Jesus, there's just a ton of great sets coming out this month. Soon after I found out about the Glenn Gould 80-CD "complete" original jacket collection, I found out that Columbia/Legacy is laying yet another Miles Davis boxset on us, this time, THE COMPLETE ON THE CORNER sessions. Well, I've already read many good things and bad things about it.
Bad first. The price. They have it retailed at 140 U.S. dollars on Amazon. Fuck. Double FUCK. Is that necessary??? It's only 6 discs, so when you do the math, it's about 23 bucks a disc? C'mon.......... That's waaaaaaay too much. The next bummer which I read about is that it has the worst liner notes of any Miles Davis Box. The next bummer is that that it contains music already released. So really, there is not a great deal of new material. This collection SHOULD be called The Complete 'On The Corner' and 'Get Up With It' Sessions, because all the songs from that 1974 release are here, too. Even some stuff from Big Fun, is on here here, via the twenty-one minute epic, "Ife."Nevertheless, I still want to get this set. Great design, by the look of the pictures I've seen already (as with all the Columbia/Legacy Miles boxes). I haven't seen it in stores yet though. I'm gonna wait for the price to drop however, or a good deal on ebay. By the way, this apparently THE LAST deluxe box that they will release, so I'm a little relieved at that. I'm always thinking "What are they gonna put out next??!!!" this is it, from this label anyway. i don't think THE CELLAR DOOR SESSIONS counted as a COLUMBIA/LEGACY release, because there's no number on the set. For example, The JACK JOHNSON set was number 7, ON THE CORNER is number 8. THE CELLAR DOOR SESSIONS was released between those boxes.
Sooooo, I don't have this set yet, but I am looking forward to getting it, at which time I'll try and review it here. I do own the original CD of ON THE CORNER, but I've never owned GET UP WITH IT, nor have I heard that one, so I can guess that I've heard about 30 to 40 % of the material that this set covers. I DO know that ON THE CORNER is considered by many to be the most controversial of his career, many calling it Miles "sell-out" album at the time of its' original release. I hardly think so. This album, in addition to Miles' other albums around the same period, was the blueprint for so-called "funk jazz" that followed it and continues to this day. If you want to hear Miles "sell-out", pick up Doo Bop", one of his worst albums, but still not that bad.
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