Miles Davis Septet - Jean-Pierre
In a strange confluence of coincidence -- or perhaps just to let us all know that what we see around us is an ever-less-concealable computer simulation, whichever you prefer -- the anniversary concert I had all set for today just happens to revolve, in no marginal way, around one of my favorite drummers of ever... who, sadly, passed away at 82 yesterday.
So we are gonna make this post -- the first of two back-to-backs to close out the month -- all about Mr. Aloysius Tyrone Foster, a player of immeasurable skill, feel and influence... the latter of which will go on far beyond the lifetime of anyone now living.
Miles Davis -- the figure with whom Al Foster is most associated and one of many who helped Miles, in a very material manner, shape the trajectory of music forever -- described him as having a kind of eternal, endless groove.
This stamina to supply that endless groove was described by The Chief as providing a foundation for everyone else in the band to play off, and to the marathon maximum of their capabilities.
If we're going by the axiom -- one I've heard repeated by many exemplary brahmen of the batterie, from Phil Collins to Neil Peart to Max Roach -- that any band is only as good as its drummer, then there can be no better barometer of what Al Foster means to the continuum of all the music that has happened since he joined Miles in 1972.
And it's all true, every exaggeration I have just laid out is 101.7% true. Players like Al Foster live up to the hype created by idiots such as I -- that dare to try to write about something as ineffably elusive as music -- because they live up, and then some, to any hyperbole anyone behind a keyboard not labeled "Roland" could muster.
If you need sonic proof, well... like I was saying, the cosmic flow has it so I have some for you, right here.
Should anyone need any sort of verification about what The Man With The Horn -- whose 99th birthday was a few days ago, and who, when he turns 100 in a year, will inadvertently cause me to break the internet from the sheer volume of concert tribute I will put up here -- was talking about re: Al Foster, this 62 minutes of prime 1983 Miles mayhem oughta deliver it with less reservations than frequent travelers should need.
Remastered beyond exquisiteness by plaz, Lord Potentate of Miles Davis ROIOs, watch out here not just for Miles and Al, but for John Scofield as well, who embroiders some electric and very Blues oriented fire onto this 60+ minutes over Tokyo.
Miles Davis Septet
Yomiuri Land Open Theatre EAST
Inagi, Japan
5.29.1983
01 band warming up
02 Come Get It
03 New Blues (aka Star People)
04 Speak/That's What Happened
05 It Gets Better
06 Hopscotch
07 Star On Cicely
08 Jean-Pierre
Total time: 1:02:55
Miles Davis III - trumpet & keyboards
Bill Evans - soprano & tenor saxophones, flute & electric piano
John Scofield - guitar
Mike Stern - guitar
Tom Barney - bass
Al Foster - drums
Mino Cinelu - percussion
master off-air DAT of the 1991 Japanese NHK-FM rebroadcast
this is Revision B of the plaz remaster
382 MB FLAC/direct link
382 MB FLAC/direct link
Some future birthday of his, I will put up something where Al himself is the leader, but since I had this already in launch position I thought it was obvious to make it not just about Miles' 99th on the 26th, or the show's 42nd anniversary today, but about the amazing -- and now ancestral -- Al Foster.
I'll be back tomorrow with a trumpet deity as underrated as Miles Davis -- probably the most renowned Jazz musician in the history of the music -- isn't. But today is about a gratitude I feel for the life of Al Foster... one that's as endless as the groove he supplied in support of every note of every band he ever ignited from the backline engine room.--J.
1.18.1943 - 5.28.2025