Miles Davis - 2013 "Live in Europe 1969 - The Bootleg Series" Vol. 2

Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 is a 3 CD + 1 DVD live album of the Miles Davis Quintet featuring saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette. The CDs contain recordings of two concerts in France and one in Sweden and the DVD has an additional concert recorded in Germany.

The first two discs were recorded at the Festival Mondial du Jazz d'Antibes, La Pinède in Juan-les-Pins, France, on July 25 & 26, 1969 with the first concert originally released in Japan in 1993 as 1969 Miles Festiva De Juan Pins. The third disc contains the concert from November 5, 1969 at the Folkets Hus, Stockholm. The DVD was recorded in West Germany on 7 November 1969 at the Berliner Jazztage in the Berlin Philharmonic.

The sets include songs that had been jazz standards for several decades on, material from Davis' hard bop late 1950s and early 1960s period, material from his second great quintet and Miles Runs the Voodoo Down, a fusion composition that his band did not record until four weeks later, on the Bitches Brew album. The last two disks were recorded after Bitches Brew and include that album's title track.

This new set is the first collection of Miles’s Third Great Quintet, the “Lost” Band of 1968-1970 with Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette at their peak (they were never recorded in the studio). The album captures the short-lived quintet in three separate concert settings, starting with two full-length (one hour-plus) sets at the Antibes Jazz Festival in France, in Stockholm as part of “The Newport Jazz Festival In Europe,” and completed with a stunning 46-minute performance at the Berlin Philharmonie, filmed in color.

The first volume Legacy’s Miles Davis bootleg series offered audio and video evidence of his second great quintet playing the Newport Jazz Festival in Europe in 1967. Acclaim from critics and fans was universal. This second entry, Live in Europe 1969: Bootleg Series, Vol. 2, showcases almost an entirely different band -- only saxophonist Wayne Shorter remains. Bassist Dave Holland, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and pianist Chick Corea made up Davis' road band, and other individuals participated in sessions for Filles de Kilimanjaro and In a Silent Way. But this quintet was never recorded as a lone studio group, making this the first officially released music from the monster "third quintet." Three discs and a DVD offer four concerts: two from Antibes and one from Stockholm are on audio discs, while a performance from Berlin is on video.

The set lists vary but offer something remarkable as a whole: The only period where Davis played music from his bebop, hard bop, modal, and electric eras on one tour. In Antibes, "Directions" opens at a furious tempo with freewheeling solos from Davis and Shorter. It morphs into "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," featuring an aggressive Holland bassline and DeJohnette's machine gun drums. There is a completely re-envisioned "Milestones" that materializes from the bass solo. Shorter and Davis play with a muscular, intense, communicative freedom that reaches its creative peak here. The rhythm section, emboldened by the front line, is wildly inventive. Corea plays an exceptionally large role.

By 1969, Davis was using not only electric guitar in the studio, but often multiple keyboard players simultaneously. Corea is everywhere as a rhythmic and harmonic counterpart, and as a visionary soloist. His chord voicings on "'Round Midnight" move from skeletal to maximal as the tune is thoroughly reinvented from its spare melody into a nearly funky modal jam with him leading the way. Highlights from the second Antibes gig include a blistering "Spanish Key," driven by Holland and DeJohnette, followed by a brief, lyrical "I Fall in Love Too Easily," preceding an angular, exciting "Masqualero," with fiery interaction between Shorter and Corea. "No Blues," a band solo showcase, gives way to a nearly shimmering swing in "Nefertiti" that unmakes itself after Shorter's solo, eventually gathering steam for a galloping group exchange before shifting to more relaxed pacing, then re-energizing along different harmonic lines.

In Stockholm, the 14-minute "Bitches Brew" is revealed to be still evolving; harmonic and rhythmic ideas are thrown into the mix minute-by-minute. "Paraphernalia" is almost free jazz. Davis' solo on set-closer "This," is risky and physically strident. The DVD offers a gorgeous, color, multi-camera shoot, with terrific sound. The band's intuitive, concentrated interaction is mesmerizing to watch. Seeing and hearing them move seamlessly -- even dramatically -- through "It's About That Time"/"I Fall in Love Too Easily"/"Sanctuary" reveals Davis' in the present viewing the past as a gateway to his musical future. It's obvious here that he freely embraced the sonic, textural, and timbral possibilities that electricity offered him in creating a more open, in-the-moment, music. Live in Europe, 1969 makes obvious that on this tour, Davis' creative vision was holistic and completely assured. These fire-breathing performances offer a band at fever pitch hearing and playing what they knew even then was a new chapter in jazz history.

"It was really a bad motherfucker," Miles Davis wrote in his autobiography of the live band he led in 1969.

Track listing

Disc One: July 25, 1969 at the Jazz à Juan festival, La Pinède in Juan-les-Pins.
1.    "Introduction by André Francis"         0:27
2.    "Directions"    Joe Zawinul    6:00
3.    "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down"    Miles Davis    9:17
4.    "Milestones"    Miles Davis    13:45
5.    "Footprints"    Wayne Shorter    11:44
6.    "Round Midnight"    Thelonious Monk, Cootie Williams, Bernie Hanighen    8:51
7.    "It's About That Time"    Joe Zawinul, Miles Davis    9:30
8.    "Sanctuary"    Wayne Shorter    4:15
9.    "The Theme"    Miles Davis    0:53
Total length:    1:05:42

Disc Two: July 26, 1969 at the Jazz à Juan festival, La Pinède in Juan-les-Pins.
1.    "Introduction by André Francis"         0:26
2.    "Directions"    Joe Zawinul    6:17
3.    "Spanish Key"    Miles Davis    10:36
4.    "I Fall in Love Too Easily"    Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne    2:54
5.    "Masqualero"    Wayne Shorter    8:28
6.    "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down"    Miles Davis    8:46
7.    "No Blues"    Miles Davis    13:34
8.    "Nefertiti"    Wayne Shorter    8:50
9.    "Sanctuary"    Wayne Shorter    0:53
10.    "The Theme"    Miles Davis    0:48
Total length:    1:04:11

Disc Three: November 5, 1969 at the Folkets Hus, Stockholm.
1.    "Introduction by George Wein"         0:30
2.    "Bitches Brew"    Miles Davis    14:38
3.    "Paraphernalia"    Wayne Shorter    9:19
4.    "Nefertiti"    Wayne Shorter    10:02
5.    "Masqualero" (Incomplete)    Wayne Shorter    8:02
6.    "This"    Chick Corea    6:18
Total length:    48:49

Disc Four (DVD): November 7, 1969 at the Berliner Jazztage in the Berlin Philharmonie.
1.    "Introduction by John O'Brien-Docker"         2:07
2.    "Directions"    Joe Zawinul    6:42
3.    "Bitches Brew"    Miles Davis    13:39
4.    "It's About That Time"    Miles Davis    14:09
5.    "I Fall in Love Too Easily"    Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne    3:39
6.    "Sanctuary"    Wayne Shorter    3:55
7.    "The Theme"    Miles Davis    1:11
Total length:    45:22

Personnel

    Miles Davis – trumpet
    Wayne Shorter – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone
    Chick Corea – electric piano, piano on disc three numbers 3,4 &5
    Dave Holland – bass
    Jack DeJohnette – drums