Miles Davis 71 Disc Box set (70 CDs, 1 DVD)*

We don't know anything that is in the box for sure at this point.

 

74. The set is rounded out with The Man With The Horn, Decoy, and You're Under Arrest.

 

Let me guess. There will be a Blu-Spec release in Japan in mini-LP sleeves.

 

Exactly. That was the point of my post. I don't understand how anyone could be making assumptions as to what will be on those discs, or even if there will be 77 of them. Let alone whether the set will be released in a high resolution format. It was just one sentence in a Rolling Stone article. Is it being reported on any of the websites devoted to Miles? I couldn't find a mention of it.

 

I just barely buy 77 CDs a year. If that number is anywhere near correct, you can certainly count me out. Even a box set in excess of 10 discs seems to me hubristic, the musical equivalent of an encyclopedia that middle-class families in the fifties used to buy in order to have lots of books on the shelves that they had no intention of reading.

 

I don't know about that. Miles is among the few jazz artists whose back catalog has been completely mined over the years. If there are still unreleased Miles Davis tunes left in the can, I would guess at this point it is for a good reason.

I agree with your second point, but hasn't Sony released box sets of almost every period of Miles career on Columbia?

 

You can be certain that whatever you do, a new remaster of "Kind Of Blue" will be released shortly after your purchase.

 

Those are the rules.

 

If there is significant overlap with the 58 discs in the metal spine/Plugged Nickel sets, this would be a tough sell to me. I figure it cost me close to $800 to acquire all of the metal spines + Plugged Nickel, so mabye $1000 isn't so bad for 77 discs? That's a huge chunk of change in one pop, though.

 

Miles had the habit of developing compositions in the studio, trying lots of different things out, and working with Teo Macero to make the final edits. Much of the best of the unreleased material has already been released on various boxes already.

I would imagine the remainder would be of interest primarily to completists and music historians.

This news is annoying for me. It confirms my suspicion that the future of jazz on the major labels is limited to a handful of big names from the past. I know it is a pipe dream, but it would be nice for Sony to find some long deleted or unreleased material by other jazz musicians that deserves the light of day rather than trying to milk the Davis catalog one more time.

 

If you cut the whole set up, it would make a huge cute collage.

 

I have read that those who have heard the master tapes say that there is a lot of very good material still unreleased.

77 CDs for someone of Miles' longevity and productivity is nothing. Like Duke Ellington, it would take hundreds of CDs to cover his career.

 

Where did you read that?

Agreed that a performer of his caliber and longevity might have 77 cds worth of material, but, as some have pointed out, most of it is released and in print. Sony has already given the Miles Davis catalog on Columbia the box set treatment.

The problem I have is that, while Sony is figuring out yet another way to milk the Miles catalog, lots of other jazz is getting deleted. Columbia was, along with Atlantic and Verve, one of the big major jazz labels in the 50s and 60s. There has to be material that is more desirable to jazz fans than unreleased outtakes from Bitches Brew, Pangea, or Man with the Horn.

 

I'm a devote fan, I have all the box sets plus all the albums that have so far not been compiled into boxes, as well as, all the SACD's (US and Japan). This one I'll have to pass on. There are only so many reissues that I need to have and I seriously doubt that there will be any new remasters of the material.

 

Ah, you have read my post on another thread that that is my intentions for the Beatles box.

 

Actually, I think that one problem is that Columbia has allowed its program of recording new albums by current jazz artists to wither away, while reissuing a lot of old material by many artists.

Bob Beldin, who produced some of the box sets, has said that there is still a lot of worthy Miles material in the vaults. I will research where his interviews were printed.

 

Yes, because your previous post was in response to something I had written.

 

Your a shrewd one Mr. Grinch.

 

I agree that is a problem, too. For too long, the majors charged way too much for new recordings, $16.95 or $18.95. And they did not market this stuff at all, except for female singers like Diana Krall. These cds often turn up a year or 2 later in used bins for $5 or less. It is not a surprise a lot of these cds did not sell well.

I want to support new artists and all that, but the full price was way too high unless it is something I absolutely had to own.

I will not be purchasing this new 77 cd box as I already own a shelf full of Miles Davis cds, including several box sets.

 

Not even if they put them in a trumpet-shaped box?

That's what I read in another thread as a possibility.

 

If this is true, very impressive!

 

I'll take your word for it.

 

I can see it now: Kind of Blu-Ray.

 

How is that too much? People didn't seem to have any problem buying tons of albums at $7 each back in the 70s; adjust for inflation and current CDs are a bargain. Heck, back in the 70s almost all the jazz albums available in Canada were US Imports at $12; by 1980 I was buying only import albums - $14.99 from the UK/Europe and $24.98 from Japan.

It seems to me that (full-price retail) music now is cheaper than it's ever been in history.


I do, however, resent the trend of making fans re-buy the SAME content over and over and over again just to get the bonus tracks. What ever happened to just issuing ONLY the previously unreleased music by itself?