Miles Davis - Miles in the Sky (1968) MFSL Remastered 2016

Posted By: Designol

Date: March 17, 2024

Miles in the Sky reflects the intriguing curiosities and rainbow possibilities suggested by the album cover. Miles Davis’ fifth and final album with his classic second quintet is kaleidoscopic in sound, forward-looking in structure, and contextually grounded in approach. As the legendary leader’s first venture into what would become fusion, it’s historical for containing the premier appearances of electric piano, bass, and guitar on a Davis effort. Laden with rich textures and style-bridging elements, Mobile Fidelity’s SACD brings the aural magic into focus.

Mastered from the original master tapes, this collectable audiophile version of Miles in the Sky joins the ranks of eleven other essential Davis sets given supreme sonic and packaging treatment by Mobile Fidelity. Afforded the benefits of higher resolution, Davis’ burnished trumpet resounds with utmost clarity, and the soundstage seems to extend for days. Reference-caliber separation and imaging give each musician their own space, allowing every passage to come across without any sonic limitations.

The album’s wide-open soundscapes soar. As do the fluid contributions of Davis’ mates. Tony Williams’ percussion, central to every composition here, transpires before your eyes. Herbie Hancock’s piano hovers and fades with sublime purity. And George Benson, who sits on “Paraphernalia,” blows the equivalent of smoke rings with his bluesy guitar, which here takes on brilliant tonality and definition. The acoustic material that occupies the second half of the record is equally transparent and full-bodied.

Granted enhanced production and a greater field of audible information, Miles in the Sky can finally be perceived as belonging to the same upper echelon as Davis’ ubiquitously acclaimed Nefertiti and Filles de Kilimanjaro—the albums that precede and follow, respectively, this watershed title. Commonly branded a “transitional” work, Miles in the Sky showcases Davis already at ease with electric instruments and eager to venture into uncharted territories. Doubling as organized jams and bridges between jazz and rock, both the rhythmically challenging “Stuff” and frisky “Paraphernalia” glancing toward the future while keeping solid footing in the past.

Similarly, so do “Country Boy” and “Black Comedy.” In his original review for jazz authority DownBeat, Larry Kart observes: “Davis takes material from his earlier days and darkens its emotional tone. His opening phrase on ‘Country Boy’ recalls a fragment from his “Summertime” solo on the Porgy and Bess album, but here it is delivered with a vehemence that rejects the poignancy of the earlier performance. Even on ‘Black Comedy,’ his most straightahead solo here, the orderly pattern of the past is displaced and fragmented.”

Flavored with humor, bossa nova, country, and even ballroom phrases, the compositions on Miles in the Sky explodes with creativity, purpose, and color.

With the 1968 album Miles in the Sky, Miles Davis explicitly pushed his second great quintet away from conventional jazz, pushing them toward the jazz-rock hybrid that would later become known as fusion. Here, the music is still in its formative stages, and it's a little more earth-bound than you might expect, especially following on the heels of the shape-shifting, elusive Nefertiti. On Miles in the Sky, much of the rhythms are straightforward, picking up on the direct 4/4 beats of rock, and these are illuminated by Herbie Hancock's electric piano – one of the very first sounds on the record, as a matter of fact – and the guest appearance of guitarist George Benson on "Paraphernalia." All of these additions are tangible and identifiable, and they do result in intriguing music, but the form of the music itself is surprisingly direct, playing as extended grooves. This meanders considerable more than Nefertiti, even if it is significantly less elliptical in its form, because it's primarily four long jams. Intriguing, successful jams in many respects, but even with the notable additions of electric instruments, and with the deliberately noisy "Country Son," this is less visionary than its predecessor and feels like a transitional album – and, like many transitional albums, it's intriguing and frustrating in equal measures.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Allmusic.com

Miles Davis at Allmusic
Miles Davis at Wiki

Miles Davis - trumpet
Wayne Shorter - tenor saxophone
Herbie Hancock - piano, electric piano
Ron Carter - bass
Tony Williams - drums
George Benson - guitar (#2)

Recorded at Columbia Studio B, New York on January 16 - May 17, 1968.

Tracklist:

01. Stuff (17:05)
02. Paraphernalia (12:44)
03. Black Comedy (7:31)
04. Country Son (13:53)

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V1.3 from 2. September 2016

EAC extraction logfile from 12. July 2017, 23:28

Miles Davis / Miles In The Sky (2016 MFSL)

Used drive : PLEXTOR CD-R PREMIUM Adapter: 1 ID: 1

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 30
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 768 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -6 -e -p -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "PERFORMER=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%–tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albumartist%" -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" %source% -o %dest%

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 17:04.39 | 0 | 76838
2 | 17:04.39 | 12:44.04 | 76839 | 134142
3 | 29:48.43 | 7:31.21 | 134143 | 167988
4 | 37:19.64 | 13:53.27 | 167989 | 230490

Track 1

Filename C:\tmp\00_RIPS\01 - Stuff.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:02.00

Peak level 96.3 %
Extraction speed 10.0 X
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC D3D88AE1
Copy CRC D3D88AE1
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [95732891] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 2

Filename C:\tmp\00_RIPS\02 - Paraphernalia.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:05.01

Peak level 92.9 %
Extraction speed 12.9 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 6E8E4DBB
Copy CRC 6E8E4DBB
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [DD45D0FB] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 3

Filename C:\tmp\00_RIPS\03 - Black Comedy.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:04.77

Peak level 93.1 %
Extraction speed 14.2 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 7C9583E6
Copy CRC 7C9583E6
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [FC3D5828] (AR v2)
Copy OK

Track 4

Filename C:\tmp\00_RIPS\04 - Country Son.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:04.85

Peak level 96.1 %
Extraction speed 15.7 X
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC E1E8FBC3
Copy CRC E1E8FBC3
Accurately ripped (confidence 6) [B1438588] (AR v2)
Copy OK

All tracks accurately ripped

No errors occurred

End of status report

–– CUETools DB Plugin V2.1.6

[CTDB TOCID: G51AX4odKps1MSLepd4cketvQAI-] found
Submit result: G51AX4odKps1MSLepd4cketvQAI- has been confirmed
Track | CTDB Status
1 | (8/9) Accurately ripped
2 | (9/9) Accurately ripped
3 | (9/9) Accurately ripped
4 | (8/9) Accurately ripped

==== Log checksum 1D9E104EAF7E91EBCE1DA0405B548BD299D96327F687A67B9241303F136F9856 ====

DR log

foobar2000 1.2 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2017-07-22 17:40:23

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Miles Davis / Miles in the Sky
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR12 -0.32 dB -14.63 dB 17:05 01-Stuff
DR13 -0.63 dB -17.84 dB 12:44 02-Paraphernalia
DR12 -0.62 dB -15.73 dB 7:31 03-Black Comedy
DR12 -0.34 dB -16.12 dB 13:53 04-Country Son
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Number of tracks: 4
Official DR value: DR12

Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 848 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================

All thanks to original releaser

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