MILES DAVIS — Circle in the Round (review)

MILES DAVIS — Circle in the Round album cover Album · 1979 · Post Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
frankbernardi22
1979... and still no trace of Miles. At Columbia they were more than nervous. To remind the world that Miles was still alive, they packed this superb "Circle in the round", full of never heard tunes (not really all the numbers, but it was quite enough to stimulate the curious, the fan, the simpler buyer and so on): it was the unquestionabale proof that Davis had been here on this earth. James Isaac, compiler of the liner notes, showed his own philosophy: (Miles) "perhaps is readying a music that will again reaorder the notions of harmony and color and rythm and space. Or perhaps no more music will be forthcoming fron Miles Davis, who has given so much and ispired so many. For now we have this multi - hued program, which can only add luster to a most remarkable, prismatic body of work". That is a little bit to say: go and buy, it could be the last time. For the "last time", at Columbia they worked wery well: material from 1955 to 70. But, with the risk that really it could be the very last, compilers could suggest highlights from the really very last Miles. They did not. The closing "Guinnevere", recorded in January 1970, nothing say to us of the deep wound represented by "Bitches Brew". A bestseller, true, but also the beginning of a road full of danger and uncertain developements, full of risks of every colour. And what about "Sanctuary", here sounding, writes Isaacs, "more controlled" and "better focused"? (very different from the "Bitches" cut). Probably people, in producers plans, were asked to forget chaos and experiments: everybody, at Columbia, was hoping, was dreaming of a brand new Miles. A brand new one, better a brand old one, but not a jazz terrorist.
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