Review by JW May 24, 2003 (6 of 6 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
This album (1967) still falls into Miles Davis' acoustic and traditional jazz period. But you can see the change coming on this fourth coop with his quintet. "Nefertiti" features Herbie Hancock (piano), Wayne Shorter (ts), Ron Carter (bass) and Tony Williams (drums).
The change I referred to is the somewhat improvisational aspects of the various tunes here. They start playing a perfectly free flowing theme and suddenly one of the players, usually Miles, cuts in with an unpredictable angle - a counterpoint. The beauty of this disc lies in how the others follow him and take over the lead before the group returns as a whole to the main melody. You can just hear where two years later "In A Silent Way" or three years later "A Tribute To Jack Johnson" have come from.
"Nefertiti" is a borderline case though, in the sense that it is not traditional jazz but it is also not entirely improvisational. It only points in the direction of later efforts along the jazz-rock-fusion path. Personally I think therein lies its appeal. There is a great balance here and the album forms the bridge to the more modern Miles. Explore this one first before you venture into different territory! If you like it, go the whole route.
Sound quality is outstanding. Some tapehiss is audible but it does not disturb at all. Great instrument seperation (the trumpet floats nicely in space). Drumkit is rendered very natural as well.
Jw
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