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60 of 61 found the following review helpful:
 Dinner music.. for a pack of cannibalsJul 08, 2002
By spiral_mind
Like the most challenging music out there, this album is both a blessing and a headache. For musicians and jazz aficionados it's a, ever-changing stew of grooves, rhythms and blows to get lost in; for those more accustomed to the easy stylings of Miles's first quintet and the like, this is no more difficult a listen than an hour of jackhammering outside the window. Miles himself doesn't show the easy, soothing playing that made him famous in the first place; he sounds clipped, ragged and mad at the world. Considering that he had hip problems and had previously broken both legs in an accident, this might not be far from the truth. His band might not have been quite as angry, but they still played with the same divine fire. The double-percussion team of Foster and Mtume lay down one dense African groove after another full of rhythms so thick you could wade through them; Cosey and Lucas bend their six-strings to some of the most primal wails this side of Hendrix; Henderson provides just the anchor on bass that everyone needs. Playing opposite Miles on sax was Sonny Fortune, and while he's no Wayne Shorter (but who could be?) he lays down a couple solos that I'm still trying to get my head around after a year of listening. The music was largely improvised and loosely sketched out, but rooted in some previous Davis sounds. "Maiysha" shows up in the track list, but I also hear pieces of "Right Off" and "Ife" among others. You'd probably have to be familiar with his entire body of work from this period to catch them all. By the time of the two final concerts documented on Agharta and its counterpart Pangaea, Miles and crew had become a well-oiled machine, adept at weaving rock, jazz and funk into a head-spinning jungle brew that still confuses and amazes listeners 27 years later. It's jazz taken in a direction no one else had gone; it's a batch of hot rock grooves with tribal rhythmic underpinnings; it's the angry burning of a man in pain and a top-notch crew flourishing under his direction. And this show is only the Jekyll to Pangaea's Hyde; the later concert was even darker, heavier and closer to chaos. I'd recommend Agharta first of the two, but if you haven't heard any electric Miles it may be easier to start with B-Brew or Jack Johnson first. Agharta is a trip through the dense African bush, not for the faint of heart but those who love a good challenge.
36 of 36 found the following review helpful:
 Agharta has never sounded betterJun 17, 2006
By Joey Joe Joe Jr. Shabadoo
I first heard the old, unremastered release of Agharta about 10 years ago, and I have been transfixed by Miles' electric recordings ever since. The only way I could describe this album to the uninitiated- imagine the thickest, dirtiest funk you've ever heard, like early Funkadelic times Infinity. Heavy wah across the boards. Now imagine a legendary trumpet player (Davis), an extremely funky sax player (Sonny Fortune), and an insane guitar player, Pete Cosey, A.K.A. 'Evil Hendrix', trading off solos over a constantly shifting background. Now imagine a drummer and percussionist (Al Foster and Mtume, respectively), banging away into eternity, like this music could. Imagine all of the accompaniment emulating percussion, from the bass to the rhythm guitar, and even to all the other players when they are not tearing solos. Now add to this a brooding, dark undercurrent pervading the proceedings. The result is a storming, mindbending and addictive stew that is Agharta.
Enough about the music. On to the sound quality, the only reason you would even be looking at this ridiculously expensive import: It really is no hyperbole to say that the Japanese remastering is light years ahead of the original release. There are instruments brought up in the mix that you couldn't hear before, and much of the murkiness surrounding the original release has been corrected. The solo lines are no longer quiet and obscured, and in fact this edition features the sort of sound you might expect from a studio release. I would recommend this edition to true Davis fans who already know what they are in store for and are looking for the best possible sound for his live electric documents. For those who haven't heard it, I would listen to it first since not everyone is going to like music this intense and, for lack of a better word, extreme (and I don't mean that in a Mountain Dew kind of way). As far as I am concerned, music doesn't get any better than this.
25 of 26 found the following review helpful:
On the ContraryMay 10, 2002
By R. Williams
"code slubber"
I love this album, and contrary to the reviewer who claims this goes sour after a few listenings, I just keep going back to it. The first disc is amazing. In a lot of ways, it is a minimalistic fusion of rock and jazz, and many of the solos are about sound more than chops, but it has an incredible groove to it and a lot of intensity. It's amazing this was the morning show and Pangaea was the evening show of the same day. I've been unable to see to the bottom of that disc through its dark, turgid murmurings. This one is not sunny by any means, but just more joyous in its savagery, like Rite of Spring or Miraculous Mandarin.
16 of 16 found the following review helpful:
Miles and the House RockersDec 15, 2004
By Douglas H. Watts
I bought Agharta because I had heard and read that it was just about the worst music Miles Davis had ever made. Even people who claimed to sort of like Miles' electric music said that his mid 1970s stuff like Agharta was loud, incomprehensible, cheap and empty.
So I had to listen and decide for myself.
After the 1950s, jazz had morphed from popular dance music to scholarly "head" music or easy listening, background music. By the late 1960s, music made for other jazz musicians or critics was killing jazz and Miles repeatedly said he had no desire to be an esteemed limb on a mummified corpse.
So Miles moved to electric music.
Miles had a hard time moving his music from acoustic to electric, and freely admitted it. To play loud electric body music, Miles needed to rebuild his music from the ground up. Miles spent a lot of time studying how Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Muddy Waters and Sly Stone could create loud, electric music that extended the DNA of American black music and African music in new directions.
Agharta represents the culmination of Miles' quest to form his own, ultimate electric African-American black music band. Agharta was recorded live in Japan in February, 1975 just before Miles retired for 5 years due to his body falling apart from a host of nasty illnesses.
Agharta can sound like a monotonous, cacophonous, meandering mess if you are not familiar with or like high tempo African music or James Brown at his most funkified.
The first songs (Prelude I and II) need to be played as loud as "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath for their groove to bite. Played loud, the dense mix opens up and you feel you are an ant in the middle of a gargantuan, grooving rhythm machine. At loud volume, Miles' trumpet parts sound perfectly placed within the maelstrom. At low volumes they sound so weak they almost disappear. On the original vinyl album Miles instructed listeners to play the record as loud as possible. He was right. If you don't like loud music, Agharta is not for you.
The music and performances on Agharta are unique. It's as if Miles was trying to synthesize his entire knowledge of African and European music into one band, one set, and one concert. As in mixing paints, such attempts often result in making mud. Miles and his bandmates did make mud from time to time, but in 1975 he knew he had to take that risk or play Kind of Blue until he died -- or just stop playing.
Miles' trumpet playing on Agharta is particularly intriguing. Played through a wah-wah pedal, it often sounds like an unusually expressive mini-moog synthesizer played extremely unusually.
Miles plays with uncanny sensitivity to what the other band members are playing. He either completes their rhythmic phrases or plays phrases so abrupt than any member of his band can finish them, or not. Miles' playing forces you to listen not to what he is playing at any moment but to what the rest of the band is playing at that moment. Miles' trumpet solos force you to listen to everything but his solo -- turning the whole concept of a solo on its head.
Hearing Miles play on Agharta, I can almost hear him saying through his horn, 'I know this sounds very different from what you expected, but listen anyway, because I think more of you than to just give you what you expected.''
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
Outstanding!Nov 25, 1998
Miles has assembled a fine cast of musicians to close the books on one of the most incredible periods in American music. Technically, this concert was the second to last in this period, (Pangea was recorded in the evening of the same day and is as equally as outstanding) but to me represents this group at their best. Al Foster, Metume, Michael Henderson and Reggie Lucas lay down the deeply African grooves that set the stage for some incredible excursions by Miles and the boys. Although the solos are fierce and engaging, the real story here is the sound of the whole. From scathing funk to minimalist blasts, the journey is at once demanding and danceable, thought provoking and fun. The haunting melodies hang over rhythms that pull you out of your seat while the solos glide through the funk. Miles' solos are few, but are pure Miles - cool, dry and emotional. Sonny Fortune has never sounded better. And Pete Cosey lets rip some wild, funked up noise. Hang on to something! It's Sly meets Hendrix in B.B.'s crib with Edgar Varese coming for diner. It's brainy funk for the masses.
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