Beth, I Hear You Loud and Clear: A Fictional Origin Story of KISS’ Best Selling Single

in Comedy, Life, Music | May 3rd, 2013

A cou­ple of days ago, Mick Fleet­wood told NPR that a band’s great­est hits belong to its fans “to be rein­ter­pret­ed and cre­ate a back­drop for parts of their lives.”

With that in mind, who among us has not relat­ed … or yearned for the boyfriend or girl­friend that might allow us to relate to Peter Criss’ chart-top­ping “Beth”? The pow­er bal­lad went gold for Criss’ band KISS in 1976, and has reigned as an ear worm on Clas­sic Rock sta­tions ever since:

Beth, I hear you call­in’ 

But I can’t come home right now 

Me and the boys are playin’ 

And we just can’t find the sound.

Close your eyes and visu­al­ize poor Beth, alone in her neg­ligee on that giant bed, the scent­ed can­dles gut­ter­ing in sad recog­ni­tion that art always comes first for a soul­ful dude like Pete.

Now open them wide for the alter­nate and extreme­ly spir­it­ed take above. This ver­sion gives us Beth’s side, com­pli­ments of writer Bob Win­ter, direc­tor Bri­an Bil­low of Anony­mous Con­tent, and actress Lil­li Bird­sell, MILF-ing it up to vin­tage per­fec­tion as she jug­gles the kids and a meat­loaf in the oven. Rock­star hus­bands’ salaries aside, Bird­sel­l’s Beth is the embod­i­ment of the red-blood­ed female mul­ti­tasker pop­u­lar­ized by the Enjoli com­mer­cial of the same peri­od. The news that her hus­band “can’t” come home right now is met not with a tear, but a hilar­i­ous­ly flat “What?” (I loved how it took sev­er­al rep­e­ti­tions for the lyri­cal hook to reg­is­ter with her.)

I was root­ing for this Beth to pull a Thel­ma and Louise, load­ing the twins into the Coun­try Squire and dump­ing them at the stu­dio for their father to deal with. Sad­ly, our hero­ine is no match for years of built-up fan inter­pre­ta­tions. Guess Bet­ty Drap­er’s not the only pret­ty woman doomed to sip her din­ner as she sto­ical­ly ignores both chil­dren and part­ner’s emp­ty plate.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day has­n’t even start­ed to think about what’s for din­ner tonight, so quit ask­ing. Fol­low her at @AyunHalliday

Watch D.O.A., Rudolph Maté’s “Innovative and Downright Twisted” Noir Film (1950)

in Film | May 3rd, 2013

Liv­ing and film­go­ing here in Los Ange­les, I seize every oppor­tu­ni­ty to watch Los Ange­les Plays Itself, Thom Ander­sen’s exten­sive and enter­tain­ing doc­u­men­tary on the uses and abus­es of the city through­out cin­e­ma his­to­ry. In one pas­sage, Ander­sen tracks the strik­ing­ly var­i­ous roles of George Wyman’s 1893 Brad­bury Build­ing down­town: Deckard’s apart­ment in Blade Run­ner, Mar­lowe’s office in Mar­lowe, the place where Tom meets Autumn in (500) Days of Sum­mer. “The movies dis­cov­ered the Brad­bury Build­ing before the archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ri­ans did,” the nar­ra­tion tells us. “In Chi­na Girl, it played the Hotel Royale in Man­dalay, Bur­ma. The fol­low­ing year, in The White Cliffs of Dover, it played a Lon­don mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal over­flow­ing with wound­ed sol­diers.” We then see the cli­mac­tic scene of a film called D.O.A. which, dra­mat­i­cal­ly height­ened even by the stan­dards of film noir, depicts a poi­soned man chas­ing his own mur­der­er up the stairs of the build­ing’s dark­ened but still unmis­tak­able atri­um.

“Fatal­ly poi­soned by a lumi­nous tox­in slipped into his drink at a jazz club,” so Ander­sen’s nar­ra­tor sum­ma­rizes, “Frank Bigelow has one day before dying to track down his killer, and he finds him at the Phillips Import-Export Com­pa­ny… Room 427.” Few view­ers of the doc­u­men­tary will already have seen D.O.A.; the rest sure­ly feel intrigued enough to track it down. For­tu­nate­ly, they can watch the com­plete 1950 film free online, since it fell into the pub­lic domain in 1977. Called “one of the most accom­plished, inno­v­a­tive, and down­right twist­ed entrants to the film noir genre” by the BBC’s David Wood, Hun­gar­i­an expat direc­tor Rudolph Maté’s third pic­ture has, like many of its artis­tic rel­a­tives, expe­ri­enced a respect­ful re-eval­u­a­tion since rais­ing groans from crit­ics with, among oth­er things, the claim of being “As Excit­ing­ly Dif­fer­ent As Its Title!” Salon’s Michael Sragow calls it an exam­ple of a “high-con­cept movie before its time,” one that cer­tain­ly does have more to offer you on your film noir Fri­day than just a neat build­ing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Film Noir Movies

Detour: The Cheap, Rushed Piece of 1940s Film Noir Nobody Ever For­gets

Fritz Lang’s “Licen­tious, Pro­fane, Obscure” Noir Film, Scar­let Street (1945)

100 Great­est Posters of Film Noir

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Leonard Susskind Teaches You “The Theoretical Minimum” for Understanding Modern Physics

in Physics, Stanford | May 2nd, 2013

For the past decade, Leonard Susskind, one of Amer­i­ca’s pre-emi­nent physi­cists, has taught a series of six cours­es in Stan­ford’s Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies pro­gram.  The series “explores the essen­tial the­o­ret­i­cal foun­da­tions of mod­ern physics,” help­ing life­long learn­ers (like you) attain the “the­o­ret­i­cal min­i­mum” for think­ing intel­li­gent­ly about mod­ern physics. Over the years, the Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies pro­gram (where, in full dis­clo­sure, I serve as the direc­tor) has taped the lec­tures and made them avail­able to a glob­al audi­ence on YouTube and iTunes. We’ve even burned the lec­tures onto CDs and shipped them to remote loca­tions in Afghanistan and Nepal where con­nec­tiv­i­ty is still lack­ing. This week, Susskind’s pop­u­lar lec­tures found a new home of sorts with the launch of The The­o­ret­i­cal Min­i­mum, a new web site that presents the six cours­es in a way that’s neat, clean and easy to nav­i­gate. The site also offers a short text sum­ma­ry of each lec­ture, plus relat­ed ref­er­ence mate­ri­als. You can jump into the cours­es and get start­ed on your own intel­lec­tu­al jour­ney via this list:

• Clas­si­cal Mechan­ics
• Quan­tum Mechan­ics
• Spe­cial Rel­a­tiv­i­ty and Elec­tro­dy­nam­ics
• Gen­er­al Rel­a­tiv­i­ty
• Cos­mol­o­gy
• Sta­tis­ti­cal Mechan­ics

Note: Susskind’s cours­es, and many oth­ers, also appear in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Physics Cours­es, part of our col­lec­tion of 875 Free Online Cours­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free: Richard Feynman’s Physics Lec­tures from Cor­nell (1964)

Demys­ti­fy­ing the Hig­gs Boson with Leonard Susskind, the Father of String The­o­ry

Michio Kaku Explains the Physics Behind Absolute­ly Every­thing

Leonard Susskind, Father of String The­o­ry, Warm­ly Remem­bers His Friend, Richard Feyn­man

‘Beastie Boys on Being Stupid’: An Animated Interview From 1985

in Animation, Music, Radio | May 2nd, 2013

Blank on Blank, the non­prof­it group that uses the mag­ic of ani­ma­tion to bring for­got­ten inter­views back to life, has come out with a new episode fea­tur­ing the Beast­ie Boys in their ear­ly days. “Beast­ie Boys on Being Stu­pid” (above) is built on excerpts from a 1985 inter­view with Roc­ci Fisch for ABC Radio. The three mem­bers of the group–Mike Dia­mond, Adam Horowitz and Adam Yauch–were between 19- and 21-years old at the time and had not yet released their first full-length album, Licensed to Ill. They were tour­ing with Madon­na, and just begin­ning to get a taste of the nation­al spot­light. The inter­view is infused with the Boys’ self-dep­re­cat­ing wit.

Roc­ci Fisch: “How did you get your group name, Beast­ie Boys?”

Adam “MCA” Yauch: “It’s from the good old days. We were a hard­core band.”

Mike “Mike D” Dia­mond: “Yeah, we were like–I was like what, 14?”

Adam “MCA” Yauch: “Yeah.”

Mike “Mike D” Dia­mond: “I was like, 14, 15? That’s when we made our first record. We were all going to high school at the time and that’s how we met.”

Adam “MCA” Yauch: “At the time it was the stu­pid­est name that I could pos­si­bly think of. And if you could think of a stu­pid­er name I’d prob­a­bly be pret­ty impressed now. So lay it on me: Can you think of a stu­pid­er name name than the Beast­ie Boys?”

Roc­ci Fisch: “Not real­ly.”

Adam “MCA” Yauch: “So then that answers your ques­tion right there.”

For a full tran­script, go to the Blank on Blank Web site. And for more about Blank on Blank, includ­ing three ear­li­er videos, see our April 19 post, “Ani­ma­tions Revive Lost Inter­views with David Fos­ter Wal­lace, Jim Mor­ri­son & Dave Brubeck.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fight For Your Right Revis­it­ed: Adam Yauch’s 2011 Film Com­mem­o­rates the Beast­ie Boys’ Leg­endary Music Video

Cold­play Cov­ers Fight For Your Right to Par­ty at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl: A Trib­ute to MCA

New Jazz Archive Features Rare Audio of Louis Armstrong & Other Legends Playing in San Francisco

in Archives, Music, Radio | May 2nd, 2013

Any inves­ti­ga­tion into San Francisco’s jazz hey­day of the 1950s requires a stop at the Club Hang­over. Oper­at­ed by band­leader Doc Dougher­ty on Bush Street through­out the decade, the club became a Dix­ieland jazz head­quar­ters.

Now home to an adult movie the­ater, the club is long closed. The music lives on how­ev­er in record­ings made at the time, which are now avail­able online, much of it for the first time ever, in com­plete, unedit­ed record­ings.

Using tapes pre­served by radio sta­tion KCBS, jazz broad­cast­er Dave Rad­lauer has archived KCBS broad­casts of Hang­over ses­sions from 1954–58. On-air host Bob Goern­er inter­viewed musi­cians from the KCBS sta­tion using a ded­i­cat­ed phone line that deliv­ered a sig­nal from the club on Nob Hill. Goern­er pre­served the show tapes, which are now housed in the Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty Braun Music archive.

Rad­lauer makes the archive avail­able as .mp3 files, includ­ing one par­tic­u­lar­ly his­toric jam ses­sion star­ring Louis Arm­strong. The sto­ry goes that in Jan­u­ary, 1951 Arm­strong was in San Fran­cis­co to vis­it his friend clar­inetist Pee Wee Rus­sell in the hos­pi­tal and decid­ed to throw Rus­sell a fundrais­er. He brought togeth­er a mas­ter­ful group includ­ing pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines, cred­it­ed with help­ing tran­si­tion jazz piano from stride to swing. The place was packed and $1,500 went into the kit­ty for Russell’s med­ical bills. You can lis­ten to Arm­strong’s rehearsal and per­for­mance below.

Rehearsal:

Per­for­mance:

“Fatha” Hines was quite a per­former him­self. A pop­u­lar head­lin­er, his music ranged from Dix­ieland to bop. Anoth­er favorite at the Hang­over was Mug­gsy Spanier, a cor­netist known for his emo­tion­al solos and mas­ter­ful use of the plunger mute.

These guys lived in the Bay Area: Hines was a res­i­dent of Oak­land, Spanier lived in Sausal­i­to and trom­bon­ist Kid Ory raised chick­ens for a time in Petaluma.

via Metafil­ter

Kate Rix writes about edu­ca­tion and dig­i­tal media. Vis­it her web­site: .

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Nazis’ 10 Con­trol-Freak Rules for Jazz Per­form­ers: A Strange List from World War II

10 Great Per­for­mances From 10 Leg­endary Jazz Artists: Djan­go, Miles, Monk, Coltrane & More

A Child’s Intro­duc­tion to Jazz by Can­non­ball Adder­ley (with Louis Arm­strong & Thelo­nious Monk)

David Bowie Recalls the Strange Experience of Inventing the Character Ziggy Stardust (1977)

in Music | May 1st, 2013

Oh, not anoth­er Bowie post! Oh yes, yes it is. We don’t keep our love for Bowie secret, and along with his first album in ten years comes new archival mate­r­i­al: new to us that is, and maybe to you too.

Now, if your pri­ma­ry expe­ri­ence of Bowie was through his ear­ly 70s char­ac­ter Zig­gy Star­dust—a rock opera cre­ation as much as Hed­wig or Dr. Frank-N-Furter—it would be easy to believe Bowie was Zig­gy. He inhab­it­ed the char­ac­ter so ful­ly that it’s hard to imag­ine he was play­ing a very delib­er­ate part the whole time.

But of course, he was. Zig­gy and the Spi­ders were, as Bowie says above, a “the­ater piece.” Pre­vi­ous­ly, we’ve fea­tured a doc­u­men­tary (see again below) that chron­i­cles the rise of Zig­gy Star­dust, from Bowie’s some­what obscure begin­nings to his break­out as the char­ac­ter. In the 1977 inter­view clip above from the CBC, watch Bowie, as him­self, describe the expe­ri­ence of being Zig­gy.

He talks of his influences—a mélange of kabu­ki the­ater, mime, and New York art rock (“Vel­vet Under­ground, what­ev­er”). He calls the music from Zig­gy Star­dust and the Spi­ders From Mars “a British view of Amer­i­can street ener­gy.” In ret­ro­spect, it’s easy to see the act as just that, but in the moment, Bowie’s fans believed in Zig­gy as sure­ly as they believed any­thing else. Watch, for exam­ple, as starstruck audi­ence mem­bers rap­tur­ous­ly mouth the words to “Moon­age Day­dream” in this clip from D.A. Pennebaker’s Zig­gy Star­dust film.

P
ennebaker’s film caught Bowie’s final per­for­mance as the alien rock star at London’s Ham­mer­smith in 1973. No doubt these fans were hor­ri­bly crushed when Zig­gy announced his retire­ment before the final song. But I’m sure they kept their elec­tric eye on the re-invent­ed Bowie in Berlin, a peri­od he also dis­cuss­es above, when he left L.A. for Ger­many and began work­ing with Bri­an Eno and Iggy Pop.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sto­ry of Zig­gy Star­dust: How David Bowie Cre­at­ed the Char­ac­ter that Made Him Famous

David Bowie Sings ‘I Got You Babe’ with Mar­i­anne Faith­full in His Last Per­for­mance As Zig­gy Star­dust

David Bowie Releas­es Vin­tage Videos of His Great­est Hits from the 1970s and 1980s

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Obey the Giant: Short Film Presents the True Story of Shepard Fairey’s First Act of Street Art

in Art, Film | May 1st, 2013

Street artists: you either love ’em or hate ’em. Or, to put it less blunt­ly, you either find ’em inno­v­a­tive pub­lic icono­g­ra­phers or find ’em puerile pub­lic nui­sances. I sure­ly don’t have to get into the con­tro­ver­sy of appraisal and reap­praisal that swirls end­less­ly around Eng­lish sten­cil-wield­ing satirist Banksy, but even the far less secre­tive and aggres­sive Shep­ard Fairey has detrac­tors as fer­vent as his admir­ers. Yes, I mean the Oba­ma “HOPE” fel­low, though he began launch­ing images into our zeit­geist well before any of us knew the name of the future Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. You can learn much more about his ear­ly, pre-HOPE work by watch­ing Obey the Giant, a brand new twen­ty-minute doc­u­men­tary free to watch online. Among the truths revealed: Fairey also cre­at­ed “Andre the Giant has a posse” stick­ers, those pil­lars of nineties under­ground cul­ture and results of an “exper­i­ment in phe­nom­e­nol­o­gy” that you’ve almost cer­tain­ly been spot­ting ever since.

Direct­ed by for­mer Fairey intern Julian Mar­shall, the short exam­ines the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his cre­ation of this prank­ish yet sur­pris­ing­ly long-lived cam­paign. Why appro­pri­ate the image of such a well-known pro­fes­sion­al wrestler? Why cred­it him with a posse? Why start spread­ing the word on the streets of Prov­i­dence? To address these ques­tions, Obey the Giant goes back to Fairey’s years at the Rhode Island School of Design in the late eight­ies and ear­ly nineties, when he hung out with a tight-knit group of hip-hop-lov­ing skaters, known inter­nal­ly as “the Posse,” and need­ed a sam­ple image to try mak­ing a sten­cil out of. The doc­u­men­tary, which crowd­sourced its $65,000 bud­get through Kick­starter, fea­tures a fic­tion­al­ized ver­sion of Fairey por­trayed by an actor. The move seems faint­ly rem­i­nis­cent of Banksy’s real­i­ty-ambigu­ous 2012 film Exit Through the Gift Shop, though the real Fairey does­n’t con­ceal his iden­ti­ty. He even occa­sion­al­ly turns up, so I’ve heard, at the muse­um here in Los Ange­les where my lady works — in the gift shop, as it hap­pens.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Oba­ma “Hope” Poster & The New Copy­right Con­tro­ver­sy

Shep­ard Fairey Caves In, Revis­es Occu­py Wall Street Poster

Artist Shep­ard Fairey Curates His Favorite YouTube Videos

Strik­ing Posters From Occu­py Wall Street: Down­load Them for Free

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

23 Cartoonists Unite to Demand Action to Reduce Gun Violence: Watch the Result

in Animation, Current Affairs, Politics | May 1st, 2013

The Unit­ed States has only five per­cent of the world’s pop­u­la­tion, but some­where between 35 and 50 per­cent of the world’s pri­vate­ly owned guns. Is it a sur­prise, then, that we have sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er rates of gun vio­lence?

Accord­ing to research pub­lished by the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health, homi­cide rates in the U.S. are 6.9 times high­er than they are in oth­er high-income nations. For 15- to 24-year-olds, the homi­cide rate is 42.7 times high­er. Firearm sui­cide rates are 5.8 times high­er in Amer­i­ca than in oth­er coun­tries, even though the over­all sui­cide rates are 30 per­cent low­er.

A suc­ces­sion of high-pro­file massacres–Columbine, Vir­ginia Tech, Sandy Hook–has tak­en place against a base­line of dai­ly gun deaths that rarely make the nation­al head­lines: mur­ders, sui­cides, acci­den­tal killings. Since the Decem­ber 14 mass mur­der at Sandy Hook Ele­men­tary School in New­town, Con­necti­cut, in which 20 chil­dren and six adults were gunned down by a heav­i­ly armed man, there have been well over 3,300 gun-relat­ed deaths in Amer­i­ca. If cur­rent trends con­tin­ue, gun deaths are pro­ject­ed to exceed traf­fic deaths for the first time by the year 2015.

So what is being done? At the fed­er­al lev­el, noth­ing.

Ear­li­er this month the Sen­ate not only struck down leg­is­la­tion to ban assault weapons and high-capac­i­ty gun mag­a­zines, it also struck down–at the will of a 45-mem­ber minority–a bipar­ti­son com­pro­mise to expand back­ground checks for gun buy­ers, a mea­sure sup­port­ed by 90 per­cent of the Amer­i­can peo­ple.

In response to the paral­y­sis (some would say cow­ardice) on Capi­tol Hill, a group of 23 promi­nent car­toon­ists, includ­ing Gar­ry Trudeau, Ruben Bolling, Art Spiegel­man and Tom Tomor­row, have joined forces to fight back against the gun lob­by. The car­toon (above) was orga­nized by May­ors Against Ille­gal Guns, and is nar­rat­ed by actors Julianne Moore and Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man.

“Enough. Demand action,” say Moore and Hoff­man. “As a dad, as a mom, as a hus­band, as a wife, as a fam­i­ly, as a friend. As an Amer­i­can. It’s time. We can’t back down. It’s time for our lead­ers to act right now. Demand action”

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Joan Baez Live in 1965: Full Concert

in Music, Television | April 30th, 2013

On June 5, 1965, Joan Baez played a spe­cial con­cert at the BBC Tele­vi­sion The­atre in Shep­herd’s Bush, Lon­don. Although her fame at the time was new­ly eclipsed by that of her recent­ly estranged lover Bob Dylan, Baez was very much in her prime.

The con­cert was record­ed less than a month after Dylan’s 1965 tour of Eng­land, chron­i­cled in D.A. Pen­nebak­er’s film Don’t Look Back, in which Dylan failed to invite Baez onstage despite the fact that she had intro­duced him to nation­al audi­ences in Amer­i­ca.

Baez plays sev­er­al Dylan songs in the BBC con­cert, along with oth­er folk and pop songs from her reper­toire. Includ­ed is Baez’s first hit sin­gle, her ver­sion of the Phil Ochs song “There but for For­tune,” which was released the same month in Amer­i­ca but would not come out in the UK until the fol­low­ing month. The con­cert was orig­i­nal­ly broad­cast by the BBC as two sep­a­rate half-hour spe­cials, both end­ing with the clas­sic French love song “Plaisir d’amour.” Baez’s moth­er Joan Senior, or “Big Joan” as she was called (and who died this month at the age of 100), can be seen in the back­ground at the 33:30 and 104:43 marks applaud­ing and smil­ing proud­ly. The set list for the two back-to-back pro­grams is:

1. “I’m a Ram­bler, I’m a Gam­bler”
2. “There but for For­tune”
3. “Cop­per Ket­tle”
4. “Mary Hamil­ton”
5. “Don’t Think Twice, it’s Alright”
6. “I’m Trou­bled and I Don’t Know Why”
7. “We Shall Over­come”
8. “With God on Our Side”
9. “Plaisir d’amour”
10. “Sil­ver Dag­ger”
11. “Oh Free­dom”
12. “She’s a Trou­ble­mak­er”
13. “The Unqui­et Grave”
14. “It Ain’t Me Babe”
15. “Isn’t it Grand”
16. “500 Miles”
17. “Te Ador/Ate Aman­ha”
18. “Plaisir d’amour”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Joan Baez Per­forms at Age 17

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

Bob Dylan Shares a Drug-Hazed Taxi Ride with John Lennon (1966)

Rare Miles Davis Live Recordings Capture the Jazz Musician at the Height of His Powers

in Music | April 30th, 2013

Very ear­ly in his career as a band­leader, Miles Davis devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for a too-cool per­sona on stage. Whether turn­ing his back on the crowd or walk­ing off­stage while his side­men soloed, his refusal to cater to audi­ence expec­ta­tions only enhanced his mys­tique. What­ev­er fans and crit­ics made of Miles’ seem­ing contempt—political state­ment, eccen­tric­i­ty, or daz­zling egotism—his live play­ing trans­fixed those who had the priv­i­lege to see him and con­sis­tent­ly drew the best play­ers in his­to­ry into his orbit.

The six­ties saw him at the peak of his pow­ers as a live per­former. He hit the pop charts in the ear­ly part of the decade with the 1962 two-LP set In Per­son, record­ed over two nights at the Black­hawk in San Fran­cis­co. The very next month he record­ed the Gram­my-nom­i­nat­ed Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall with an orches­tra led by Gil Evans. In 2007, a never‑before released live gem from the 1963 Mon­terey Jazz Fes­ti­val thrilled fans (lis­ten to “So What” from that record­ing above). All of these record­ings cap­ture Davis dur­ing his “tran­si­tion peri­od,” between his first and sec­ond “great quin­tets” (which fea­tured John Coltrane and Wayne Short­er on sax, respec­tive­ly).

Direct­ly above, hear a less­er-known, offi­cial­ly unre­leased record­ing from that tran­si­tion­al peri­od. Cap­tured by French pub­lic broad­cast­ing com­pa­ny ORFT, the ses­sions took place at the Juan-Les-Pins Fes­ti­val in Antibes in July 26–28, 1963, just a few months before Mon­terey. Davis is backed here by the same ensem­ble: George Cole­man on tenor sax, Her­bie Han­cock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and (then sev­en­teen-year-old) Tony Williams on drums. These record­ings rep­re­sent alter­nates and out­takes from the record orig­i­nal­ly released in ’64 as In Europe, reis­sued in 1989 as Miles in Antibes. The full track­list (below) is book­end­ed by two ver­sions of Kind of Blue open­er “So What,” and it’s inter­est­ing to com­pare these wild­ly fre­net­ic ’63 live iter­a­tions from Mon­terey and Antibes to the clas­sic of laid-back cool from the late 50s.

1. So What (July 26, 1963)

2  Stel­la By Starlight (July 26)

3. Sev­en Steps To Heav­en – Walkin’ (July 26)

4. If I were a Bell (July 28, 1963)

5. So What (July 28)

Davis’ first and sec­ond “great quin­tets” are per­haps his most-loved groups. How­ev­er, the short-lived 1963 ensem­ble above cer­tain­ly pushed him in a new direc­tion. For anoth­er piv­otal moment of tran­si­tion, watch the 1969 return to the Juan-Les-Pins Jazz Fest in the video below, which shows Davis again mov­ing in a very dif­fer­ent direc­tion, pre­sag­ing his ’70s swerves into acid rock and funk. This per­for­mance fea­tures anoth­er all-star ensem­ble, with Wayne Short­er on tenor and sopra­no sax, Chick Corea on elec­tric piano, Dave Hol­land on bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

via Past Dai­ly

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Miles Davis Sto­ry, the Defin­i­tive Film Biog­ra­phy of a Jazz Leg­end

Miles Davis and His ‘Sec­ond Great Quin­tet,’ Filmed Live in Europe, 1967

‘The Sound of Miles Davis’: Clas­sic 1959 Per­for­mance with John Coltrane

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness