COMPOSERS: Miles Davis
LABELS: Columbia
ALBUM TITLE: Miles At The Fillmore
WORKS: Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 3
PERFORMER: Miles Davis (trumpet), Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett (keyboards) etc
CATALOGUE NO: 88765433812
I tend to be cynical about the posthumous Miles Davis CD industry, endlessly capable of producing great slabs of supposedly must-have stuff at regular intervals. Happily this item, the third in the so-called ‘Bootleg Series’, is something of an exception given its content. This release presents sets from the trumpeter’s June 1970 Fillmore East performances (in New York), previously only available in piecemeal edited form on Miles Davis: at Fillmore. And the bonus tracks are unreleased items from the previous Fillmore West (San Francisco) sets. This release comprises four CDs, a fairly substantial booklet and a sheet of press cuttings that bring the context of the events into sharp focus.
This is electric Miles at his most fearlessly exploratory, stretching and bending every element of the music into extraordinary shapes in a robust reminder of the transformative power of jazz and improvisation. The sound is occasionally a bit rough, but not a distraction.
Roger Thomas