IN CONCERT: LIVE AT PHILHARMONIC HALL

This is one very strange album, and is definitely not recommended for people who are looking for their first Miles Davis purchase. The band on here is pretty much one band member away from the brilliant group that would record the phenomenal live Agharta album, but since that missing member is the unbelievable pyrotechnical guitarist Pete Cosey, that missing member might as well be half the band. There is so much working against Miles on here, out of tune instruments, sub-par musicianship, bad sound quality on the keyboards and guitars, horrible recording quality and a horrendous sound mix that favors incidental percussion over soloists.

Fortunately the style of music on here is strange and raw enough that all the previously mentioned negative factors don't hurt as much as it would on some sort of pretty or technically precise music. This album has something in common with King Crimson's Earthbound or The Velvet Underground when John Cale was in the band, in that the primitive sound may actually add something to this album's quirky appeal. The music on here is based a lot around the strange avant-African jams that Miles had put out on albums like On the Corner, Big Fun and Get Up With It. In this music the percussionists build up thick poly- rhythms while the other instruments add to the rhythm or add short solo snippets. This is a very psychedelic album, but it is a trashy out of tune psychedelia that sounds like it was recorded on a portable 8-track ghetto blaster. Occasionally the band breaks into walking blues jams that break the monotony of the static disjointed African rhythms.

Although Miles is usually happy to share solo time with other band members, on this album he takes nearly four fifths of the solos for himself. His solos on here are not typical and it sounds more like he is using the trumpet as a rhythm instrument, plus his tone is small, choked, distorted and constantly run through a wah wah pedal. When he is not soloing, Miles can be heard playing very prominent distorted and dissonant chords on a Yamaha organ. All of this busy and up-front playing makes it sound like he has become frustrated with this band's weaknesses and limitations and he is trying to carry the band himself. This is hardly the best album by Davis, but I can enjoy it's strange uniqueness in small doses. By the way, if you do get this album, get it on vinyl, the caricatures both inside and outside the album cover are priceless.

It did not exactly know the power of Miles Davis that had rushed into in the 70's stayed. However, he needed taking a rest for about one and a half years from 1971 because he had had the problem of health. Time like it was required so that the reform with CBS that contracted have had to have by him and to undergo the operation on the gallbladder.

And, the album by which he had worked on production after the rest was "On The Corner". Miles at the time of "Agharta" and "Pangaea" worked on the work very aggressively and left "In A Silent Way" the masterpiece in the age of Electric Miles.

The album that had been exactly announced from "On The Corner" that had been announced in 1972 after about four months became this live album. As for the flow, a high performance of a similar quality to "Live Evil" is collected. Sax player's Carlos Garnett that participated in this album and Cedric Lawson etc. of the keyboard were musicians who had participated while slightly of this time.

The antenna that Miles had put always caught the age and always created the item of Jazz by dismantlement and restructuring. It is guessed that it is an important member who has them establish the route of the music of Miles at this time to guitar player's Reggie Lucas and Bass player's Michael Henderson, etc. as a musician of coming from from the Soul music. Perhaps, how to make the sound of the guitar like Jimi Hendrix that seems that it is an idea of Miles it indicates the success and the road of the extent expressed by performing Reggie.

The tune that had been announced so far was developed further and the style of Miles that pursued degree of freedom and the perfection further might have been established at this time. The tension invites the world and the listener from whom the transmitting forecast doesn't surely take side with the spectator. For one thing, the role of the charm of the performance that continues until later years as the leader of Miles is demonstrated. The sense of Miles that cued to the member with the organ and manipulated the flow of the tune freely gave birth to the element that always found the labyrinth one answer.

Often, Miles to which degree of freedom increased did a performance extremely open that did not use the mute. The wave motion vibrates to the member and the world of each musician's knowledge, root, and Miles alone that cannot be applied to the item coming in succession as usual Jazz/Fusion is invented. Therefore, it might be difficult to specify his Music's genre. However, the method of catching as the music of Miles Davis without putting the definition of his Music's genre might be correct.

Because the bar for live albums from the electrified Miles Davis was set so high with the triple threat of 'Dark Magus', 'Agharta', and 'Pangaea', this (likewise) double-disc gets treated at times like a poor relation, the backwards cousin you're embarrassed to be seen in public with. But don't dismiss it too quickly: there's plenty of worthwhile music here, documenting yet another fascinating mutation in the ongoing evolution of a forward-thinking artist.

Davis was already miles away (so to speak) from anything resembling acoustic Jazz, and by late 1972 he was beginning to outpace even his own Jazz Rock Fusion innovations. This live set was recorded mere days before the release of his controversial avant-funk album 'On the Corner', and was likewise built on long, mesmerizing group improvisations, flowing like water around the unyielding rock of Michael Henderson's repetitive bass lines, with very little traditional soloing, even by Davis.

It may have been that his touring band at the time simply lacked a natural soloist like Chick Corea, or Wayne Shorter. The keyboards and saxophone (played by Cedric Lawson and Carlos Garnett: neither one a part of the Davis stock company for long) were just two more ingredients in a dense musical stew. And the album has attracted some criticism for not featuring ace guitarist Pete Cosey, who would join the live ensemble the following year. It's a valid complaint, but using the same logic the set deserves five stars because Phil Collins doesn't sing on it.

It's true the full nine-piece band resembles a work-in-progress, with tablas and electric sitar adding subtle ethnic undercurrents to the music. But the longer jams ('Black Satin', or the 28-minute 'Ife') often attain a lofty hypnotic plateau, thanks to the driving momentum of the Foster/Henderson rhythm section, with help from Mtume and his battery of African percussion. Of course the original LP had no information whatsoever about the band or the music. The untitled side-long medleys on each disc were identified only as 'Foot Fooler' and 'Slickaphonics', and illustrated in the sleeve art with amusing inner-city caricatures.

It was all part of the usual Miles Davis 'call it anything' ethos: an attempt to focus attention on the music, and nothing but the music. But that deliberate anonymity may have actually undermined the album's impact, and the somewhat two-dimensional production didn't help (a more dynamic live sound would have made it a near-essential experience). But even on its own somewhat compromised terms it's still a valuable addition to any electric Miles library.