Exposé Online banner

Exposé Online

Not just outside the box, but denying the existence of boxes.
Covering music from the fringes since 1993.

Reviews

Miles Davis — On the Corner
(Columbia CK 63980, 1972/2000, CD)

by Mike McLatchey, Published 2016-03-03

On the Corner Cover art

McLatchey's Second Tier

It's strange when you consider it but the music Miles was putting out live around this time didn't really have that much to do with this album, which came out in 1972, except as raw material. I'm not sure there are descriptions or adjectives that can fully describe just how deep and dirty the grooves on this album are, in fact this might be the farthest Miles ever went outside jazz. Even the On the Corner sessions themselves seem to be a different breed entirely, but Miles managed to take those recordings and make yet another singular masterpiece in the studio, tying together bits of suites into funky brilliance. After this album Miles would become a lot more minimalist in approach and you'd see a lot more activity where the band vamps around a chord or theme and a lot of the movement occurs on the rhythmic level. However this one's very memorable when it comes to thematic stuff, almost as much as the grooves themselves. To me this is probably my second favorite Miles album after Bitches Brew, when it goes on, it's hard to accomplish anything else and impossible to stay still.

Filed under: Reissues, 2000 releases, 1972 recordings

Related artist(s): Bennie Maupin, Jack DeJohnette, Billy Hart, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Dave Liebman

 

What's new

These are the most recent changes made to artists, releases, and articles.