Live Evil (Miles Davis album)

Background

Along with live recordings from the Cellar Door (edited in the studio), Live-Evil features Davis's studio recordings at Columbia's Studio B, with different personnel, on February 6 and June 3–4, 1970. Though all compositions were originally credited to Miles Davis, the studio recordings "Little Church" ("Igrejinha"), "Nem Um Talvez" ("Not Even a Maybe") and "Selim" are by Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist Hermeto Pascoal, who also played with the Davis band on these tracks. "Inamorata" means "A Female Lover".

A number of famous jazz musicians feature on the album, including Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette. One of the key musicians on the album, John McLaughlin, was not a regular member of Miles Davis's band during the time of recording. Miles called McLaughlin at the last minute to join the band for the last of four nights they recorded live at the Cellar Door, as Miles was "looking for an element he hadn't quite nailed down" on the previous nights.

Davis had originally intended the album to be a spiritual successor to Bitches Brew, but this idea was abandoned when it became obvious that Live-Evil was "something completely different".

Musician lineup on Cellar Door segments

Cellar Door Segments, December 19, 1970: "Sivad" (a blend of "Directions," a studio fragment of "Honky Tonk," and a live recording of "Honky Tonk"), "What I Say," "Funky Tonk" and "Inamorata and Narration by Conrad Roberts".

Cover artwork

The album cover was illustrated by artist Mati Klarwein. Klarwein had painted the front cover independently of Davis, but the back cover was painted with a suggestion from Davis:

"I was doing the picture of the pregnant woman for the cover and the day I finished, Miles called me up and said, 'I want a picture of life on one side and evil on the other.' And all he mentioned was a toad. Then next to me was a copy of Time Magazine which had J. Edgar Hoover on the cover, and he just looked like a toad. I told Miles I found the toad."

Record club pressings of the album simply had the album title printed on a black cover.

Critical reception

Live-Evil was released by Columbia Records in 1971 to critical acclaim. In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, Robert Palmer said "this sounds like what Miles had in mind when he first got into electric music and freer structures and rock rhythms". He called the shorter, ballad-like recordings "things of great beauty", devoid of solos but full of "stunning, bittersweet lines", while also praising each band member's soloing on the live jams: "Everybody is just playing away, there aren't any weak links, and there isn't any congestion to speak of. Miles reacts to this happy situation by playing his ass off, too". Black World critic Red Scott remarked that all of Live-Evil's songs "fuse into a perfect complement of musicians passing moods to each other". Pete Welding from Down Beat was less enthusiastic in a two-and-a-half star review, finding the live recordings characterized by "long dull stretches of water-treading alternating with moments of strength and inspiration".

The magazine's John Corbett later called Live-Evil "an outstandingly creative electric collage", while Erik Davis from Spin found the music "kinetic" and described McLaughlin's playing as "Hindu heavy-metal fretwork". Pitchfork's Ryan Schreiber believed it was "easily the most accessible of Miles Davis' late-'70s electric releases", describing its music as "at once both sexually steamy and unsettling". He said the live recordings "run the gamut from barroom brawl action-funk to sensual bedroom jazz magic, creating two hours of charged eccentricity you'll never forget". Robert Christgau said that apart from the meandering "Inamorata", the "long pieces are usually fascinating and often exciting", including "Funky Tonk", which he called Davis's "most compelling rhythmic exploration to date". He believed the shorter pieces sounded like "impressionistic experiments", while "Selim" and "Nem Um Talvez" appropriately "hark back to the late '50s". Edwin C. Faust from Stylus Magazine called Live-Evil "one of the funkiest albums ever recorded" while deeming the "somber" short pieces to be "haunting examples of musical purity—Miles enriching our ears with evocative melodies (his work on Sketches of Spain comes to mind) while the bass creeps cautiously, an organ hums tensly, and human whistles/vocals float about forebodingly like wistful phantoms".

Track listing

All songs written by Miles Davis, except where noted.

Recording details

Side One (25:20)
1. "Sivad" (15:13)
(Recorded December 19, 1970 at The Cellar Door, Washington, DC & May 19, 1970 at Columbia Studio B, New York, NY)

2. "Little Church" (3:14)
(Recorded June 4, 1970 at Columbia Studio B, New York, NY)

3. "Medley: Gemini/Double Image" (5:53)
(Recorded February 6, 1970 at Columbia Studio B, New York, NY)

Side Two (25:12)
1. "What I Say" (21:09)
(Recorded December 19, 1970 at The Cellar Door, Washington, DC)

2. "Nem Um Talvez" (4:03)
(Recorded June 3, 1970 at Columbia Studio B, New York, NY)

Side Three (25:38)
1. "Selim" (2:12)
(Recorded June 3, 1970 at Columbia Studio B, New York, NY)

2. "Funky Tonk" (23:26)
(Recorded December 19, 1970 at The Cellar Door, Washington, DC)

Side Four (26:29)
1. "Inamorata and Narration by Conrad Roberts" (26:29)
(Recorded December 19, 1970 at The Cellar Door, Washington, DC)

The album was mixed and released in both stereo and quadraphonic.

Note: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 box set uses the titles "Improvisation #4" (for Keith Jarrett's keyboard intro) and "Inamorata" instead of "Funky Tonk". In the Source column of the tables above, the title "Funky Tonk" is used.