Reconsidering Miles Davis Live at the Fillmore East (1970) in light of Miles at the Fillmore (2014)
The release of unedited live recordings by Miles Davis’s 1960s Quintet and more recently, his first electric “Lost” Quintet has reopened the discussion about his landmark studio recording “Bitches Brew.” My upcoming book treats the evolving history of that latter ensemble and places the studio recording in that context (as opposed to treating the band in light of the studio recording). Sony’s release of the unedited recordings from the June 1970 Fillmore East shows (of what was by that point the MD Septet) is a treasure trove for people interested in the topic. It also sheds much light on Teo Macero’s methods in addressing the concert recording. What I hear in the new release, particularly in contrast with the original “live” recording confirms my thesis that much can be learned by placing the work of that band in the context of the highly exploratory musical world spawned in part by Ornette Coleman, which includes Circle and the Revolutionary Ensemble.
In the 1970 release Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East Teo Macero sought to craft a four-sided double LP from four nights of sets. Within the available twenty- to twenty-five minutes per side, Macero offers a cross section of the compositions performed during the stand. “Wednesday Miles” and “Thursday Miles” begin with the usual set-openers, the rapid-paced “Directions,” the slower tempo, “The Mask,” and then “It’s About That Time,” which was a vehicle for freely combining vamp-based playing and open improvisation. Most of the sets conclude with “Bitches Brew” and “The Theme.” “Thursday Miles” includes just the first three tunes. “Friday Miles” and “Saturday Miles” focus on the second portion of the nightly sets, beginning with “It’s About That Time” the only constant across all four LP sides (“Bitches Brew” appears on three) and continuing with the ballads “I Fall in Love Too Easily” and “Sanctuary”, concluding on “Bitches Brew,” plus on “Saturday Miles,” “Willie Nelson.” The brief “The Theme” forms a coda to conclude every evening’s set, as was Miles Davis’s general practice.
With the March 2014 release of the complete unedited recordings of the four shows, Miles at the Fillmore, it is now possible to closely examine Macero’s choices and assess the nature of his enterprise as editor and producer. From this point, Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East (1970) will be abbreviated LFE1970, and Miles at the Fillmore (2014) MF2014.
In assembling LFE1970, Macero placed at the center of each set an extensive, albeit shortened version of two tunes per evening, using short clips of the other tunes to offer contrast or provide segues between the lengthier segments. The only full tracks are “The Mask” on “Thursday Miles” and “Bitches Brew” and “Sanctuary” on “Friday Miles.” In contrast, “Directions” is shortened from its original ten-plus minutes to 2 ½ and 5 ½ minutes. Thursday night’s “Spanish Key,” unusual in its presence on the road and as a rare encore, doesn’t appear in Macero’s edited version. Miles used the brief ballads “I Fall in Love Too Easily” and “Sanctuary,” slightly compacted by Macero, as a change of pace between tunes that were improvisationally free-wheeling and often faster (with the exception of “The Mask” and when Miles slowed it down midstream, “Directions”). A recent addition to the set list, “Willie Nelson” closes out the unedited recording (plus “The Theme” forming a coda), with a shortened version ending “Saturday Miles.”
Steve Grossman’s saxophone solos are retained on “Directions,” “The Mask” and “It’s About That Time” (“Wednesday Miles” and “Friday Miles”), “The Mask” (“Friday Miles”), and “Willie Nelson (“Saturday Miles”), with just ten seconds of his solo retained in Thursday’s “Its About That Time.” Grossman’s saxophone solos are removed entirely from “Bitches Brew” on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; and from “Directions” and “The Mask” on Thursday (with the slice trace noted remaining in “Its About That Time”). His most extensive presence is his solo on “The Mask” on Friday and “Willie Nelson” on Saturday, both of which are unedited. Grossman also appears on flute as part of a collective improvisation on “It’s About That Time” on “Wednesday Miles” and “Thursday Miles.”
Macero’s focus is on beat-driven performances (although if this were his sole focal point, the inclusion of Friday’s “Directions” would have pushed the balance further in this direction; the same would be true of Saturday’s version, also not included, although the dual keyboard solos from 6:26-9:10 display parallel play as much as soloing within a strict meter). Miles Davis’s own solos, changes of pace between tunes, with some (but limited) allowance for the open improvisation that increasingly dominated the band’s appearances. These sonic excursions extended what had become a regular feature of the nightly Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette free-for-alls, now with the addition of Keith Jarrett on electronically processed electric organ. The improvisations often appeared in the midst of a tune, with Miles Davis off stage. They were generally highly textural, moving in and out of tempo and intonation, speeding up and slowing down in tempo, and featuring rapid-fire cascading runs and intricate interconnectivity between players. The extent of the band’s inclination towards open improvisation and changing tempos was more limited on Macero’s splicing block than in the actual live performances, generally retained but abridged in “It’s About That Time” and “Bitches Brew.” Had Macero decided to include “The Mask” (Friday, only on the unedited recordings) it would have provided additional support for the flexibility with which the band moves between open and more conventionally structured improvisation (the keyboard solos tend towards the former).
Macero’s approach to the band’s proclivity on stage to suddenly change tempo or to substantially depart from strict tempo is paradoxical. While he limits what he retains of these features from the unedited performances, he recreates semblances of them in his most heavily edited—or maybe one could say most compositionally-shaped—versions of the shows, “Wednesday Miles” and “Thursday Miles.”
One of the biggest surprises, comparing Macero’s edits with the newly released full sets, is the similarities in approach between the studio version of “Bitches Brew” and its appearance closing out “Friday Miles.” In both cases, an opening section is constructed in post-production by repeating a small unit of material, deleting short segments of the performance, and then repeating the entire constructed section. The result is a whole with a more clearly discernable form yet one that no longer represents the ad hoc spontaneity of the band’s live performances. Listeners have long come to expect the use of post-production as a compositional device for studio recordings, yet there is much dissonance in the idea of its use in something labeled a live performance.
The single performance of the four nights that would best present Miles Davis as a beat-driven, funk-vamp focused, or maybe even jazz-rock pioneer, is “Spanish Key,” played as a Friday night encore. It is not included in LFE1970. It is a rocking, buoyant performance. If there was a single danceable work during these Fillmore East concerts this would have been it (despite the metric and tonal breakdown at the end of Grossman’s solo at 4:42 and continuing through the seven-minute mark with an even more abstract dual keyboard plus Moreira trio). The open improvisation is met with strong audience applause.
More details? I’m hoping to include comparative detailed descriptions of each track in the appendix to my upcoming book, tentatively titled “Revolutionary Ensembles” (University of Chicago Press, anticipated 2015)
Bob Gluck's Blog 
Stimulating analysis & great post, Bob. Can’t wait for the book. [btw, with the release of the October, 1970 Fillmore West show, would be interested in your take on this-I had an old early ’90’s Italian bootleg, and remember it as a thrilling MD performance. It was appended to another June, ’71 German concert, in which Miles appears to solo over a pre-recorded trumpet track-the only time I’ve ever heard this. True?]
Thanks! I really don’t know the answer to your question. I can look through the recordings I have, but this doesn’t really seem likely.