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Your favorite live 70's Miles Davis album!

Including Live-Evil, as it's mostly live, but not including the full Cellar Door boxset, so let's just compromised here, okay?

Felt worthwhile to note when they were recorded/released below, since Black Beauty is actually the earliest one but didn't come out until '73.

Agharta is the one I know the best, but In Concert is pretty much a live On The Corner, so hard to pick.

Black Beauty (recorded April '70, released '73)
Miles Davis At Fillmore (recorded June '70, released October '70)
Live-Evil (recorded December '70, released November '71)
In Concert (recorded September '72, released '73)
Dark Magus (recorded March '74, released '77)
Agharta (recorded 2/1/75, released '75)
Pangaea (recorded 2/1/75, released '76)

Great idea, and a real toughie. Went with Dark Magus in the end, by a toot from Pangaea. Dark Magus is just so fucking heavy. Would easily be in my top five live albums.

I have heard too little of 70s Miles Davis to do a fair vote, but not crap on OP for starting this thread and getting me to look up Black Beauty. Man that stuff is insane. Directions is so dark and cool.

EDIT: Damn that's Chick Corea playing keys? Beast!

I've had Dark Magus for awhile now but it didn't click until very recently. The random blasts of drum machine crack me up.

I'd still probably go with Live at the Fillmore, but I need to spend more time with Live-Evil as it's cut from a similar cloth.

Great poll. They are all so good. Not ready to vote yet.

penningtron wrote: Sat Jun 19, 2021 2:17 pm I've had Dark Magus for awhile now but it didn't click until very recently. The random blasts of drum machine crack me up.

I really love hearing how that band and some of those pieces evolved over the year or so from Dark Magus to Agharta/Pangaea.

My fave is actually the archival "It's about that time" from early 1970 with Wayne Shorter still in the band. Out of the originally released ones mentioned here, I'd go with Dark Magus which isn't my favourite Miles style but as good as he got with the more guitar-heavy (as opposed to the earlier emphasis on keys) post-Band of gypsys/Funkadelic sound. For the earlier, more "free" and post-bop distorted rhodes stuff, Black Beauty *could* have been great but Steve Grossman is such a lame Coltrane wannnabe saxophonist there.

Grossman was mostly edited out of the Miles Live at the fillmore record but unfortunately, the editing on that album is really annoying and jarring; I can recommend "Boolteg series Vol.3" which contains the unedited shows but then, you have to suffer through more Grossman (he's better here than on "Black Beauty" though-not just rapid fire scale runs). "Live-evil" is too transitional IMO with the conflict between Hendersons funk-bass on one hand and Jarrett/Johnettes modernist 60's jazz tendencies on the other never really being solved. Aghartha is a ripper but gets a bit too "spacey"/ambient towards the end; Dark Magus contain many of the same riffs/grooves/themes delivered more intense and focused. I've never heard Pangea for some reason...

All of them. Fuck I don't know. Listening to On the Corner as I write this. Time for a deep dive!

Shall report back