Richard+davis

Originally released in 1987, Kick the Wall was the debut album from Memphis-based melodic rockers Jimmy Davis & Junction, who scored a Top 40 hit with the title track but never quite got the support and audience they needed to make it big. Davis and his bandmates had a sound that was perfect for radio at the time, bringing in elements of rock, pop, and heartland AOR.

That’s What Happened 1982-1985: Bootleg Volume 7 is the next installment in the celebrated, award-winning archival series that began in 2011, shining an in-depth light onto different eras of the legendary career of Miles Davis. In the 1980s, popular music had moved to a smoother, electronic-based sound that traded the steam of previous years for subdued arrangements meant to elicit peace and deep reflection. Miles Davis embraced this era, pulling inspiration from FM radio and an upstart music video channel called MTV. He was searching for the next frontier, letting his creativity roam. This music on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7 captures that exploration, and finds Miles beginning to re-emerge in a creative landscape far different than the one he left in 1975.

Venue: La Grande Halle, La Villette, Paris, France - Date: 10th July 1991. Miles was renowned for never revisiting the past, even though many fans, critics and concert promoters always hoped that he would.

On July 1, 1991 Miles Davis played the opening night of the annual Jazz à Vienne Festival in southeastern France. His lineup included saxophonist Kenny Garrett, keyboardist Deron Johnson, drummer Ricky Wellman, bassist Richard Patterson, and "lead bassist" Foley (Joseph McCreary, Jr.). The latter was so designated because the former Mint Condition bassist tuned his custom-made instrument an octave higher, allowing him to emulate a lead guitarist. While Davis' final recordings for Warner Bros. have been subject to debate, this previously unissued performance places his final musical thinking in proper context. Performed less than 90 days before his death, the concert showcases a seasoned band playing an expertly hybridized meld of jazz, funk, and R&B.

Charles Ives composed his first two symphonies between 1897 and 1902, but they weren't performed until a half-century later, when Leonard Bernstein premiered the Symphony No. 2 in 1951, and Richard Bales conducted the Symphony No. 1 in 1953. The contrasts between the two symphonies are striking, since the First was a student work, composed in emulation of the European tradition, while the Second was more idiosyncratic in the use of hymn tunes, folk songs, and other Americana, all developed in a freewheeling manner that reflected Ives' eclectic musical upbringing. This 2015 hybrid SACD by Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is a straightforward presentation of both works, side-by-side, and their differences are highlighted in the styles of playing.

Written as music to accompany the choreography of Molissa Fenley, Anthony Davis followed the huge artistic (if not commercial) success of his albums Episteme and Variations in Dreamtime with yet another wonderful recording along similar lines. Using many of the same musicians and, in fact, recycling some of the same thematic material (as he was to do often in his career), Davis once again finds enormous richness and power in a territory straddling advanced jazz and contemporary minimalism, here even enjoining the services of Steve Reich's violinist of choice, Shem Guibbory. The compositions combine propulsive, oddly metered rhythms with fascinating and often gorgeous melodies including, especially his bitterly beautiful "A Walk in the Shadows," here given arguably its finest, most intense performance with Guibbory doing gut-wrenching work…