|
''Agharta'' is a live double album by American jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis. It was recorded on the afternoon of February 1, 1975, at one of two concerts Davis performed at the Osaka Festival Hall in Japan; the evening show produced his 1976 live album ''Pangaea''. He performed with his septet—flautist and saxophonist Sonny Fortune, bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Al Foster, percussionist James Mtume, guitarist Reggie Lucas, and Pete Cosey, who played guitar, synthesizer, and percussion. The concert was recorded by Sony Records under the supervision of Teo Macero, who produced ''Agharta''. The album's four seemingly unstructured segments emphasize the playing of Davis' sidemen rather than his own trumpet and eschews both melody and harmony in favor of a combination of riffs, crossing polyrhythms, and funk-oriented grooves for soloists to improvise throughout. The evolving nature of their improvisations led to the widespread misunderstanding that the music had no compositional basis. ''Agharta'' was first released in Japan by CBS/Sony in August 1975 after Davis had retired. Sony's Japanese division suggested its title, Agharta, which is a mythological subterranean utopia. Davis asked Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo to design the artwork, which depicts the cityscape of an advanced civilization and draws on both Eastern subterranean myths and Afrofuturism. An alternate cover was produced for the album's 1976 release in North America by Columbia Records. Although ''Agharta'' was widely panned by critics upon its release, the album has since received retrospective acclaim as an important and influential jazz-rock record. Its abrasive music and Cosey's innovative playing influenced a generation of young musicians, including those in the British jazz scene. The album was reissued by Columbia Records in 1991, and in 2009, it was remastered as a part of Sony Legacy's ''Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection''. == Background == After the release of his studio album ''Get Up with It'' and his poor showing in year-end magazine polls, Davis had felt that he was losing touch with audiences and listeners by the end of 1974. He subsequently embarked on his first tour of Japan in 10 and a half years. Between January 22 and February 8, 1975, he played 14 concerts to capacity crowds in large-hall venues and earned enthusiastic reviews. Japanese critic Keizo Takada praised Davis' band as "magnificent and energetic", and wrote that he "must be ''the'' genius of managing men and bringing out their hidden talent. He played his music with his band just as Duke Ellington did with his orchestra." At the time of his February 1 concert at Osaka Festival Hall, Davis was experiencing severe pain from his left hip, which had been operated on almost 10 years earlier. He had been sick with pneumonia throughout the three-week tour of Japan and had a bleeding ulcer that grew worse, while his hip occasionally and unpredictably slipped out of its socket. During the tour, he was unable to work his wah-wah and volume pedals because of the pain in his legs, so he would go down on his knees to press them with his hand. To relieve his pain and continue performing, Davis used codeine and morphine, smoked, and drank large quantities of Heineken beer, and was able several times to perform two concerts in one day, as he did at Osaka Festival Hall. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Agharta (album)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|