PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Obviously not the material covered in the book, but still worth owning...

MILES DAVIS AND THE COMING OF THE SECOND GREAT QUINTET

SEVEN STEPS: THE COMPLETE COLUMBIA RECORDINGS OF MILES DAVIS 1963-1964 TRACES CREATION OF HIS ‘60s GROUP WITH WAYNE SHORTER, HERBIE HANCOCK, RON CARTER, AND TONY WILLIAMS

7-CD BOX SET INCLUDES ENTIRE SEVEN STEPS TO HEAVEN SESSIONS AND UNEDITED MILES DAVIS IN EUROPE ANTIBES FEST DATE

PLUS: NY PHILHARMONIC HALL CONCERT RESTORED TO ORIGINAL SEQUENCE; FULL MILES IN TOKYO AND MILES IN BERLIN DATES, NEVER AVAILABLE IN U.S. CATALOG UNTIL NOW

47 selections - 7 previously unissued performances, 3 in newly unedited form

92-page booklet with liner notes written by 3-time Grammy-winning reissue producer Michael Cuscuna, and 2-time Grammy winner Bob Blumenthal

7th box set in Miles Davis Series, newest addition to series that began in 1996, will arrive in stores September 28th on Columbia/Legacy Jazz

Paraphrasing its title from the 1963 LP that introduced the first three new members of the quintet on half its tracks (Hancock, Carter, Williams, working with Miles and tenor saxophonist George Coleman), this lavishly-packaged seven-CD box set methodically delineates the chronological evolution of the group over the course of six distinct albums:

Seven Steps To Heaven, with four previously unissued performances from the sessions in Los Angeles (in April) and New York (in May) that produced the LP;

Miles Davis In Europe, with two previously unissued tunes – and three more heard for the first time in unedited form - from the Antibes jazz festival in France two and a half months later in July;

My Funny Valentine, a ballads LP with the previously unissued “Autumn Leaves,” the first of two albums culled from two long concert sets at NY’s Philharmonic Hall in February 1964;

Four & More, the follow-up LP from the Philharmonic Hall date, emphasizing uptempo material;

Miles In Tokyo, in which Sam Rivers replaced Coleman for an historic set at Kohseinenkin Hall in July 1964, never available in Miles’ U.S. Columbia catalog until now; and

Miles In Berlin, in which Shorter finally enters the lineup for this September 1964 concert, also never available in Miles’ U.S. Columbia catalog until now, with the previously unissued “Stella By Starlight.”

WE ALL KNEW THIS DAY WOULD COME

I'm finished.

Typed the last sentence of the re-edited first draft last night, burned it to a CD-R. Gonna print a copy tomorrow, and mail it to the publisher.

The breakdown:

13 chapters, an introduction, a bibliography, and a discography.

440 pages of actual text.

(I contracted for 300, but come on. All of Miles Davis's electric music, from 1968 to 1991, in 300 pages? Really, now. Maybe it'll shrink when they determine the book's font, but I don't honestly know how much I could cut if asked.)

What's next, you ask? Well, there are two possibilities.

1) A bio/critical analysis on Sly Stone.
2) A novel.

Right now, the smart money's on #2, because three books about music-related subjects in a row feels a little too rut-like to me. I want to be able to write about any damn thing I want, and sell the results, and if I stick to one thing for too long I'll limit myself in others' eyes. So, probably fiction next. A totally different set of skills are required, which means the results will inevitably be as knackered and ridiculous as my first book was, if not worse.

But you gotta get out on the dance floor and give it a whirl, right?

I CAN SEE DAYLIGHT! KEEP DIGGING!

Three chapters left to revise. I should be done this week. All that remains, after that, is to gather all the bibliographical and discographical data and type it up. What's more fun than typing out album serial numbers? Plus, I'm trying to keep the discography more or less chronological, which should be fun, too, considering it includes a bunch of bootlegs and unreleased stuff as well as the commonly available material. And do I put things chronologically in the order they were recorded, or the order they were released? And if the former, do albums get listed by the earliest date of recording? Gah.

I sure hope the publisher gets someone else to put together the index.

WORKING, WORKING...

I'm literally at the midpoint of revisions. I allotted myself two days per chapter, but so far they've only taken one day each, so I might have a chance to go through the whole thing twice before sending it to Backbeat. I suspect that Chapter Seven ("Michael Henderson"), which I'm working on today, will take longer, though, for two reasons.

1. I wasn't all that happy with it when I finished it six months ago, and made a mental note to fix lots of things when I got around to revising. (This is also true of Chapter Eight, "Guitar.")

2. I do a lot of work at night, and The Shield is on tonight.

Back to work.