1998 ISBN 0-472-10161-7 (English original edition), p. 171