js Miles Davis’ sextet that existed from 1973 to 1975 is one of the more misunderstood and under appreciated bands in Miles’ career. By the mid 70s, very little was left of Miles’ mid 60s post bop, and he was even starting to move further from the fusion he adopted in the late 60s. Instead, this group, which consisted of Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas on guitars, Mtume on percussion, Al Foster on drums, Michael Henderson on bass and Sonny Fortune on saxophone, was experimenting with static music, ambience, Stockhausen’s momente form, and layering multiple rhythms ala African music. Much of what they did often sounded like jazz fusion, but closer listens reveal a band that was exploring unknown terrain with their attempts to create music without specific form, music that was based on short melodic and rhythmic ideas that could be utilized and layered by any of the musicians at any time.

This brave new combo was best represented on the studio album, “Get Up With It”, and two live albums that took place on February 1, 1975, “Agharta” and “Pangaea”. The “Agharta” concert took place in the afternoon, while “Pangaea” went down at night. Of the two concerts, “Agharta” shows the band in top form, while “Pangaea” has some strong moments, but also some disorganization and fatigue. Apparently Miles was sick for the evening concert and the loss of energy is apparent, but still the band manages some excellent passages all the same.

Side one of “Pangaea's four sided concert starts strong with some relentless psychedelic funk rock. Guitarist supreme, Pete Cosey, is in fine scorching form as the band pummels the audience with a fierce assault. Notice as this side progresses, the funk starts to fracture and the more avant-garde side of the band comes through as the musicians layer almost incongruent rhythms and tonalities. Side two continues with more psych funk until Reggie and Michael take over for a somewhat mundane rock jam that is really not up to par for this group.

Side three gets things back on track as Sonny Fortune performs a mysterious exotica flute solo over a well known Henderson bass vamp. Later, Reggie starts playing something that almost sounds like a real song with chord changes amongst the cosmic ‘no chord changes’ murk and finally Pete Cosey kicks in with another searing blues soaked guitar extravaganza. On side four the band seems to run out of steam as Sonny has pretty much disappeared, while Reggie tries various riffs that no one picks up on and Mtume plays with his bizarre rhythm machine and Cosey toys with his synthi and various odd percussion instruments. As mentioned earlier, Miles was not feeling well during this show and his playing takes on the cries of a wounded spirit with very little semblance to the jazz soloing he had been known for in the past. Still, a lot of creativity went into his attempts to make the trumpet into something entirely different and his sound oriented approach is a big part of many modern horn players.

This is a fascinating sextet and well worth checking out further. “Pangaea”, may not be their best moment, but there is enough good on here to make it worth picking up. Besides the other two albums already mentioned, you can also hear this band on various Miles collections and complete boxed sets.

M.Neumann The era of electronic Miles Davis, from its humble late '60s origins (see: "In a Silent Way") through the Fusion breakthrough of his seminal 1970 Jazz-Rock masterpiece "Bitches Brew", and continuing into the apocalyptic street funk of "On The Corner", reached critical mass on stage in Japan in early 1975. This two-disc live set captures the evening performance of a twilight doubleheader, like its companion piece (the impossible to overrate "Agharta") recorded in Osaka on February 1 of that year.

Together both albums (both of them twin-discs) mark the apotheosis of an astonishing career that saw the erstwhile jazz trumpet player at the forefront of just about every new musical movement of the previous three decades.

"Pangaea" follows a trajectory similar to the afternoon gig, but with fascinating detours and altogether fresh results. Each of the two discs presents a single, unified improvisation, played with even more confidence and kinetic energy than on "Agharta" (Davis in particular sounds a lot stronger: maybe the pain medication finally kicked in). The music is sometimes less ferocious than it was during the afternoon set, but in the end presents an even richer experience: especially on Disc Two, when Miles truly Takes the Voodoo Down.

The evening show opens with "Zimbabwe": a no-hold barred, 42-minute Funk-Rock frontal assault more powerful in parts than even the malignant juggernaut of "Dark Magus", recorded in Carnegie Hall the previous year. After that the tone and tempo gradually shift downward into a more open and free-form (but no less rhythmic) jam on the nearly 47-minutes of Disc Two.

"Gondwana" (named for the prehistoric super-continent that would separate into Africa and South America) opens with a haunting tropical bass line and evocative solo flute (by Sonny Fortune). It's a welcome respite after all the heat and friction of "Zimbabwe" on Disc One, and eventually cools even further before resolving itself in an unexpected, swinging jam, recalling the pre-electronic roots of Davis' jazz past.

And there it ends, in a quietly devastating final curtain to both an epic day of music-making and a vanguard musical career. Davis would retreat into semi-retired seclusion soon after these gigs, and it's hard not to think that the sheer strain of creating such intense and beautiful noise finally pushed him off the public stage. Certainly his comeback in the 1980s introduced a more tame and tired Miles Davis than the ferocious beast heard prowling outside its cage on these recordings.

But this was Miles at his peak. And when standing on the summit of any mountain there's no other way to go except down.

Consumer postscript: word-of-mouth says the 1991 Columbia re-masters of "Agharta" and "Pangaea" are botched, inferior mixes of the original LPs. Save your pennies, as I did, for the more expensive but vastly superior Sony Japanese pressings. Both not only include more music (a couple of extra minutes on "Pangaea"; a whopping 10-minutes more on "Agharta"), but sound fabulous as well.