Customer Reviews
the God miles
[[ASIN:B0000027DZ Agharta]]. recorded live at Osaka festival hall, JAPAN, FEBRUARY 1975, whit sonny fortune, pete cosey, reggie lucas, michael henderson, al foster and mtume, whit AGHARTA the very very best of MILES DAVIS.
Prepare to be floored
Before I continue, I would like to ask you to picture John Coltrane's Ascension, or something else beautifully chaotic along those lines. You ready? You sure? Well, buckle up, because it's a hell of a ride. Now picture it without the loud, abrasive saxes and trumpets. Instead, picture it with screaming guitars, heavy polyrhythmic grooves, plenty of keyboards, and Miles Davis, arguably the most creative force of 20th century music, in the center of this maelstorm. Now picture the maelstorm lasting for close to an hour and a half, and you have a rough idea of what Pangaea sounds like. Since the '50s, Miles had favored long improvizations, but when he entered jazz fusion, they got longer and longer, to the point where compositions that lasted fifteen, twenty, sometimes thirty minutes in length. Well, these two pieces make even the longest of those songs seem tame: Zimbabwe (41:48) and Gondowan (46:33). For those keeping score, this is a double-album, and each of these songs takes up a disc of space. So if you're allergic to longer stuff, this music is not for you at all. Gondowan happens to be the longest recording I own, and you're talking to a guy who buys every live Allman Brothers album he can get his hands on.
So, how's the music itself? It's great. As I have often cited in my fusion reviews, Miles once said he could put together "the world's baddest rock band" (bad of course in the James Brown sense), and he sure proved his claim here. That band can PLAY! And it's obvious that they came from the "rock" side of the fence. Because they do just that: they rock. They rock slightly less harder than heaviest rock band you could name me, and they take a ton more risks than, say, AC/DC ever did. Hell, the whole ALBUM was a risk. On Zimbabwe, my favorite part of the album, they just blow me away. The song's loud, crude, nasty, dirty, not an easy listen, but a very rewarding one: Miles and Sonny Fortune shine, while Michael Henderson, Mtume, and Al Foster provide a tight polyrhythmic groove for Reggie Lucas and Pete Cosey to improvise over. It's cool is what it is. No other word for it. They somehow manage to sustain the piece for its forty minute length.
Now I think about ten minutes or so of Gondowan could have been cut, since it pretty much reiterates everything Zimbabwe said, and those last ten minutes do wander a bit, but I really like that song's sound too, so I can forgive it being just the slightest bit indulgent. The first thirty-five minutes really do meet the standards Zimbabwe set, it's just that it spins off into aimlessness slightly later. Which is why the album gets four stars.
Those looking for a pleasant live set of My Funny Valentine, So What, Walkin' and maybe an encore of Someday My Prince Will Come probably knew that Davis was long past that point, and if they didn't, they probably found out and left the concert venue as soon as they could (assuming that this album's sister set, Agartha, hadn't inspired them to already). Miles fans looking for such a set today are advised to pick up the My Funny Valentine/Four and More album - it's good, and it's traditional, so those with a bias against fusion will probably enjoy it more than they to Pangaea. But if you're a rock or funk fan who liked In a Silent Way, B*tches Brew or Jack Johnson and is looking for more, I can safely say this (and Agartha) will satisfy you.
Review
It synthesizes all that is great in jazz, rock and modern music. I don't understand why this music is not acknowledged to be one of the great expositions of the 2oth century. It is also one of the best (if not the best) "guitar" album ever recorded. I had the great fortune to see this band perform in Avery Fisher Hall at midnight on July 4, 1975 (and sit next to a beautiful and young Cybil Shepard- who was with her date but left at intermission). The CD unfortunately does not capture the relentless sound that this band created. Buy a turntable and find the lp (it is a revelation). But even the diminished sound on the cd will give you an idea of how truly transcendent this band was. .
. You can see a complete list of all Miles Davis discography, or go back to the Miles Davis tabs
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