At the urging of Frank J. Oteri -- friend, accomplished composer and chief instigator of the altogether invaluable NewMusicBox (where he, Molly Sheridan and others chart the very lifeblood of contemporary American composed music) -- I started the day with a spin of Rehearsing My Choir (Rough Trade) by the Fiery Furnaces, which Frank recommended in a comment appended to last night's post about Robert Ashley. He's absolutely right: There is both an ambition at play here akin to the hallowed Smile, as well as a time-jumping, chatty sprawl that's quite similar to Ashley's recent work. Definitely worth investigating.
I also spent a pleasant chunk of the afternoon dipping into a brilliant live recording of Die Frau ohne Schatten currently posted in the Unnatural Acts of Opera section of Parterre Box. Not only is the performance (Paris Opera 1980, with Gwyneth Jones, Hildegard Behrens, Rene Kollo, Walter Berry, Mignon Dunn and Franz Grundheber, all steered by the estimable Christoph von Dohnanyi -- salivating yet?) electrifying, but La Cieca's sassy introductions to each act are by themselves worth the effort to tune in.
But I spent the better part of the day -- and even now, in fact -- absorbed in a new box set that, apparently, some folks would prefer you didn't hear.
The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (Columbia Legacy), the latest installment in Legacy's ongoing series of super-deluxe Miles Davis box sets, was supposed to come out back in September. The six-CD set was first delayed to October, then November. Now, some are suggesting that the Miles Davis estate is trying to quash the release altogether. Were that to happen, it would be a crime against art, and also a stupendous mistake.
The engagement of December 16-19, 1970, at Washington, D.C.'s Cellar Door marks a pivotal moment in the Davis mythos. Dave Holland, a brilliant bassist and quintessential jazzman, had just packed his bags; Davis replaced him with the 19-year-old bass guitarist Michael Henderson, whose forte was an utterly hypnotic minimalist funk. The rest of the band included saxophonist Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett on electric piano and organ, drummer Jack DeJohnette, percussionist Airto Moreira and, on the final night, guitarist John McLaughlin.
The Cellar Door box features the band stretching out on a limited number of tunes, set after set, in a genuine working-band stint. Up until now, only a tiny fragment of the music has been available, artfully edited by Teo Macero on the officially sanctioned release, the two-LP Live Evil. Peter Losin's extraordinary Miles Ahead website offers a comprehensive run-down of the sets, as well as a detailed breakdown (scroll to the bottom of the page) of exactly what ended up where on Live Evil.
While this new release isn't intended to repudiate anything Macero achieved on the original album, it does finally provide a more telling view of a previously obscured step in Davis's metamorphosis from post-bop stylist to acid-washed post-jazz visionary. But what's more, the trumpeter simply played his ass off, with and without wah-wah pedal -- with Bartz as a foil and Jarrett conjuring stony rhapsodies, how could he do otherwise? Far more active and responsive than much of what followed during Miles's pioneering fusion phase (and certainly a great deal leaner), the music this band played may well be the truest melding of jazz, rock and funk imperatives the leader ever captained.
I'm not going to review the box in full here. That's already been done, and quite well, in a few different places, such as Will Layman's fine essay at PopMatters, where the writer also explains why this set marks a decisive point in Jarrett's artistic path. (My favorite review so far is the breathless full-pager by gifted improvising guitarist Jason Bivins in the Fall 2005 issue of print mag Signal to Noise.)
Instead, suffice it to say that Cellar Door is the first Davis box since the hallowed The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965 that truly justifies Legacy's lavish treatment. Don't get me wrong, it's swell to have a shelf full of gorgeously packaged reissues with outtakes and smart notes. But Plugged Nickel and Cellar Door go further: Each is something of a Rosetta Stone that helps us decypher how Miles Davis made some of his previously more inscrutible artistic leaps.
That covers the "crime against art" angle. The "stupendous mistake" part should be self-explanatory: Generically packaged advance sets like the one I've been spinning today have been in circulation for months now. They're already hitting secondhand stores and flea markets. And while I haven't checked, I'd almost guarantee that this music is circulating via BitTorrent channels.
In other words, the Cellar Door has been kicked wide open. Whoever is responsible for the continued delay in release, for whatever reason, has to bear the burden of pissing away an enormous amount of good will...not to mention, I would imagine, a fairly substantial chunk of profit. And the situation needs to be resolved -- these performances belong in the hands of everyone who cares about Miles Davis, about jazz, about American music in the 20th century.
Comments