Miles Davis—Live at Montreux: Highlights 1973-1991

By the time Miles Davis first appeared at Switzerland's Montreux Jazz Festival in 1973, the straight-ahead acoustic style that established his reputation on recordings like Kind of Blue was long behind him. Davis had now fully embraced the electric sound, with guitars and keyboards galore; even his horn is treated with wah-wah and other effects. What's more, over the course of the first eight of these 10 performances (the final two find Davis revisiting the 1960 classic Sketches of Spain, with Quincy Jones conducting), we hear a steady progression away from harmony and melody to a sound much more reliant on rhythm. Where his earlier music was smoothly swinging, pieces like “Speak: That's What Happened,” “Code MD,” and “Jean-Pierre” are jagged, funky, and riff-based. This evolution does have its drawbacks, including a lack of dynamics and the kind of harmonic monotony that made “fusion” a dirty word. Still, there are palpably exciting tracks here, and while the musicians aren't on a par with John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock, and others from Davis' earlier groups, guitarists John Scofield and Robben Ford and saxophonists Bob Berg and Kenny Garrett turn in ferocious, fiery solos, and Miles himself is in fine form. Presented in DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and stereo, DVD extras include an interview with Carlos Santana, who waxes poetic on the Miles-ness of it all. Highly recommended. (S. Graham)