Miles Davis - Live-Evil (1981 Japanese CBS/Sony 2LP Vinyl LP)

Miles Davis - Live-Evil | 2LP - 1981 Japanese CBS/Sony pressing (28AP 2153~4, Big Jazz Fusion series)

By late 1970 Miles Davis had built one of the fiercest electric bands he ever led: Gary Bartz on saxophones, Keith Jarrett on electric organ, Michael Henderson holding down a heavy funk bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums and Airto Moreira on percussion. Over four nights that December they played the Cellar Door, a small club in Washington, and on the last night John McLaughlin sat in on guitar. Most of Live-Evil comes from that final set. Teo Macero then took the tapes back to New York and did what he did best, splicing the live music together with shorter studio pieces cut earlier in 1970, among them three gentle Hermeto Pascoal miniatures and a passage featuring Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul, cutting and rearranging until the double album felt like one continuous, restless thing. The live stretches are ferocious. Henderson's bass locks into a groove and stays there while Bartz, Jarrett and McLaughlin pile on over the top.

Live-Evil sits at the heart of Miles's electric run, between Bitches Brew and On the Corner, and it is as much Teo Macero's record as anyone's, proof of how far the studio could reshape live jazz into something new. The title is a palindrome, and Mati Klarwein's cover, by the artist behind Bitches Brew too, pairs a painting of life on the front with its dark mirror on the back. Gary Bartz has called this group one of the last great Miles bands, and its standing has only grown.

This is the 1981 Japanese double LP on CBS/Sony, catalogue 28AP 2153~4, part of the label's Big Jazz Fusion series, with Japanese liner notes by Yozo Iwanami.