Miles Electric - A Different Kind of Blue
by Murray Lerner
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bob Belden, Chick Corea, Gary Bartz, Paul Buckmaster, Ron CarterDirector: Murray Lerner
Brand: RED Distribution
Cinematographer: Kramer Morgenthau
Editor: Edward Goldberg
Editor: Einar Westerlund
Editor: Pagan Harleman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 87 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-11-16
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Eagle Rock Ent
Movie Reviews of Miles Electric - A Different Kind of Blue
Movie Review: Perfect for fans and newcomers
Summary: 5 Stars
Two points I'd like to make up front: 1) this is the best live music DVD I've ever seen, 2) Miles's electric period from 70s & late 60s is by design great rock music, and 90% of my interest in Miles Davis lies here, so if you're not more or less in the "rock" audience I have nothing of interest to tell you. Specifics follow.
As is the norm with "historic" concert videos like this, the 38 minute concert is preceeded by about 38 minutes of interviews with the musicians (including several Miles interviews from different years), clips from other Miles performances (release these all dammit!), and some hip rock contemporaries, notably Joni Mitchell & Carlos Santana. The clips and interviews are unusually interesting and well-selected, and should get latecomers up to speed on the music. Several of the musicians from the concert demonstrate a few licks on their instruments, and all are pretty hot really -- should be immensely pleasurable to any aspiring musicians out there. Meanwhile on the critical front, anti-electric fogey Stanley Crouch provides a taste of how controversial this new phase was. Also amusing, pretty much everyone does an impression of Miles's raspy whisper.
The show itself is presented without narration or other distraction. Like much of the Isle of Wight material currently being released, it's very well-filmed. It presents a great performance by a band at its peak, probably the best live Davis our TVs will ever know (uhm, at least from that decade). If this were the whole DVD, it would still be a great product.
Point of nomenclature: when musicians of this technically accomplished quality aren't playing rock, they're playing jazz. Period, no hypens. These guys were playing rock.
Fans of improvising, bottom-heavy rock acts with virtuoso musicians such as Jimi's Band Of Gypsies, the first 3 Santana albums, mid-70s King Crimson, and some contemporaneous funk acts (which I should be hip to but am not), will be in heaven with this performance -- man for man and talent for talent, this band could cut any of those acts. I suspect Grateful Dead fans's heads'd explode if exposed to this, and then you'll have to clean all that mess up, so proceed with caution.
To cap it off, the newly-interviewed musicians are asked to improvise brief tributes to Miles. These are pretty snazzy too. Percussionsist Airto Moreira gets a surprising groove going with just vocal sounds and banging; Herbie Hancock's requiem on electric piano is pretty sweet; and watching the young-ish bass guy (sorry I didn't write down names -- he's in the bonus materials and didn't perform at the Isle of Wight show) inspired me to grab my bass and get the hang of slapping. (Young-ish bass guy should do an instructional vid.) (Come to think of it, maybe he has.)
Incidentally, anyone wanting Miles studio albums from this period should start with [...] Brew (more is better) and Jack Johnson (single CD version is fine), then explore the many live double albums from that period.
Summary of Miles Electric - A Different Kind of Blue
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