The Complete On the Corner Sessions

The Complete On the Corner Sessions
The Complete On the Corner Sessions
Box set by Miles Davis
Released	September 25, 2007
Recorded	June 1972 – May 1975; March 9, 1972; June 1, 1972; June 6, 1972; June 12, 1972; August 23, 1972; September 6, 1972; December 8, 1972; January 4, 1973; July 26, 1973; September 17, 1973; September 18, 1973; June 19, 1974; October 7, 1974; November 6, 1974; May 5, 1975
Studio	Columbia Studio E and B, New York City
Genre	Jazz-funk, jazz fusion
Length	407:13
Label	Columbia, Legacy
Producer	Teo Macero
The Miles Davis Series chronology

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	^[1]
BBC	(favorable)^[2]
Music Box	^[3]
Pitchfork Media	(9.2/10)^[4]
PopMatters	8/10^[5]
Rolling Stone	^[6]

The Complete On the Corner Sessions is a posthumous box set by American jazz musician Miles Davis, released in the US on September 25, 2007 by Columbia Records and in the UK on September 29 on Legacy Recordings.^[5] Like other Davis box sets, the included material is taken from a wider chronology of sessions than the dates which actually produced the titular album. The Complete On the Corner Sessions compiles material from 1972 through 1975 which, due to lineup changes Davis made throughout the era, features over two dozen musicians.

Columbia has released a series of eight box sets containing studio recordings from the 1950s to the 1970s. These contain material not available on other Columbia albums. Following The Complete In a Silent Way Sessions, The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions, and The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions, this release includes the funk/jazz fusion album On the Corner. His band was made up of musicians trained not only in the basics of jazz, but on the newer sounds of James Brown and Sly Stone.

The box set includes more than six hours of music. Twelve of these are previously unissued tracks. Another five tracks are previously unissued in full. They cover sixteen sessions from On the Corner, Big Fun, and Get Up With It until Davis's mid-seventies retirement. The 6-CD deluxe edition also contains a 120-page full-color booklet with liner notes and essays by producer Bob Belden, journalist Tom Terrell, and arranger/composer Paul Buckmaster as well as rare photographs and new illustrations.^[7]

Recording history

As with many of the Miles Davis boxed sets, the overall title is rather misleading. The On the Corner boxset covers three years of sessions, from March 1972 to May 1975, and contains music with different styles, concepts, approaches and personnel.

Similarly, The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions includes all of the sessions Davis recorded between August 1969 and February 1970, although the actual Bitches Brew sessions took place over just three days in August 1969.

The sessions for the 1972 album On the Corner were recorded in June and September 1972. On the Corner was scorned by established jazz critics at the time of its release and was one of Davis' worst-selling recordings. Its critical standing has improved with the passage of time; today it is seen as a strong forerunner of the musical techniques of hip hop, drum and bass, and electronic music.

Davis claimed that On the Corner was an attempt to connect with a young black audience which had largely forsaken jazz for rock and funk. While there is a discernible rock and funk influence in the timbres of the instruments employed and the overall rhythms, the album was also a culmination of sorts of the musique concrète approach that Davis and producer Teo Macero started using in the late 1960s (Macero had studied with Otto Luening at Columbia University's Computer Music Center).

Both sides of the original album On the Corner were based around simple, repetitive drum and bass grooves (the track delineations on the original album were arbitrary). Melodic parts, such as from trumpet, saxophone, guitar and keyboards, were often selectively snipped from hours of jam sessions and overlaid atop the rhythms in the editing process. These techniques were developed in the 1940s and 1950s by avant-grade composers but were uncommon in 1970s jazz and pop. Now, refined via the use of computers and digital audio equipment, such recording and editing methods are standard amongst producers of electronically-based music.

Davis also cited as inspirations during this era the contemporary composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (who was later falsely rumored to have recorded with the trumpeter in the late 1970s) and Paul Buckmaster (who played electric cello on the album and contributed some arrangements).

Content

The box set contains over three hours of previously unreleased material. On the November 6, 1974 date, guitarist Pete Cosey replaced Al Foster on drums on "Hip-Skip." Later that day, he returned to guitar for "What They Do", playing alongside Dominique Gaumont.

"Minnie" is based on the Minnie Ripperton song "Lovin' You", and is considered to have an almost commercial disco sound. It is the most mainstream-sounding track of the collection.

The Complete On the Corner Sessions also contains seven of the eight tracks that made up the 1974 double album Get Up With It. (The other track, "Honky Tonk", appears in unedited form on The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions.)

Not included in the set is the "Molester" 7" single (a different mix of "Black Satin"), although the record label is included in the booklet.

Track listing

This list is the same as the provisional one that was published in early 2007, but the CD order was swapped, some of the previously unreleased tracks were edited, and titles were given by Vince Wilburn, Davis' nephew, and Erin Davis, Miles' youngest son.

All tracks are credited to Miles Davis.

All tracks remixed by Richard King and Bob Belden are either previously unreleased or previously unreleased in full-length.

Disc one
No.	Title	Recording date	Length
1.	"On the Corner (Unedited Master)"	June 1, 1972	19:25
2.	"On the Corner (Take 4)"	June 1, 1972	5:15
3.	"One and One (Unedited Master)"	June 6, 1972	17:55
4.	"Helen Butte/Mr. Freedom X (Unedited Master)"	June 6, 1972	23:37
5.	"Jabali"	June 12, 1972	11:04

Tracks 1-5 remixed by Richard King and Bob Belden in 2007.

Sections of track 3 have been previously released on Bill Laswell's Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974 as "What If".

Disc two
No.	Title	Recording date	Length
1.	"Ife"	June 12, 1972	21:33
2.	"Chieftain"	August 23, 1972	14:37
3.	"Rated X"	September 6, 1972	6:50
4.	"Turnaround"	November 29, 1972	17:16
5.	"U-Turnaround"	November 29, 1972	8:27

Track 1 taken from Big Fun. Track 3 taken from Get Up With It and previously remixed on Bill Laswell's Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974.

Tracks 4 and 5 are outtakes from the same track, sections of which were previously released on Bill Laswell's Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974 as "Agharta Prelude Dub".

Tracks 2, 4 & 5 remixed by Richard King and Bob Belden in 2007.

Disc three
No.	Title	Recording date	Length
1.	"Billy Preston"	December 8, 1972	12:33
2.	"The Hen"	January 4–5, 1973	12:55
3.	"Big Fun/Holly-wuud (Take 2)"	July 26, 1973	6:32
4.	"Big Fun/Holly-wuud (Take 3)"	July 26, 1973	7:07
5.	"Peace"	July 26, 1973	7:01
6.	"Mr Foster"	September 17, 1973	15:14

Track 1 taken from Get Up With It and previously remixed on Bill Laswell's Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974.

Tracks 2-6 remixed by Richard King and Bob Belden in 2007.

Disc four
No.	Title	Recording date	Length
1.	"Calypso Frelimo"	Sep 17, 1973	32:08
2.	"He Loved Him Madly"	Jun 19, 1974	32:17

Both tracks taken from Get Up With It.

Track 2 has been previously remixed on Bill Laswell's Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974.

Disc five
No.	Title	Recording date	Length
1.	"Maiysha"	October 7, 1974	14:51
2.	"Mtume"	October 7, 1974	15:08
3.	"Mtume (Take 11)"	October 7, 1974	6:51
4.	"Hip-Skip"	November 6, 1974	18:59
5.	"What They Do"	November 6, 1974	11:44
6.	"Minnie"	May 5, 1975	3:53

Tracks 1 & 2 taken from Get Up With It.

Tracks 3-6 remixed by Richard King and Bob Belden in 2007.

Disc six
No.	Title	Recording date	Length
1.	"Red China Blues"	March 9, 1972	4:06
2.	"On the Corner/New York Girl/Thinkin' of One Thing and Doin' Another/Vote for Miles"	June 1, 1972	19:54
3.	"Black Satin"	June 1 and July 7, 1972	5:15
4.	"One and One"	June 6, 1972	6:09
5.	"Helen Butte/Mr. Freedom X"	June 6, 1972	23:14
6.	"Big Fun"	July 26, 1973	2:32
7.	"Holly-wuud"	July 26, 1973	2:54

Track 1 taken from Get Up With It. Tracks 2-5 taken from On The Corner. Track 3 previously remixed on Bill Laswell's Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969–1974.

Tracks 6 & 7 are the masters for a 45 single, both are taken from "Big Fun/Holly-wuud (Take 3)" -track n°4 on Disc 3-.