Search - Miles Davis :: Highlights From Plugged Nickel

This is enough. No need to buy the box set.

Wolfgang Kuhnle | Germany | 07/07/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"You have to be a real lover of Miles Davis's 1960s quintet to buy the multi-CD box of the Plugged Nickel concerts. For me this one CD was more than enough. I haven't listened to it very often so far, because I did not find the improvisations very appealing. The titles are all standards (Milestones, Yesterdays, So What, Stelly By Starlight, Walkin', 'Round About Midnight), and the quintet is very famous for its records like E.S.P., Miles Smiles, Sorcerer and Nefertiti. Still, Plugged Nickel does not work for me."

Not for Everyone

Tom | Toronto,, Ontario, Canada | 03/22/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Plugged Nickel sets seem to bring out very strong reactions in people. Some believe the music to be among the most complex and creative of Davis' career; others find it poorly executed and often meandering. Few reviewers note that when Davis recorded this material, he was still recovering from a grueling eight month lay off due to having his hip replaced in the spring. He was still a long, long way away from anything approaching top form technically when he played the Plugged Nickel sets, but he made a virtue out of necessity. To me, lacking resources that he probably once took for granted, he finds another way to play that does not shy away from his limitations but transforms them into fresh ideas and challenging experimentations, reconfiguring his music into a kind of abstract painting in the process. Davis' statements of theme and solos are all angles and fragments and shards, with familiar shapes and patterns often only barely discernible, if at all. Not easy listening by any means, but fascinating and compelling in its own way nonetheless. This is not Miles Davis for everybody, but it is still remarkably acute and probing music."

Not really Cookin'

Joe Pierre | Los Angeles, CA United States | 03/06/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The set-up here is about as great as you could hope for, with Miles' dream-team "second great quintet" (Davis, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams) blowing their hearts out in a live date at the Plugged Nickel in 1965, recorded just after their definitive studio album, "ESP" earlier in the year. This disc is a "greatest hits" summary of their 2-day, 7-set, 39-song stint at the Chicago nightclub, with 6 selected numbers, mostly throwback re-vistations from the "first great quintet's" repertoire: 1) Milestones, 2) Yesterdays, 3) So What, 4) Stella by Starlight, 5) Walkin', and 6) 'Round About Midnight. Remastering has restored each track's sound quality and missing parts, and the total playing time nearly maxes out the capacity of a single CD at almost 80 minutes of music.



That's the good news. I'm going to have to agree with some reviewers here that, despite the potential for greatness, this album just doesn't sound like top-notch Miles to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Miles fan, including his classic band with Coltrane, the quintet featured here, and (almost) everything up through and including "In a Silent Way," "Pangaea/Agharta," and even Miles' cover of 'Time After Time' near the end of his career. I will admit that I find some of the "second great quintet's" era stuff a bit overly impressionistic and sedate, something I blame Wayne Shorter for, as on the "Nefertiti" album, or for that matter on Shorter's own "Speak No Evil" (I'm no Shorter hater either -- much of his tenor work is fantastic, and his recent "Beyond the Sound Barrier" is a great concert). And so, you'd think I'd love the Plugged Nickel music, since it's devoid of processed studio polish, and the extended playing times on these tracks (almost all over 10 minutes each) give room for some serious free-soloing. So, what's the problem? For me, it's Miles' playing. He foregoes the mute throughout, and so things are a bit more raw, but overall his tone sounds weak and frequently broken up by the sputtering of little spit bubbles through the mouthpiece. And while at least this part is probably intentional, his timing just seems off in places. Of course, it's sacrilege to say this, and I can see the "not helpful" reviews coming already, but listen to the album and tell me I'm wrong. As evidence, notice how Shorter, who frequently has the second solo behind Miles' opener, sounds imminently stronger and in control when he takes over.



As far as the tunes themselves, 'Milestones' is a solid rendition played at a brisk tempo, with a good solo opening by Miles, followed by Shorter, and then Herbie near the end. 'Yesterdays,' is rather more meandering and spare, with the same solo ordering as on Milestones, but it's somewhat lacking in energy for me. 'So What' picks up the pace, featuring some fiery solos, especially by Shorter in the middle, whose playing charges up the crowd. It's a high point on this album. Tony Williams also gets a solo on this one, before Herbie again finishes things off. 'Stella..." starts out balladic, but there's a directionless quality about Miles' playing, with the slow parts sounging particularly crackly and bubbly, and the fast parts limited to blustery trilling. At the end, he segues directly into 'Walkin,' and his tone improves for what is probably his best playing on this set and some interesting shifts in tempo. Shorter then steps in and takes over the show, with Herbie rounding things out with some solo space as well. And finally there's ''Round About Midnight'... one of my favorite Miles tunes, but here it just doesn't work for me. Miles starts out at a snail's pace, kind of lagging behind the rhythm section (the liner notes describe this as "out of tempo, at [a] daring crawl"), and maybe he's trying to bend the notes, but often it just sounds like he's having embouchure problems. Sometimes he seems to be on the verge of bursting into an ascending line, only to get hung-up and unable to hit the next note. At the 3:20 mark, it's the point in the tune where the solo ends and the band starts to join in with the vamp, but again Miles just stumbles over the high notes here. You'd think with a greatest hits album, they would have chosen to leave this one out, even if it was the only version of 'Round Midnight they played during the gig.



Not that this is all bad -- the band's playing is top-notch, with Tony Williams riding the cymbals and keeping things steady and propulsive, Shorter in fine form throughout, Carter as anchor-man, and Herbie solid, if a bit restrained and woefully under-miked. The more up-tempo numbers, 'So What' and 'Walkin'' are brash and adventurous, and even the okay tunes are way better than most of what passes as jazz today, and it's a lot of music on one disc. I still pull it out from time to time, though I'm always just a bit disappointed. If you disagree with me on Miles' performance here, then please do go ahead and purchase the entire 8-CD set.

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