Music Arcades: Miles Davis: On the Corner

On the back of this 2000 re-issue, the sleeve notes begin, "Twenty eight years after its initial release on LP… On the Corner remains, hands down, the single most controversial album in the vast… canon of Miles Davis." Something about that smacks of hyperbole to me. Mainly the claim of controversy which is promotional-copy code for exciting, challenging, new, different — and therefore deserving of your attention. When a new Hollywood film is tagged as controversial, it's usually about as challenging to the status quo as, well, Status Quo. Just about nothing, I would argue, remains controversial from one generation to the next — and it's now 37 years since the release of On the Corner. We've already had Pangaea and Agharta on Music Arcades, and, yes, they were released a couple of year after On the Corner, but from this distance they all kind of form a piece. Hindsight again; it changes everything.

The more interesting sleeve note is inside the CD booklet and defines exactly what distinguishes On the Corner from the live recordings of Pangaea and Agharta. Bob Belden writes:

On the Corner was the last heavily edited Miles Davis recording. Teo [Macero] would change the shape of the music with simple things; starting the edit early, giving the impression off [sic] some odd-metered phrase; looping solo phrases so that one would feel the presence of melody; and creating a 45-rpm single that was edited from the master differently from the LP.

In that respect, the album that On the Corner most resembles (and most influenced) in this month's selection is John Wall's.