Consumer Guide Album

Miles Davis: Black Beauty [Columbia/Legacy, 1997]
Live at the Fillmore West, 1970. April 1970, that is--things moved fast in those days. Soloists' music, and hence the corniest electric Miles on record, this double-CD preserves an inkling of why the jazz-rock idea seemed so auspicious before it found form in fusion's flash and filigree. Wailing through "Directions" or blasting the blues from out "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," Chick Corea's keybs sound more audacious and grounded than they ever will again, with an uncommonly muscular Miles challenging his facility and fledgling soprano whiz Steve Grossman mimicking it. Beyond a few dollops of needless noodle, Jack DeJohnette keeps the troops in order, injecting more notes and accents than Ginger Baker on double amphetamines into a beat that rocks. A−