Musical Selections

I had a chance to listen Miles Davis' The Complete In A Silent Way box set. This is a 3 CD set, which includes the original release in the title as well as some other stuff. For example, there are a few songs that appeared on Filles de Kilimanjaro, which I believe is the first Miles Davis release after the Second Great Quintet period. My favourite piece in the set is on the first CD called "Two Faced". Its a really long instrumental that got really subdued solos laid over top some deep bass lines and this spaced out mellow Rhodes electric piano background. Overall, the whole box set is really smooth and mellow. There is a slightly uptempo number that I'm not really into, but the rest of it is awesome. A few some summers ago one of the frat houses across the street used to play it quite a bit (the original release, not the box set). Sometimes you can find good taste in the most unexpected places. Anyway, it goes without saying that this is a classic.

I followed that up on the same day with DJ Mitsu the Beats compilation Another Roses. Only a Japanese guy could think of putting together a tribute to the Fender Rhodes electric piano. This is the actually the sequel to the first installment, which was called 28 roses. Basically, this is '70s soul jazz. Some of it is quite good, but there a few cheesy songs with vocals. I could probably do without them. If you take out the vocal songs this is actually pretty good. It would be kind of loungy, but in a good way. I think you could play this at a dinner party or cocktail party -- although there are a few tracks that have a real '70s porn soundtrack sound. The prequel is actually supposed to be a lot better than this, but I haven't added it to my collection yet.

Along the same lines I checked out a compilation called Blue Note Revisited. This is a set of remixes of old blue note releases by some prominent DJs and producers. Some examples of the contributors include, among others, DJ Cam, J Dilla and Madlib. Again its mostly a 70s soul jazz sound, with hip hop baselines and drum tracks. These remixes, or a lot, of them have an acid jazz sound to them. Again there are some cheesy vocal tracks. But there are some pretty solid compositions on here. My favourite would have to be the reworking of Grant Green's "A Time to Remember" by someone called Osunlade, who I never heard of before.

I checked out Herbie Hancock's Dedication. This is just him unaccompanied. It was only released in Japan in the mid-70s. Half acoustic, half electronic/electric. I think this is the only thing I've listened to by Herbie Hancock that I don't like. I would have to say its like a Keith Jarrett album.

I continued to nibble on John Coltrane's Complete Prestige Box Set. No complaints.

I got my hands on an advance copy of Madlib's Beat Konducta Volume 3-4, it comes out next week some time. This has got an indian/south east asian feel to it -- both in the samples of the vocal snippets and the music. All of that is laid on top of his drum patterns and bass lines. It's a bunch of short compositions, 1-2 minutes in length -- J Dilla Donuts-style (or like his brother's recent release). I really liked this. It's got a bit of a different sound to it compared to most of what's out three today, but it's really listenable.


The Trojan Upsetter Box set is the mellowest thing I listened to this week. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Upsetters, they are noteworthy because they were Lee Perry's house band. So there are lot of Lee Perry Tacks on it, as well as other reggae notables who recorded with the Upsetters, e.g., Bob Marley, Augustus Pablo, along with more obscure names. These aren't dubs though, so there have a little more lift to them because of the vocals. Still pretty chilled out though.