Miles Davis - On The Corner (1972)

Next to "Bitches Brew", this is my favorite Miles recording. Don't miss this!!! You would have to be deaf and groovless not to dig this jam session. Thanks to mortmain for the reminder.

Davis claimed that On the Corner was an attempt to connect with a young black audience which had largely forsaken jazz for rock and funk. While there is a discernible rock and funk influence in the timbres of the instruments employed, from a musical standpoint the album was a culmination of sorts of the musique concrète approach that Davis and producer Teo Macero (who had studied with Otto Luening at Columbia University's Computer Music Center) had begun to explore in the late 1960s. Both sides of the record were based around simple, repetitive drum and bass grooves (the track delineations below were arbitrary at best), with the "melodic" parts snipped from hours of meandering jams. These techniques, refined via the use of computers and digital audio equipment, are now standard amongst producers of electronically-based music. Also cited as musical influences on the album by Davis were the contemporary composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who was later falsely rumored to have recorded with the trumpeter in the late 1970s, and Paul Buckmaster (who played electric cello on the album and contributed some arrangements).

Released July 1, 1972
Recorded June 1, 1972 – June 6, 1972
Producer Teo Macero

Personnel

* Al Foster - drums
* Badal Roy – tabla
* Bennie Maupin – bass clarinet
* Carlos Garnett – soprano and tenor saxophone
* Don Alias – percussion
* Chick Corea – electric piano
* Collin Walcott – electric sitar
* Dave Liebman – soprano saxophone
* David Creamer – electric guitar
* Harold I. Williams – organ, synthesizer
* Herbie Hancock – electric piano, synthesizer
* Jabali Billy Hart – drums, bongos
* Jack DeJohnette – drums
* James Mtume Foreman – percussion
* John McLaughlin – electric guitar
* Khalil Balakrishna - electric sitar
* Lonnie Liston Smith – organ
* Michael Henderson – electric bass
* Miles Davis – trumpet
* Paul Buckmaster – cello

Miles of Funk