PANGAEA

"Pangaea" was the evening concert in Osaka, Japan while "Agharta" was recorded earlier on the same day. Both lack the fire and experimental excursions that I love about earlier Miles Davis concerts and albums. Maybe it was because he was sick and as most know this would be his last concert for many years as he took a long break. While I consider myself a huge Miles Davis fan i'll admit that my window is maybe small compared to most fans as I focus on the 1969- 1974 period only. So we get two long tracks only over two cds. If you have the LPs then obviously the two long songs were broken up.

"Zimbabe" is uptempo with drums to start as Miles comes in before 1 1/2 minutes honking away. Guitar to the fore after 8 1/2 minutes. It all stops around 11 minutes then restarts.Trumpet is back before 13 minutes.Lots of percussion after 15 minutes then the tempo picks up before 17 minutes with trumpet and drums leading like early on.The guitar is back. A calm before 22 minutes then we get this trippy section which is my favourite part, then the tempo picks up after 27 minutes. Guitar 30 1/2 minutes in that lasts for 3 minutes then a calm with sparse sounds continues to the end. Man this is tough going at times with so little going on.

"Gondwana" is even more difficult than the first track and I say that because it's more mellow and laid back unfortunately. Flute to start as a beat joins in. It's starting to build but then it settles some as trumpet arrives replacing the flute. A calm 10 minutes in until it's pretty much silent before 14 minutes. Drums come in then trumpet after 15 1/2 minutes. It settles before 19 minutes as the trumpet stops. It starts to pick back up with guitar and drums before 20 minutes. A calm after 26 minutes as the synths? and percussion take over. Another calm after 28 minutes with trumpet and a beat.The guitar replaces the trumpet after 36 minutes then it kicks back in briefy (unfortunately) after 45 1/2 minutes.

I'm surprised I like this even less than "Aghartha" but I do. 3 stars.