ALBUM REVIEW: Miles Davis - On the Corner

    Miles Davis had spent the beginning of the decade pushing jazz fusion forward - in 1970, he released the monumental Bitches Brew, a sprawling double album that pushed the genre into the zeitgeist while simultaneously becoming Davis' most successful release. The following year's Jack Johnson soundtrack was equally as brilliant, if less flashy, and the chaotic energy of Live/Evil was a harrowing collection of Davis at his best live at the Cellar Door. With the success, though, came heavy criticism from the jazz community, many of whom accused Davis of "selling out". By 1972, though, Davis was influenced by more than just rock music - funk artists like James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone, electronic composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, and the avant-garde jazz of Ornette Coleman all crept into a dense and eclectic 54-minute album that Davis was hoping would connect with younger black audiences. The result was an unmitigated disaster; poor marketing on Columbia Records' behalf left the album to rot on store shelves, and the critics that did hear it spared no mercy in ripping it apart as a grotesque and noodling abomination that was called "the most vilified and controversial album in the history of jazz" less than a month after it was out. So that begs the question: what the hell is up with On the Corner?

    Well, even I wasn't sure what to make of it when I first sat down and took in the scale of the album - I must have asked the all too frequent question of "what the hell?" a good amount of times when listening. Before you make any assumptions, it wasn't out of derision but out of curiosity that I asked that question so many times. Even in comparison to the adventurous work of Davis' previous fusion albums, On the Corner is out there - so far out that it's almost in. One thing that's almost immediately obvious is the influence of funk on the album with the relentless nature of the groove and the distinct bass playing of one Michael Henderson who keeps up a loose and undeniably funky bass style throughout the entire album. It all serves to give us the album's main form of improvisation - it's more in the rhythm than it is the instruments, and various percussive elements are brought in and back out in the sea of chaos unfolding, from a persistent tabla on much of the record to the percussive jabs from John McLaughlin's guitar playing, it makes for a rather dense sea of musical ideas, made even richer with the host of musical influences previously mentioned. Ornette Coleman's free jazz and concept of harmolodics infuses the album with a chaotic nature, further emphasized by the contrast of these moments with deliberate minimalism at points. Throw in hints of Indian music with sitar and tablas, and you have a certifiable menagerie of sounds and ideas that's nothing short of whole chaos.

    To think the album is only four songs long, and two of those songs are around the 20-minute mark. I think there are few compositions like the hulking opening statement of "On the Corner / New York Girl / Thinkin' One Thing and Doin' Another / Vote for Miles", which is so immediately indicative of what's to come - beginning right in the middle of a take with the harsh noise that greets you is almost brilliant in many ways. Both Jack DeJohnette and Billy Hart do drumming across this album, and they tear it up from start to finish together - by my guess, they play drums in tandem with each other, which only adds to the layered insanity of what you're hearing on this album. It's almost hard to break this album down into separate tracks because it truly does play like a singular idea and vision, and likewise the album is stronger as a whole than the sum of its parts - three of the four tracks are based on very similar jams and grooves. It's such a thick wall of sound, and frankly I still have a hard time deciding where the jazz is on this album - and yet it's absolutely a jazz record. Davis' trumpet is almost unrecognizable amidst the chaos, and not just because he doesn't play it all too much (the organ is his main baby here). His wah-wah pedal trumpet is such a bizarre and yet brilliant idea. The album wanted to, in some way, have that homogeneous feel - the album was initially pressed without instrument credits as a means to deliberately throw off critics and make them ask what exactly they are hearing (I know I was asking that) Perhaps that's the best way to summarize what exactly is being played - it's a blob of jazz-funk-rock-fusion that's all insane and yet all brilliant at the same time.

    It's not necessarily a surprise to me as to why On the Corner garnered such a visceral reaction when it first came out - something that's this different this suddenly is bound to alienate and generate strong emotion. Even still, I can't help but agree with others that the critics were wrong on this one, because there isn't another jazz album I've ever heard that sounds a thing like On the Corner. It's so dense and low and forward thinking in so many aspects that it still leaves me at a bit of a loss, even after I've gotten out of the groove. It's a testament to Davis' omnipresent desire to challenge what jazz could be, and he pushed himself to the limits on this release to mind-shattering highs. It must be heard to be believed - what are you waiting for?

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to On the Corner.