I’m sitting at the supper table, eating a meal of my own devising, as the family are away for a week. It means I can experiment without getting rude comments about stinky cheese or strange smells. So tonight on the menu is tomato and beetroot soup with gorgonzola on körnerbrot, sausages, mashed potato with extra gorgonzola, auburgine, mushroom and garlic stir fry and a small gin with lemon and elderflower to wash it all down.
A riotous cacophony of flavours, individual, contrasting, strong and clashing, though sometimes complementing in unpredicted and delightful ways.
And to soundtrack this, I am lucky enough to be listening to ‘On the Corner’ for the first time ever.
As I prepared the meal, I was listening to the final moments of the smoothly-stewarded and enthusiastically-informing Afterword two-parter on Miles Davis – well done to all who took part – a most enjoyable journey through his life and musical career. I suppose I downloaded it because of the great affirmation that ‘Kind Of Blue’ got in the 60 years thread. I listened to some of that record earlier in the week, but I’m afraid I got a bit bored (sacrilege, I know).
Anyway, the guys on the podcast summed up Miles in part by saying that his great legacy would be because he tried and succeeded at so many different styles of music. So, maybe if ‘Blue’ wasn’t for me, what about something else?
Now when I was a teenage music fan, sitting metaphorically at the feet of NME journalists, Bitches Brew was proclaimed to be the album that was the height of his experimental greatness. So I went out of my way to get hold of a double cassette of that album, determined to play it until I liked it. But it never took. As I recall, it just seemed like Miles said: “OK, play all your instruments together, constantly, at great volume”. There was no variance, it was oppressive.
But as soon as I stated listening to the opening track of ‘On The Corner’, it was like – where have you been all my life? As if Ornette Coleman, Barry Adamson, the Third Ear Band had teamed up with a couple of classical Indian musicians and decided to jam – with fluidity, space and above all, rhythm. I didn’t know what was going to come next, but I had confidence it would surprise and delight and, most importantly, groove. I love music like this – it’s like entering a strange house full of mismatched furniture and strange paintings – it shouldn’t work, and at first it is a bit overwhelming, but slowly, themes and connections make themselves known and the odd richness of the mix rewards with new perspectives and fresh vocabulary for what it’s being perceived. The space makes sense, and it is beautiful.
And now, whenever I hear this music, I will associate it with the diverse flavours in the meal accompanying it, as well as the tomato and beetroot soup spattering up the kitchen wall from the pot job the stove as I was too caught up in the music to notice…
Brilliant stuff, sal.
On The Corner is utterly brilliant! The problem you have is that it is not like anything else, not in Miles’s catalogue nor anyone else’s. It’s certainly not an entry album for Miles’s work. Still, it proves the point. There’s at least one Miles album for everyone. You just have to find your match.
One thing’s for sure, if you don’t like On the Corner you will know after the first five seconds. Nice of Miles to save the time of those who wanted to move on. Or, alternatively, to say a big ” fuck you” to the squares.
I particularly like the two minute mark, when what sound like screeching cats kick off.
Heralding a period when Miles was content to make noises on his records which sounded nothing like a trumpet, indeed sometimes because it wasn’t.
Remember he’d taken a lot from Hendrix, whose innovations – taken for granted now – included making a guitar sound nothing like a guitar.
I am the smooth steward. I like that. 😎
I thought it might down well. My first thought was coolly-curated, but I know the word family of that particular adjective is not popular round these parts.
Certainly has a ring about it.
I look forward to Sal’s future listening debuts inspired by whatever he happens to be eating :
Bratwurst accompanied by The Worst of Jefferson Airplane
Jackfruit accompanied by The Jazz Age
Spinach accompanied byThe Time-Life Treasury of Coati Mundi
I seem to remember @Vulpes-Vulpes did this every Friday. He listened to a new album while cooking up a dish. If I recall correctly, he also posted the recipe for The Afterword’s delectation.
Splendid idea – I’ll see what I can come up with one of these Fridays. Nothing exotic this week though; we are ensconced in a little bijou pied a terre nestling right on the edge of Dartmoor, looking up at the tors and out at the rain, feeling smug that we got the wild swimming out of the way at lunchtime while the sun was still out. I’m most of the way outside of a decent Shiraz Cabernet; there’s a simple pasta sauce (local beef mince, tomato, garlic, red wine, onions) bubbling on the little stove. A pot of penne is ready to cook in the delicious water from the borehole on site. WE have some limited sounds here, courtesy of this little laptop, and we’ve listened to some Van, some Orchestra Baobab and various Blue Notes during the week. The local village show is tomorrow, so a wet day is likely for all. We’ll be retiring here afterwards for a recharge and more victuals. Best wishes to all, hoping you get to chill for a while like us this summer too.
Brilliant! Exactly what I was hoping for and it’s not yet Friday. Thank you.
Curiously enough, I’m just about to have a Fox’s biscuit and listen to a spot of Harold Land…
“A spot of Harold Land”?
Was it “The Peace-Maker”? That’s a little cracker…
No, it was this one…. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_(Harold_Land_album)
I like pretty much all of Miles’s albums to some extent. It varies from one listen to the next as to which ones I like the most. All as it should be. But On the Corner is one of my least favourites, judging from the last time I listened to it, which was admittedly ages ago. Kind of Blue is one that I really don’t get. It sounds to me like sort of lounge music, background music, mood music, whatever .I have met jazz fans who regard it as their favourite jazz album of all time, while others say it is an album for people who don’t like jazz. Go figure, as they say.
I found a copy of a Iive performance of Bitches Brew on a used CD stall. Sounds surprisingly like the studio version, but is a pleasant variation nonetheless. I had never heard of its existence before.
What a thoroughly enjoyable thread. I really loved your description of your time alone, Sal.
We parents all need some “own time.” Everybody does in fact.
Fingers crossed there will be some more musical and culinary meanderings here before the weekend arrives,
Kind Of Blue is indeed smooth and I get the lounge critique but it could be argued that KOB preceded lounge.
On The Corner is a classic , “gotta be in the the right mood” type of record. Preferably played loud so that is a real doubling down.
I’d recommend Agharta as a companion record to ONTC.
I don’t. KOB is supposed to be cool and quiet. But the playing and improvisation is stunning even now, never mind at the time when it was ground breaking. You need to be in the right moment though. It’s not music for being frenzied and hyper. You need to chill and let it absorb you.
Thanks, @Junior-Wells! Always good to have a related recommendation. I’ll check it out!
@salwarpe there is a SONY Original Classics 5 CD set including Jack Johnson, OTC, Water Babies (closest to Silent Way) and Big Fun probably closest to OTC.
Can’t see it on UK dodgers but gotta be available – only released in 2018.
@salwarpe the album i was thinking of was Pangaea not Agharta but i think around the same period.
‘Around the same time’.
They were recorded on the same day. Pangaea is the evening show, Agharta the afternoon of 1st Feb 1975 at The Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan.
The other album to consider is Dark Magus, another gargantuan live double.
Yeah Tigs, like I said “around” the same time. 😏
I’ve got a Miles story. I bought the box set of Jack Johnson (at Other Music in NYC, as it turns out), the only CD box I’ve ever bought. It has five discs, the original release, plus four discs of outtakes and jams. Some of Johnny M’s best playing BTW.
Anyway, what happened is I had a burglary while the original JJ album was reposed in my CD player, which went. So now I have the box with four CD’s in it with the space in it where the original album used to be, right in the middle. So my box has this hole in the middle and I now know the outtakes quite well but can hardly remember the original classic album.
That’s terrible. You could just buy the single CD album. I was lucky. When my stereo got nicked, decades ago, the album on the turntable was Dexys Midnight Runners Too-Ry-Ay.
I think the Complete On The Corner the best box set I’ve heard with Complete Jack Johnson second.
Probably lucky as original, as Tigger suggests, easier to get as a one off than the outtakes.
Yeah, been meaning to get the singe album. Then I’m going to put it in the box. I presume it will stand out right there in the middle because it will have a different label design to the others.
For me has to be In a Silent Way and Sketches of Spain. But have to admit to a fondness for the least Miles like releases Tutu and You’re under arrest.
The family are away for another week and I am cooking for myself to a mixture of my own invention again. Tonight it is turkey escalope with fennel harvested from the allotment mixed sauteed in olive oil with onion and left to sweat in a few dollops of herby goats cheese – should be triffic with a glass of Cava and some pasta.
Right now it´s getting an audio grilling from Mbv Arkestra off of from XTRMNTR which I am dutifully listening to – frankly it is the best track on the album by miles. Nothing else comes close. Sorry Bingo and Arch – I just cannot agree.
But then it´s going to be Traffic all the way. How did I miss out on this band before now? They really are triffic. More soon. That Pasta won´t cook itself…