Miles Smiles

Sometimes I read Amazon.com reviews for no good reason (really, there is no good reason to read them), and I wonder if the people reviewing some of the music were listening to the same album that I heard.

For instance, here is a two star (out of five) review of Miles Davis' Live Evil from a reviewer who shall remain anonymous:

"So this album is half a bunch of avant-garde tunes without hint of melody, harmony or rhythm that grind the nerves (especially Little Church and the unneeded quarter-hour Sivad), and half a bunch of lengthy live songs that do the whole fusion thing but mostly fail to generate most excitement over their generally 20 minute-plus running times - the exceptions are What'd I Say, which is exciting the whole way through, and Inamorata and Narration, which is at least good through the first ten minutes. I've got nothing against jamming if it's done the right way, and the group certainly had the instrumental prowess. But nothing can save them from the pits of their dull mock-funk grooves.
Miles has made so much good music, I don't know where to begin. But Live-Evil is one of his weakest albums. Actually, I'm not a huge fan of his fusion work in general."

I don't mention this in order to pick on some guy who even states in his review of a fusion-era Miles album that he doesn't like fusion-era Miles, but I bring it up because it was thought-provoking to me, and I've been thinking about and listening to a ton of Miles Davis recently.

I guess the first thing that struck me was that Miles Davis was many things, but he was never at any point in his career "avant-garde," a term with connotations of arty experimentalism and intellectual abstraction. Miles, particularly in the fusion era, was going for something much more primal and earthy. It may have been atonal, harsh, and weird as hell, but at its core it was meant to kick you in the ass, not stimulate mentally.

It certainly kicks mine. Live Evil to me is (along with all other Miles Davis recordings from 1970-1975) one of the hardest grooving records ever made. If Miles was inspired by what he heard from James Brown, Sly Stone, and Jimi Hendrix, he more or less met and surpassed them at their own game. Uninhibited by the self-imposed constraints those others placed on themselves in order to be "pop musicians," Miles was free to explore funk music however he felt fit, and as a result, he simultaneously invented and perfected the genre that would eventually become known as "fusion."

Anyway, I'll close this with another Amazon review, one that's more in line with my thinking:

"This is the sound your brain might make if you dropped acid then your afro caught on fire. Slices and dices culled from LIVE jams and studio takes of atmospheric funk that were so far ahead of their time, that SETI was sending this across the galaxy. Extraterrestrials heard it and have been afraid to respond ever since.

How far ahead of his time was Miles? I disagree that the LIVE jams outweigh the studio tracks. Sample the ambient trumpet of studio takes SELIM and NEM UM TALVEZ. They're filled with quiet atmospheric BEAUTY. The sound is remarkably similar to the kind of ambience that's being recorded now, 35 years later by ambient artists such as Steve Roach. They didn't call this cat a genius for nothing.

THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO BLOW YOUR TOP WITHOUT SMOKING CRACK. For the best results mix this with a hookah pipe, an Indian meditation pillow, door beads, a blacklight, and a naked afro-chick poster.

Looking for the best LIVE 70's fusion from electric Miles? I also recommend LIVE AT THE FILMORE EAST, MARCH 6 1970: IT'S ABOUT TIME, DARK MAGUS, and AGHARTA. You simply can't go wrong.

ENJOY."

Except for the weird and arbitrary capitalization, this guy is right on. ENJOY.