Miles Davis - Kohseinenkin Hall, Tokyo 6/20/73; 7/8/73; Jazz Gala, Wiener Stadhalle 11/3/73 (DVD)

About two hours of pure 73 Miles bliss, a DVD covering some of the best of the year. The first part catches them on Japanese TV with Dave Liebman in almost unconscious form, channeling Coltrane in his prime. Watching Miles on stage recognizing which part of the court to keep the ball in is fascinating as Liebman gets solo after solo. In the second part of the DVD, what looks like a European television performance, the band is more balanced, Miles working on some very subtle, lowkey jamming with percussion moving on the periphery. When the music works to the Pete Cosey solo, it’s as if you feel every riff thrown at you. And speaking of Cosey, he works the 12-string electric to perfection at the Wiener Stadthalle, playing awesomely sloppy blues riffs, like Sharrock one minute and Ry Cooder another. The band’s groove, whether explicit or not, keeps the pulse going through all of this material. It’s also great to catch a bit of Miles playing the organ, a rare moment captured with another, a lopsided grin as he coaxes almost guitar-like crying out of the keyboard.

Spacebox - Kick Up

Mildly surprised I had never played this given my interest in early Guru Guru, I prize extremely highly the Hot On Spot/In Between release, not only for the live Guru, but also for the unreleased Uli Trepte album with members of Embryo. Kick Up shows similar levels of invention to all of this early material, from Trepte’s quirky humor to rich instrumental sections. A record that’s obviously going to be getting some mileage in these parts.

Parliament - Up for the Down Stroke

Haven’t heard this album before but am familiar with the title track and another song or two from live P-Funk material so this was pretty familiar off the bat. Never really comfortable with splitting Parliament from Funkadelic, I guess there might be more guitar solos on the Funkadelic, but the same energy is there nonetheless, the same artful attention to the groove and the humor. I can almost see the 10 from here.