John A. Davis

Miles Davis - The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions (1970) {5CD Box Set, Columbia C5K 86359 rel 2003)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.29 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 881 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 42 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1970, 2003 Columbia / Sony Music | C5K 86359
Jazz / Fusion / Jazz Funk / Jazz Rock / Trumpet

Of all the Miles Davis recordings, the 16 weeks of sessions that created a single, two-selection LP produced by Teo Macero called A Tribute to Jack Johnson have been the most apocryphal. While the album itself was a confounding obscurity upon release – due to its closeness in proximity to the nearly simultaneous release of the vastly inferior yet infinitely more label-promoted Live at the Fillmore East – its reputation as the first complete fusion of jazz and rock is cemented. It also garnered a place in the history books for guitarist John McLaughlin, the axis around whose raw, slash-and-burn playing the entire album turns.

Chicago native John Henry Davis spent most of his later years recording in Europe, where he was much better known than he was in the U.S. This release, recorded in the mid-'80s, spotlights Davis solo at the piano (except for the final bonus track, which features a vocal by Jeanne-Marie Carroll), and his warm, unhurried playing and singing is as comfortable as an old easy chair. Although he helped format the Chicago blues sound through his work in the 1930s and 1940s with artists like Tampa Red, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Big Bill Broonzy, Davis seems most at home doing a kind of lounge blues, an approach that plays to his strengths. The opening track on this collection, "I Had a Dream," sets the pace here, and it is a likeable tune that contains the line "I dreamed I won the Brooklyn Bridge on my knees shooting dice" before turning into a song of amused resignation…

Trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and one of the most important figures in jazz music history, and music history in general. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz. Winner of eight Grammy awards…

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (1970) {3CD+DVD, 40th Anniversary Collector's Edition, Columbia-Sony Music rel 2010}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.11 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 399 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 90 Mb | 5% repair rar
DVD5 -> 3.57 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 4:3 | LPCM, 2 ch | ~ 71m | ISO Image
© 1970, 2010 Columbia / Legacy / Sony Music | 88697 75520 2
Jazz / Fusion / Jazz Rock / Trumpet

Historic debate over the relevance and merits of trumpeter Miles Davis' seminal jazz-rock fusion masterwork Bitches Brew (Columbia), especially upon this year's 40th anniversary of its original 1970 release, could fill every page of even a paperless internet jazz e-zine (a body of work to which Greg Tate's companion essay adds: "Bitches is a multi-clawed, multi-tentacled, multi-brained creature whose center of gravity never stays preoccupied with one body part for too long"). But one point seems certain: two live performances of this electrifying music—one from 1969 on a bonus DVD, the other from 1970 on a bonus CD—are the genuine treasure troves of this 40th anniversary Collectors' Edition.