[Cover photo credit to Tom Palumbo]
Third Man Records has announced Vault Package #56, Miles Davis – Fearless. The main feature of the package is a recording of Davis and his band, including Wayne Shorter on tenor and soprano saxophones, Chick Corea on electric piano, Dave Holland on bass, Jack De Johnette on drums, and Airto Moriera on percussion, opening for Neil Young & Crazy Horse and The Steve Miller Band across two shows on March 7, 1970, presented across 3x colored LPs with an F-side etching.
The package also features a 7″ of Muriel Grossmann’s Muriel Grossmann Plays Miles, in addition to a custom bumper sticker and a Miles Davis patch. Sign up is open now through April 30, 2023 at midnight CST.
The key year of 1970 affected many genres of American popular music, but Jazz had largely been relegated to “old people’s music” in the face of youth movements. Miles Davis stood at that intersection.
He had already contributed the cornerstone Birth Of The Cool and his modal Jazz masterpiece Kind Of Blue. Davis would create a marriage between Rock and Jazz, fusion. With In A Silent Way in 1969, Davis made his first dedicated work in the realm. Shortly thereafter, Davis would record his genre-defining, stand-alone fusion Bitches Brew.
Three weeks before the release of Brew, Miles undertook the first of five multi-night residencies across Bill Graham’s Fillmore East/West venues.
Featuring Davis on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on tenor and soprano saxophones, Chick Corea on electric piano, Dave Holland on bass, Jack De Johnette on drums, and Airto Moriera on percussion, the two performances (early/late) opening for Neil Young & Crazy Horse and the Steve Miller Band from March 7th, 1970 are extremely energetic.
The performance highlighted three tracks featured on Brew, the live debut of “Willie Nelson” (tracked in the studio only weeks earlier), “Spanish Key” and more.
This performance has never before been available on vinyl.
Pressed on three pink, maroon, and red colored 180-gram vinyl, they come with an exclusive graphic etching on side 6. They are housed in a tri-fold jacket.
To connect Miles Davis’s monumental oeuvre with how he is still influencing Jazz to this day, Third Man enlisted the venerable Austrian saxophonist Muriel Grossmann. Muriel Grossmann Plays Miles features covers of the quintessential classics “Go Ahead John”, “In A Silent Way” and “Miles Runs The Voodoo Down”. It appears on 7-inch single and in a custom printed die-cut sleeve.
The set also comes with a Miles Davis Fearless patch, coupled with a bumper sticker which has yet to be revealed.
