Produced with loving care by Claude Nobs, founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival, with no edits or overdubs, this document of Miles Davis's Montreux performances shows through never-before-released material how Miles and company transformed his music live, with their fire, invention, and interplay. The list of sidemen on these dates is a who's who of today's superstars, including saxophonist Dave Liebman, guitarists John Scofield and Robben Ford, keyboardists Adam Holzman and Kei Akagi, bassist Michael Henderson, and percussionist Mtume. Most of the music on these discs features versions of Davis's fusion "hits." The funky and R&B-ish ditty "Ife" and the bouncy "Calypso Frelimo" are rendered with more gusto than their studio versions, as are the in-the-pocket, mid-'80s tunes "Star People" and "New Blues." A package this big has more than a few surprises, however. Chaka Khan lends her powerful pipes to Davis's unique cover of the Michael Jackson sleeper, "Human Nature," and "Al Jarreau" is an upbeat (though too short) tribute to the great vocalise master.
Of all Gil Evans' orchestral scores for soulmate Miles Davis, PORGY AND BESS is his richest and most ambitious–a watershed of modern jazz harmony which served to secure Davis' pop star stature and define his brooding mystique. Inevitably, even non-jazz listeners own a copy of PORGY AND BESS or SKETCHES OF SPAIN.
Recorded live in France at the Festival Mondial, du Jazz Antibes, Miles Davis in Europe captures trumpeter Miles Davis in late 1963. While Four & More and My Funny Valentine – both taken from the same 1964 New York Philharmonic Hall concert – are most often cited as this lineup's essential live recording, Miles Davis in Europe is a no less exciting listen. The band, including tenor saxophonist George Coleman, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams had recorded Seven Steps to Heaven a few months earlier, which would turn out to be the one studio album Davis would make with the lineup.
Bag of Trix – Music From The Roxette Vaults – is a four-record collection of 46 previously unreleased or long since deleted Roxette recordings, including demos, alternative mixes, Spanish versions, bonus tracks, and other fun stuff from the Swedish band's long, illustrious, and extraordinarily successful career (1986 - 2016).