Dedicated entirely to interpreting/re-imagining Miles Davis's "electric" period (circa 1968-1975), YO MILES! - UPRIVER is the third installment in the Davis tribute project helmed by super-eclectic guitar ace Henry Kaiser and avant-garde-jazz trumpet icon Wadada Leo Smith.
Kaiser and Smith have assembled a diverse crew -- including saxophonists John Tchiai and Greg Osby, ex-Santana keyboardist Tom Coster, and ex-Journey drummer Steve Smith -- that doesn't attempt to "clone" music from crucial Davis albums BIG FUN and BITCHES BREW. Instead, the musicians prefer to take themes within those records as points of departure, staying true to Davis's concepts of deep grooves, fierce solos, and ghostly ambiance.
The original "Bitches Brew" was hauntingly mirage-like--here, Kaiser makes it smolder with exultant, blues-tinged guitar solos,while Smith endows the original's echoing horn riff with a more voice-like resonance. The medley of "Tutu/Agharta Funk"flaunts the vintage hard-funk rhythms of James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone, seething with crackling, lyrical trumpet and brain-frying psychedelic guitar. UPRIVER not only venerates Miles Davis, but actually enriches his legacy. This is the third disc guitarist Henry Kaiser and trumpet player Wadada Leo Smith have recorded devoted to celebrating, reinterpreting, and expanding upon Miles Davis' Bitches Brew era electric and funk-infused bands from the late 60s to early 70s. While it has found favor among samplers for its incessant rhythms, and has even been subject to radical remixes, this thirty-year-old music is surprisingly unexplored. Reveling in the layered tapestries that characterized such albums as Agharta and On the Corner, this ten piece band is both unrelenting and subtle. One group composition and Smith's "Thunder & Lightning" round out this lengthy, but ever-unfolding set. Performed live in the studio, the recording is astoundingly clear and warm.
Some quotes about this fantastic album:
"Yo Miles! has gone beyond the fundamental with songs that breathe the spirit of Davis to create an atmosphere that resonates with a fire and an essence of their very own. Kaiser and Smith's knowing explorations through Miles' complex electro-funk realm revisits the dread while expanding the beauty". -All About Jazz.
Upriver is Yo Miles! second Cuneiform release and was recorded live directly to stereo DSD recorder at the same sessions that produced the award-winning Sky Garden release. "Smith and Kaiser have recovered some of (Miles') radical energy and reapplied it in the context of a new technology that gives this music clarity as well as thudding power...if you want to see where (Miles') example leads us, this is the way to go".
-The Wire.
Kaiser and Smith have assembled an all-star cast that includes Smith on trumpet; Kaiser, Mike Keneally and Chris Muir on electric guitars; Michael Manring on bass; Steve Smith on drums; Karl Perazzo on percussion; Greg Osby (alto) and John Tchicai (tenor and soprano) on saxophones; and Tom Coster on keyboards. It also features special guests Zakir Hussain on tabla, Dave Creamer on guitar, and the ROVA Sax Quartet. "...a sprawling blowout that should convert open minds...at once dangerous and respectful..."
-Denver Post.
It is playable in either an SACD player or on any standard CD player. Containing 2 1/2 hours of music, this recording focuses on Davis' improv-fueled works from the early-mid 70's, while also including an original Smith composition and a group improvisation. "This studio production, recorded direct to DSD, offers some of the most immediate and realistic sound of both electronic and acoustic instruments." -Stereophile.
Sky Garden won the 2004 Surround Music Award for "Best High-Resolution Stereo Program"; Upriver is from the same sessions, and that makes this album one of the most important audiophile releases of 2005! "...beautifully played by great musicians...it's fabulously recorded...the album trucks along like the world's number one jam band..."
-Paris Transatlantic.
Among the giants enthroned in jazz’s pantheon, no one made as big, as broad, as bad-boy brazen of an impact on popular music in many manifestations – jazz, rock and improvisation - as Miles Davis. At the same time, he pioneered new routes for rock. The innovations Davis made in both jazz and rock spawned immediate followers in his time, and continue to infuse and energize the music of today.
But even during the revival that began in the 1990s, "… only one band has had the courage to throw itself full bore into the thorniest Davis era, the mid-'70s years when he created a dark, dangerous, haunting, ecstatically wondrous body of music that no one has ever attempted to duplicate." That band is Yo Miles! Yo Miles! was formed in 1998 to explore, expound and expand on Davis’ mid-70s electric music. The group’s studio performance at The Site was recorded live, directly to a stereo DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recorder.
Approached without preconceptions, this third double-CD in the Yo Miles! series should be a sure winner for any jazz fusion enthusiast. Doubts will insinuate themselves only if the listener starts trying to draw comparisons between the original, electric-period Miles Davis compositions and the updated versions that form the bulk of all three of the Yo Miles! recordings, including Upriver -- which on the first disk alone features "Go Ahead John," "On the Corner Jam," "What I Say" and the classic "Bitches Brew." It could be argued that the name itself invites negative comparisons. After all, tribute bands don't generally get high marks for creativity.
But while the Yo Miles! sobriquet may be ill-advised, it seems motivated solely by trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and guitarist Henry Kaiser's desire to honor Davis' major contribution to jazz and funk history without wrapping the whole project up in a shroud of high seriousness and musical purism. Still, when all is said and done, the music should speak for itself -- and this music speaks loud and clear. What Kaiser and Smith have demonstrated with the Yo Miles! project, above all, is that the jazz fusion idiom essentially created by Davis (with a little help from his early collaborators and some inspiration from rock and funk influences such as Jimi Hendrix and James Brown) was a great vehicle for creative playing, providing possibilities both for tight, funky ensemble work à la Brown and extended collaborative improvisations.
Of course, musical second-raters subsequently rode jazz fusion into the ground, but the Yo Miles! cast demonstrates that the form itself is still vital when it's in the right hands. Kaiser and Smith shine, as usual. Smith, who was once dismissed as a cerebral jazz intellectual, is ebullient and expansive throughout. (He also contributes an extended composition, "Thunder & Lightning," which is very much in the electric Miles mode).
Soloists on this CD are uniformly excellent -- even relatively unheralded keyboardist Tom Coster, whose own jazz fusion recordings have generally been much closer to the mainstream. Here, he displays not only a fine technical facility on a wide assortment of electronic keyboards but also a creative imagination and taste for bold, adventurous musical statements. Greg Osby is marvelous throughout on alto saxophone, playing with both fire and intelligence. And how about John Tchicai, on tenor and soprano saxes? At this writing he is just shy of 70-years-of-age, but he not only feeds on the collective energy of the group -- but obviously brings to the proceedings some of his own free jazz energy of the mid-'60s when he was playing with the likes of Archie Shepp, Don Cherry and John Coltrane himself.
Michael Manring is solid and funky, as he has been on all three Yo Miles! recordings, laying down that deep bass groove so crucial to the electric Davis sound. Percussion and guitars are first-rate also, but harder to single out for praise, since there are two percussionists in the group (Karl Perazzo and Steve Smith), plus Zakir Hussain guesting on the "On the Corner Jam" -- and no less than three electric guitarists (Kaiser, Chris Muir, Mike Keneally), all moaning, wailing and emoting in distinctive ways. Collectively, perhaps the most impressive thing about the Yo Miles! ensemble, aside from its infectious, nuanced funk, is the fluidity of the interplay among musicians.
One might briefly lament the absence (or at least diminution) of the menacing aggression projected by some of the Davis groups, but Yo Miles! more than makes up for it with a beautiful, expansive sense of space, where every chord progression, rhythmic accent and timbre can be savored. These versions may have a bit less power, but they arguably display a whole lot more finesse. Still, take some advice and avoid the comparisons. Just put the disks in the player and prepare to get down.
Bill Tilland, All Music Guide
As much as other electric Miles tributes have captured the period, Yo Miles! most clearly draws the line between Miles' less-structured electric fusion and a more modern improvisational approach. Less strictly imitative and more about extrapolating where Miles might have gone had he continued down the same path, rather than reinventing himself upon returning to public life in the early '80s, there is nothing retro about the way Smith and Kaiser view this archival material. While other fusion of the era has ultimately become dated, Miles' less rigid approach, which relied more on interplay and improvisation than on bombast and complex structure, sounds even more relevant today, now that a larger audience has caught up with his vision. What is particularly remarkable about this incarnation of Yo Miles! is how comfortably the players —many of whom would never appear to have any direct association to this music— fit into the post-Miles milieu. Drummer Steve Smith may have strong ties to fusion, but his playing has rarely been this filled with reckless abandon. Similarly, keyboardist Tom Coster is a broader colourist than one would expect. Bassist Michael Manring has a more prodigious electric technique than any of Miles' bassists of the time, but he never places style over substance. And the avant history of saxophonist John Tchicai would never lead one to believe that he could fit comfortably in this context. Of course the same could be said for Wadada Leo Smith himself; with a background in free music and through-composed composition that is closer in aesthetic to contemporary classical music, one would never have imagined him to be such a good fit.
And yet, while his playing demonstrates a richer breadth than Miles, he clearly understands and intuitively reconciles his own playing into this more rhythmically charged homage. Whereas Sky Garden was divided equally between Miles pieces and original compositions that seemed to fit seamlessly into the larger arc, Upriver is largely dominated by Miles material. Still, a group improv and Smith's "Thunder & Lightning" on disc two show an uncanny grasp of the essence of Miles' concept. Miles was always about looking forward, and Upriver , like its predecessors, never looks back, instead placing tribute into a thoroughly modern setting.
encoded with LAME/foobar2000
245 kbps / VBR-V0 / Stereo / 16-bit / 44,100 Hz
from a SACD Hybrid, from Cuneiform Records
currently OOP (out of print) as in September, 2009
CD 1
1. Go Ahead John (Miles Davis) - 21:38
2. On the Corner Jam (Miles Davis) - 15:29
3. What I Say (Miles Davis) - 13:29
4. Bitches Brew (Miles Davis) - 26:36
CD 2
1. Tutu / Agharta Funk (Miles Davis) - 10:33
2. Tune in 5 / One Phone Call (Miles Davis) - 8:15
3. Corrado (Miles Davis) - 4:23
4. Macero (Yo Miles) - 3:04
5. Yesterfunk (Miles Davis) - 5:25
6. Thunder & Lighting (Wadada Leo Smith) - 21:22
7. Jabali, Pt. 3 (Miles Davis) - 10:21
8. Black Satin (Slight Return) (Miles Davis) - 16:24
Michael Manring (Bass),
Henry Kaiser (Arranger), (Guitar (Electric)), (Producer),
Tom Coster (Keyboards),
Greg Osby (Sax (Alto)),
Steve Smith (Drums),
Wadada Leo Smith (Trumpet), (Arranger), (Electric Trumpet),
Bruce Ackley (Group Member),
Steve Adams (Arranger), (Group Member),
Zakir Hussain (Percussion), (Tabla),
John Tchicai (Sax (Soprano)), (Sax (Tenor)),
David Creamer (Guitar (Electric)),
Chris Muir (Guitar (Electric))
(go up the river in comments)
Dickey Betts & Great Southern
Three years after the issue of his landmark solo recording, "Highway Call" (and countless inbred brawls and unholy wars among the Allman Brothers), guitarist, singer, and songwriter Dickey Betts released the debut by his "other" band, Great Southern.
