fredag, december 07, 2007

Best new record collection



This year I met a very gracious and all around awesome human being named Charlie Hall. This was in Philadelphia and we stayed at his place. Charlie has a choir called The Silver Ages (and he is also in a band called Windsor for the derby) and...yeah...this was supposed to be about his jazzy knowledge.
It's deep.
I got up early that morning and investigated his collection and found some amazing stuff right away. It was a morning in Philadelphia and the rain was hitting incredibly hard and I was in this wonderfully decorated house listening to Oregon with Elvin Jones for the first time in my life. Charlie recently sent me some advice on records to check out and among them was a Miles Davis album that I'd never heard; "Get up with it".
Apparently this was the last record Miles did before a five year retirement and it's quite the record.
The stand out track for me is "He loved him madly", a tribute to Duke Ellington that passed away month before the song was recorded in 1974. Rock and roll history geeks should also make note of the fact that this track was a big influence on Brian Eno and therefore by association on ambient music in general. Here it is in all its 32.17 minute glory:

Miles Davis - "He loved him madly".

(Allmusic says: "Given three guitar players, flute, trumpet, bass, drums, and percussion, its restraint is remarkable." It's true.)

Miles Davis — trumpet, organ
Dave Liebman — soprano saxophone, flute
Sonny Fortune — flute
Pete Cosey — electric guitar
Dominique Gaumont — electric guitar
Michael Henderson — bass guitar
Al Foster — drums
James Mtume Foreman — percussion