Back in stock: Funk Soul & Jazz

Review: Miles Davis's Seven Steps to Heaven album came in 1963 and was recorded in two different studios at a vital time in his career. It was the first new work in a year (back then he had released thick and fast since debuting in 1950) and can be rightly thought to be the first time his second great quintet really came together and showed their mettle. The album got two Grammy nominations and is also noted for being the last time Davis mixed up standards with original works. It's one of his most expressive and well-played oeuvres. This special edition reissue has been remastered from the original analogue master tapes so sounds of the highest quality and is backed with detail, tone and definition.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight surface mark on the record sleeve***


April 10, 1970. Miles Davis, fresh from his Jack Johnson sessions and with a new face in the band, soprano saxophonist Steve Grossman, take the stage at San Francisco's Fillmore West and set about sparking a revolution in jazz by fusing it with rock and funk elements. Captured on Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West, this performance is one for the agesifull of explosive improvisation, raw energy and a palpable sense of transformation. The album, finally reissued on vinyl after years of being locked away in Japan, is a time capsule of a moment in jazz history where tradition was discarded and a new frontier was being built. With his usual crewiGrossman, Chick Corea on keys, Dave Holland on bass, Jack DeJohnette on drums, and Airto Moreira on percussioniDavis steered the ship into turbulent, unpredictable waters. It's all about the groove, the shifts in rhythm, and the untamed trumpet blasts that echo through the room like firecrackers. Tracks like 'Miles Runs the Voodoo Down' - from the milestone Bitches Brew album, which had come out a mere month before - and 'It's About That Time' tear apart the old jazz playbook, plunging deep into rock territory while still holding on to the open-ended freedom of improvisation. This is the raw, unfiltered jazz that would come to define the electric period of Davis' caree - a live-wire snapshot of a jazz legend finding new possibilities in real-time.

Review: Miles Davis' On the Corner was released in 1972 and was initially dismissed by jazz purists for its unconventional style but over time its visionary approach has been rightfully given the respect it deserves. Davis' boldest and most controversial album in a discography full of them, On the Corner shifted jazz's focus to groove and bass-heavy funk and reshaped the genre and pioneering techniques that anticipated remix culture and electronica by over a decade. This special pressing, sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, enhances the record's deep basslines and intricate studio techniques to offer a vivid and immersive listening experience that underscores its groundbreaking influence.