Miles Davis – Live at the Fillmore East (March 7, 1970): It's About That Time (Sony, 2001)

^{Miles Davis (tr); Wayne Shorter (ts, ss); Chick Corea (el p); Dave Holland (b); Jack DeJohnette (d); Airto Moreira (perc)}

^{Recorded on March 7, 1970}

^{For many years, the band that made this recording was called the "Lost Quintet," since Miles never took them into the studio. But, in the intervening years, Sony has released many of their live recordings, and it's now clear that the band was one of the finest Davis ever led.}

^{Aside from the spectacular music, this particular recording is fascinating for several reasons.  This music on these two discs is the very last performance by Wayne Shorter in Miles' band.  Shorter had joined Miles' band in 1964, but now he was moving on.  He would soon team up with Joe Zawinul and Miroslav Vitouš to form the jazz super-group Weather Report.}

Another reason that this recording is compelling: Most of the music that the group plays is from Bitches Brew, the landmark album that Miles made in August 1969.  However, the album was not yet available to the public.  (Columbia released the album on March 30, 1970.)  Nonetheless, it's clear that the band had fully absorbed the music, and their level of execution is breathtaking.

In his book It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off the Record (Oxford University Press, 2007), author Richard Cook describes the music they made that night:

"The music goes by like a whirlwind.  Chick Corea once opined that music recorded at the Bitches Brew sessions was actually a rather tame version of what the band was getting up to in live performance, and listening to these two live sets ... one can hear what he means. ... Corea's piano parts are thrilling and full of unprecedented sounds and shapes: changing and coloring his Fender Rhodes tone with effects of every kind, creating grazing dissonances and superheated distortions... [Wayne's] soprano playing on the first "Spanish Key" is astonishingly hot and powerful, his tenor playing on his own "Masqualero" -- almost reinvented for the electric band, with every step in the melody crashingly articulated -- cooly magisterial. ... Most of all Davis sounds utterly invigorated.  The spare delivery of Bitches Brew is displaced by a breathtaking intensity, long lines squalling up to screaming high notes... [the band] sounds like a supercharged edition of the old Miles, the familiar human sound embedded in his delivery. Extraordinary things were created almost at will by the group..." (pp. 227-28).

Miles continued to push his music in the 1970s, continually changing directions, subverting expectations, creating sounds further and further afield from all that's familiar -- until he abruptly stopped in the middle of the decade, exhausted, and retreated into a private existence.  

Listeners with open ears will find much to admire in the music Miles made from 1970 to 1975.  However, I  admit that the music Miles subsequently recorded has never floored me like this music on these discs.  Of course, I respect all of it.  But I love this concert recording.

More Miles
If you want to hear more of the magnificent "Lost Quintet," you should check out The Bootleg Series, Vol. 2: Live in Europe 1969 (Sony Legacy, 2013).  Since the music was made in 1969, it technically falls outside of the scope of this survey.  Nevertheless, it's "required listening!" -- especially given the fact that this band never made any studio recordings.  Of course, I'm also assuming that everyone is familiar with Bitches Brew.  Even though it was made in 1969, it's reverberating influence on jazz in the 1970s -- and beyond -- is incalculable.  ... Turning our focus to the music that Miles made between 1970 and 1975, here are the recordings that I pull from the shelf most frequently:

• Miles at the Fillmore – Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3 (Sony Legacy, 2014)

• Dark Magus (CBS/Sony, recorded 1974, released 1977)

• Agharta (CBS/Sony, 1975)

• Pangea (CBS/Sony, 1975)