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Intense, noisy music from a rare South American tour May 25, 1974 Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil MILES DAVIS Miles Davis- trumpet, organ Dave Liebman- tenor and soprano saxophones, flute Pete Cosey- guitar, percussion Reggie Lucas- guitar Dominique Gaumont- guitar Michael Henderson- bass guitar Al Foster- drums James Mtume- congas, percussion Funk [aka Agharta Prelude, part 1] (Miles Davis) 0:00 Turnaroundphrase (Miles Davis) 16:12 For Dave [aka Mr. Foster] (Miles Davis) 23:16 closing titles 40:04 Recorded by Dave Liebman Miles Davis's health problems had been accumulating for several years. By 1974 he was in poor physical shape- calcium deposits in his hips had hospitalised him a decade earlier, but now they seemed to be disintegrating, leaving him in near constant severe pain, made worse after breaking both legs in a car crash in late 1972. He also had a bleeding ulcer, and would often spit up blood. He was taking codeine and morphine to relieve the pain but he was also drinking more than usual- vodka plus “Bloody Marys all day and scotch and milk at night,“ according to Jim Rose, his road manager. There was also copious amounts of cocaine, and- something of a rarity for Miles- marijuana in the mix. A rare South American tour was conducted under a narcotic fog, which grew worse as the tour progressed. On May 24, in the middle of the initial three night run in Rio de Janeiro, news broke that Duke Ellington had died, plunging Miles into deeper depression. The storm clouds were gathering, but things were about to get much, much worse. The band Miles took to Brazil was the one he had lead for the past year, but with the addition of yet another guitarist. The French Hendrix-inspired Dominque Gaumont had auditioned for the band onstage at the Carnegie Hall gig in March, recorded and released by Columbia on the LP _Dark Magus._ According to Gaumont, Reggie Lucas had started to complain about wanting a raise and Miles recruited a third guitarist as a warning that Lucas was not indispensible. “Miles had no need of me, but he wanted to make Lucas flip.“ The third of the Rio performances was recorded, as were some other shows on the tour, by saxophonist Dave Liebman. As might be expected, the sound palette here is incredibly dense, the three guitarists creating a solid wall of sound that occasionally threatens to engulf the horns. “Just listen to it. It's so breathtaking,“ Miles told an interviewer. “You can't know how terrifying it is to be in the middle of all that. It's endless sound.“ Musically, Miles continued his quest to fuse jazz, rock, the funk of Sly Stone and James Brown, gutbucket blues, and the concepts of Karheinz Stockhausen, through whom Miles said “I could see that I didn't ever want to play again from eight bars to eight bars, because I never end songs, they just keep going on.“ Changes of direction or breaks in the music could be cued in by small body movements from Davis, facing his band like the conductor of an orchestra. His own playing now consisted of short, rhythmic phrases, shaped with his wah wah pedal (which can be heard squeaking on the recording). As Liebman noted, “Even playing Eb for four hours, which is what we did most of the time, even within the context of that very limited area and beat, and four guitars and an amazing amount of sound- even within that I was able to discern the subtleties of Miles's playing.“ Fortunately, the superior sound quality (Liebman used two Sony Nakamich 1700 microphones, running to a Sony cassette recorder) allows a good deal of clarity, and with the somewhat spotty documentation of this period and often lo-fi bootlegs, these recordings are very valuable. I have done some work re-EQing the audio, to enhance the dynamics of the original recording. During the second half of the tour, after the first date in Sao Paulo, Miles collapsed. Fearing he had had a heart attack, Davis called a doctor who rushed him to hospital. “The band was scared,“ Miles wrote in his autobiography, “Everyone thought I was going to die. I thought to myself, This is it. But I pulled through that one.“ Incredibly, Miles was discharged the next morning and played a concert the following evening. But the brush with his own mortality was a wake up call and for the first time Miles started to seriously consider quitting music. But it would be another year of worsening health before the silence finally came. If you enjoy these posts and would like to thank us for our efforts you can buy us a coffee: Thank you!
