the tension was caused by a disagreement over pay, so that “when we came out to play, everybody was madder than a motherfucker with each other and so I think that anger created a fire, a tension that got into everybody’s playing, and maybe that’s why everyone played with such intensity.” This is an early pressing dating to 1966, the year of release; the labels include the wording “‘Columbia’ ‘Masterworks’” and the matrix numbers on the runouts are XSM112003–1B and XSM112004–1B. According to the website LondonJazzCollector, the presence of the terminal “1B” indicates a second pressing from the first tape. 12-inch vinyl LP (Columbia Stereo CS 9253), new plain white inner sleeve (original plain inner also preserved), original album cover. A little shelfwear to cover otherwise very good; disc in excellent condition. ¶ Richard Cook & Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings , ninth edition, 2008; Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography , 1990; Discogs website; LondonJazzCollector website. £2,650 [149099] 12 DAVIS, Miles. Remarkable holograph “letter” from Miles to Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun. [With:] two original telegrams, first from Miles to Cicely Tyson (dated 19 August 1968), second to Miles from “Joe, Terry and Marcia” (dated March 1971). New York: [1968] miles tugs ertegun’s sleeve and champions his new muse Dashed off in pencil across two leaves of a Shaw Agency expense report, this quite extraordinary “letter” reflects Miles’s infatuation with the woman who was to become his short-lived but vitally important muse, the 23-year-old Betty Mabry. Material of this nature from Davis’s hand is genuinely rare. “Ahmet Ertegun – Betty is interested in recording for Atlantic and Miles – write or phone if you have $ or time. We know you steal but it’s okay. If you have any good Talent, Betty has some songs. [Second leaf:] Say hello to your brother Neshui [Nesuhi] who is probably in Israel vacationing. Please give this your immediate attention because the Xmas Holidays are coming and we don’t have any money – ”. This almost certainly dates from late 1968, following Miles’s divorce from Frances Taylor in February of that year. At this time Betty Mabry “seemed to be everywhere in New York in a way that was possible only in the late 1960s. She was quintessentially sixties, all funky chic and an exploding Afro, with talent to burn:
she had studied fashion design; written ‘Uptown’ for the Chambers Brothers on their The Time Has Come album; appeared on the Dating Game TV show and as a model in Ebony, Glamour, Jet, and Seventeen ; was co- owner of the Cellar, a club for teenagers in New York City; and was beginning a singing career. She was yet another talented woman in Miles’ life, but this time a much younger one and wired into a scene that Miles had witnessed only from afar. Betty knew many of the new black rockers like Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix, and she introduced Miles to them and a club scene he had never been a part of. She even became his dresser, taking him on shopping trips to flash and funk boutiques in the Village and steering him away from the tailored suits that he so proudly wore” (Szwed). As Miles himself put it: “If Betty were singing today she’d be something like Madonna; something like Prince, only as a woman … She was just ahead of her time … The marriage only lasted about a year, but that year was full of new things and surprises and helped point the way I was to go, both in my music and, in some ways, my lifestyle” (Davis & Troupe , p. 290). In this hurriedly written and terse note Miles seems to be under the impression that the Ertegun brothers, of Turkish and Muslim heritage, were Jewish. Although Miles was never with Atlantic he clearly believed that Mabry’s career would be best served by them. In 1968 she recorded some demo tapes under Teo Macero at Columbia’s 52nd Street Studios but these failed to secure an album deal with either Columbia or Atlantic. Her first album, Betty Davis , was issued on the Just Sunshine label in 1973. Ahmet Ertegun (1923–2006) has been described as “one of the most significant figures in the modern recording industry”, whose record label, Atlantic, “was at the forefront of great independent labels that sprang up in the late Forties, challenging the primacy of the major labels of the time” (Rock & Roll Hall of Fame). A highly unusual document that offers a fascinating glimpse into the restless mind of one of 20th-century music’s most fascinating figures. 2 leaves, quarto (280 × 215 mm), Shaw Artists Corporation “Expense Report” forms. 2 Western Union telegrams (details of which are available on request). Letter with staple holes top left otherwise in excellent condition; second telegram with “coffee cup” stain otherwise both excellent. ¶ Miles Davis & Quincy Troupe, Miles: The Autobiography , 1989; John Szwed, So What: The Life of Miles Davis , 2002, available online. £6,500 [136378]
11
11 DAVIS, Miles. Miles Davis. ‘Four’ & More: Recorded Live in Concert. New York: Columbia, 1966 “we just blew the top off that place that night. it was a motherfucker the way everybody played” Signed neatly in full by Miles in red marker pen on the back cover. This is a fine live album recorded at New York’s Philharmonic Hall in February 1964; the lineup features the core of the Second Great Quintet – Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams – with George Coleman on tenor. The entire concert was released across two albums, the present one, which showcases the up-tempo numbers, and My Funny Valentine, which features
medium and slow pieces. Davis, in his autobiography, fills in the background to the concert: “I have always thought musicians played better in live situations and so that studio shit had gotten boring to me. Instead I had scheduled a benefit for the civil rights registration drives that were being sponsored by the NAACP and also by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). This was the height of the civil rights era, with black consciousness on the rise. The concert was to be held at Philharmonic Hall in February 1964, and Columbia was going to tape the performance. We just blew the top off that place that night. It was a motherfucker the way everybody played – and I mean everybody. A lot of the tunes we played were done up-tempo and the time never did fall, not even once. George Coleman played better that night than I have ever heard him play. There was a lot of creative tension happening that night that the people out front didn’t know about.” According to the trumpeter,
12
requested a ‘zoom in’ – what’s the important bit here?
10
JAZZ
11
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online