Screw Columbus - I propose instead that we set aside the first Monday in every February to celebrate National Miles Davis Agharta/Pangaea Day

Celebrating European colonialism is atavistic and embarassing. Let's put the kibosh on Columbus Day, and replace it with a celebration of Agharta and Pangaea, two very intense Miles Davis concerts recorded the same day, February 1st, 1975. Agharta/Pangaea Day Observed could be the first monday in February. Everyone would drop what they're doing, get together with their neighbors and family, eat a big meal, and then play free funk all afternoon and into the night. A/P Day would be planned and anticipated weeks or months in advance. People would record their sessions and archive them like they do their family photos - even post them on the web. Bach wrote a new cantata every major Christian holiday for years on end - major musicians should be expected to record and release a monster funk jam every A/P Day. People could collect them the way people collect Christmas records. The biggest secular holidays in the US are passive and consumerist - the Superbowl, Oscar night. I wish Americans would celebrate our cultural heritage by doing something participatory and creative.

Pangaea (for some reason, Apple doesn't have Agharta)

Why, you may ask, do these two Miles records deserve that banks be closed in their honor? The Allmusic Guide's Thom Jurek says:

The band with Davis -- saxophonist Sonny Fortune, guitarists Pete Cosey (lead) and Reggie Lucas (rhythm), bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Al Foster, and percussionist James Mtume -- was a group who had their roots in the radically streetwise music recorded on 1972's On the Corner, and they are brought to fruition here.

The music here is almost totally devoid of melody and harmony, and is steeped into a steamy amalgam of riffs shot through and through with crossing polyrhythms, creating a deep voodoo funk groove for the soloists to inhabit for long periods of time as they solo and interact with one another. Davis' bandleading at this time was never more exacting or free. The sense of dynamics created by the stop-start accents and the moods, textures, and colors brought out by this particular interaction of musicians is unparalleled in Davis' live work - yeah, that includes the Coltrane and Bill Evans bands, but they're like apples and oranges anyway. Driven by the combination of Davis' direction and the soloing of Sonny Fortune and guitarist Pete Cosey, who is as undervalued and underappreciated for his incalculable guitar-slinging gifts as Jimi Hendrix is celebrated for his, and the percussion mania of Mtume, the performance on Agharta is literally almost too much of a good thing to bear. When Cosey starts his solo in the "Prelude" at the twelve-minute mark, listeners cannot be prepared for the Hendrixian energy and pure electric whammy-bar weirdness that's about to come splintering out of the speakers. As the band reacts in intensity, the entire proceeding threatens to short out the stereo. These are some of the most screaming notes ever recorded. Luckily, since this is just the first track on the whole package, Davis can bring the tempos down a bit here and there and snake them into spots that I don't think even he anticipated before that afternoon (check the middle of "Maiysha" and the second third of "Jack Johnson" for some truly creepy and beautiful wonders). While Pangaea is awesome as well, there is simply nothing like Agharta in the canon of recorded music. This is the greatest electric funk-rock jazz record ever made -- period.

People would complain on this tour that Davis played with his back to the audience a lot -- Lester Bangs went so far as to say he hated his guts for it. But if you were this focused on creating a noise so hideously beautiful from thin air, you might not have time to socialize either.

The collective readers of Allmusic aptly describe these records as:

Swaggering
Spacey
Atmospheric
Dramatic
Intense
Nocturnal
Fiery
Provocative
Urgent
Uncompromising
Stylish
Paranoid
Late Night
Introspection
The Creative Side
Scary Music

What do you say, America? If it takes off, I have another proposal. On March 5th and 6th, 1970, Miles' band played at the Fillmore East, sharing a bill with Steve Miller and Neil Young. Both of Miles' facemelting sets and the highlights of Neil and Crazy Horse have recently been given classy commercial releases, and both records are highly recommended. If we need more federal holidays based on jazz and rock, and I feel strongly that we do, 3/5 and 3/6 would be excellent candidates.

Miles at the Fillmore

Neil and Crazy Horse at the Fillmore

© ethan hein 2007 | back to memebase | back to top