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Music CD - Miles Davis: On the Corner
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Music CD: On the Corner
Artist: Miles Davis
List Price: $11.98
Our Price: $5.14
Your Save: $ 6.84 ( 57% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Sony
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. On the Corner/New York Girl/Thinking of One Thing and Doing Another - Miles Davis,
2. Black Satin - Miles Davis, Davis, Miles
3. One and One - Miles Davis,
4. Helen Butte/Mr. Freedom X - Miles Davis, Davis, Miles
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0074646398029
Format: Original recording reissued
Label: Sony
Manufacturer: Sony
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Sony
Release Date: 2000-08-01
Studio: Sony
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing Miles!
Comment: What an amazing album! Miles combines elements of funk, punk, rock, avant-garde and of course jazz to create a unique sound (fusion) that only he could envision! Miles was such a genius that his music transcends all ages. I agree that he has certainly moved away from traditional jazz, and this album certainly ain't no "Kind Of Blue." However, I make the same argument for the Beatles, who had progressed from writing simple pop tunes like "She Loves You" to experimental sounds like in "Tomorrow Never Knows" from Revolver and then Sgt. Pepper and the White Album. If you're also looking for "Bags' Groove" sound, this ain't it either--Miles had long turned that corner. Instead he had begun to dabble with new sounds in "Bitches Brew" and then moved on full force with "On The Corner."
Customer Rating:
Summary: On The Corner
Comment: Miles Davis-On The Corner *****
I honestly can't understand what was so controversial about this album upon it's initial release, and why it doesn't have a five star rating. For me personally it doesn't get any better then this. I honestly think this is my all time favorite Miles Davis album. Sure I love Kind Of Blue, and it is easily a better album then this, and is maybe the greatest album of all time, but for me personally this is my favorite, then Sketches Of Spain, then Kind Of Blue.
The instrumentation on this is the most experimental that Davis ever got, and the most experimental that he ever let his band become. His use of the wah-wah pedal (meant for guitar) on his trumpet is amazing. Herbie Hancock shines like he never did before here, and John McLaughlin just completely owns with his guitar work.
From what I have gathered from reading his autobiography called Miles, On The Corner was inspired by James Brown, Sly Stone, and Jimi Hendrix (as was Bitches Brew, though that wasn't as good as this) and especially the four pieces that make up the first track on the album. 'On The Corner/New York Girl/Thinkin Of One Thing And Doin Another/Vote For Miles' is flat out breathtaking, as is the whole album. Now had this been released by any other artist I could understand the controversy, but Miles had always been known to change styles at the drop of a hat, and create new ones equally as fast. The cover art is no more controversial than that of Bitches Brew, and his attitude was always the same, so to me it seems like just another great Miles effort.
This is really the Miles Davis album for rock fans, even more so then Brew in my opinion.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A mess - music by committee
Comment: This piece of garbage was pieced together by Miles Davis and Teo Macero from a selection of various studio improvisations and it sounds like it.
A much better experience can be had from some of the original pieces on the Complete On The Corner Sessions box set where things are more musically coherent and satisfying. (however I find 2 and 1/2 of those 6 CDs not worth listening to: Disc 6, (ie the On the Corner album itself), Disc 3, and Calypso Frelimo (the first half of Disc 4).The Complete On the Corner Sessions
This On The Corner album was thankfully the last time Davis + record company used the cut and paste method, done I suspect for the purely commercial reason of making a product that fitted a single piece of vinyl.
Customer Rating:
Summary: When weird isn't good
Comment: Okay, first off I'd like to say I have a lot of respect for this record. This is a mix of rock, funk, jazz and Indian music - I can't think of a single album that sounds even remotely like this one. It's a daring move. It's totally unique. It was very avant-garde, and well-performed. Some people see this is as a masterpiece, and judging by those terms, it's hard to argue with them.
It just isn't very good. In fact, it's my least favorite Miles Davis album.
Miles was a genius, of course. The Coltrane years and the Shorter/Hancock/Carter/Williams years are very rewarding. And while I'm not a huge fusion fan, I do LOVE In a Silent Way, and I like about half of B*tches Brew, half of Jack Johnson, bits of Live-Evil (What I Say rules!) and all of Pangaea. I do not, however, even remotely enjoy On the Corner. I don't hear any melodies in this at ALL. In fact, I don't hear much music in this at all. It's like Miles told his band, "Okay, we're gonna forget songwriting... more guitar! More keyboards! More drums! More percussion! More overdubs! More bizarre noises! No, no, MORE of it! Let's try to make this the loudest, nastiest, least listenable record of all time!" And when it came to "least listenable ever", they didn't QUITE pull it off (that title would go to the Byrds' Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde). Black Satin is just awful. It's not a song. It's just a mess of noise panning from one speaker to the other. And it's the BEST SONG ON THE ALBUM! Now, that's only because it's the shortest: I'd much rather hear it than On the Corner or Mr. Freedom X, which both do the same thing for twenty minutes. And I like longer songs, if they're done well (B*tches Brew itself, Shh/Peaceful, In A Silent Way/It's About That Time, Right Off, What I Say, Zimbabwe, All Blues, Sid's Ahead and Walkin' being examples from the Miles catalogue). What I don't like is twenty minutes of what my ears consider equal to the audio recording of a monkey mud wrestling match. That doesn't fly.
Let nobody say I don't like Miles Davis, because I'll tell you right now, Kind of Blue, 'Round About Midnight and In a Silent Way are three total essential beautiful masterpieces. I just don't like On the Corner. I hate it with a passion, in fact. I've heard it described as a love-it-or-loathe -it deal - in fact, by 1972 Miles' audience was already cut down to fusionheads and devotees who would praise anything he put out, and this managed to hack some of them off. I hear this as everything that could've gone wrong with fusion going wrong.
Just so you know, I'm not a jazz purist - I like rock and funk, among other genres, quite a lot. And I think that In A Silent Way (along with the good halves of Jack Johnson and B*tches Brew) were the only times that Miles succeeded in doing good things with those two genres.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A funk concerto....
Comment: I really, really dig this album. I got into it right away. I've always loved later Miles, from 1965-1975, starting with Nefertiti and going straight through to Panagea. This is a sonic assault, in which Miles takes everything that was influencing him at the time, from Sly and the Family Stone to Hendrix, and weaves it into an electric jazz/funk fusion. Critics, who have always tried to get to Miles (the liner notes of the CD has some great quotes about how Miles feels about critics), went into coniptions over this album. They were still reeling from Bitches Brew, and Miles threw this in their face. Brilliant, Miles, brilliant! This started Miles's final excursion until he retired in 1975. This period in Miles's creative journey probably could be classified as acid funk/jazz fusion, with worldly elements thrown in for good measure (tabla, tamboura, sitar). To me, it's just Miles bringin' the brillance. The tracks are all connected with each other, so they play like a massive funk suite, which is sweet. Let's call it Miles Davis's 1st funk concerto....
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Editorial Reviews:
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In 1969, the house of jazz was shaken to its foundations when Miles Davis began to dabble in elements of rock when he recorded Bitches Brew. Many of his faithful quickly fell by the wayside with what they considered this outrageous gesture. Nonetheless, a younger audience quickly arose to embrace what he was doing. But when On the Corner was issued in 1972, it seemed that everyone jumped ship: Miles's effort to bring together the latest developments in European experimental music (Stockhausen's "Mixtur," for example) and Black American funk (Sly Stone) fell on dead ears. What's more, the art work on the cover was peculiar, there was no list of musicians, and the signature Davis trumpet sound was largely buried in the mix. Now, almost 30 years later, time has caught up to Davis, and this record seems the clear ancestor of hip-hop, trance, jungle, and other musics whose methods involve slowly revealing their meaning through repetition, small variation, and funk without cease. Though broken into tracks, it seems more like a single groove, swirling with every trend that was in the air at the time. Forget about conventional melody, harmony, and structure. Davis erased those elements along with the hierarchy that rules them. New digital remastering makes this methodology seem much clearer, and the prejudices of 30 years ago may yet fade into the distance. --John F. Szwed
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