Customer Reviews

Water Babies (Deluxe Edition) (Bonus Track)

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4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
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Water Babies was one of the first albums to be released durings Miles's retirement in the late 70s. Columbia was digging through the archives and they packaged together two very different sessions. They used Corky McCoy's cartoons as cover art, but this music has very little in common with On the Corner.

The first three tracks are from June 1967 and feature the 2nd Great Quintet (Miles, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams). All 3 themes are by Shorter, and feature the same dry, exploratory style that this group perfected on its other LPs. If you like the albums Sorcerer and Nefertiti, you'll enjoy this stuff as well. (Wayne also recorded "Capricorn", "Sweet Pea" and "Water Babies" on his own album, Super Nova.)

The next three tracks (of which "Splash" is a bonus track not on the original LP) were recorded in November 1968. By this time Dave Holland had replaced Carter on bass. Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock both play electric piano, giving the music a similar feel to Filles de Kilimanjaro though it doesn't match that album's excellence. "Two Faced" is a haunting Shorter composition that runs for 18 minutes and features beautiful playing by Wayne and Miles. "Dual Mr. Anthony..." is a typical late 60s boogaloo -- funky, a little heavy on the cheese factor and not really distinctive except for Tony Williams's explosive drumming and Wayne Shorter's fierce blowing. "Splash" is also a boogaloo, though a little less cheesy.

Water Babies doesn't really hang well as an album and I'd still recommend any of the Quintet's other 6 albums (E.S.P., Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, Filles de Kilimanjaro) over this one. The material is available elsewhere, on the '65-'68 and In a Silent Way box sets, if you prefer to hear it "in context". But overall the music is good enough that Miles fanatics who don't have the box sets will want to pick Water Babies up.

WATER BABIES is something of a curiosity in that it catches Miles Davis mid-stream between his standard acoustic jazz period and his notorious "fusion" period. Recorded in 1967, it was not released until 1976 early in Miles "retirement". To those who curse the day Davis picked up on electronics, WATER BABIES comes as a bittersweet love letter. The first three cuts are Wayne Shorter compositions and they are done in acoustic fashion. While they are Shorter compositions, Shorter fans will note that these recordings are vastly different from those made for Shorter's own solo record, SUPER NOVA, two years later. This bears witness to the honesty of those who claim that Davis transformed everything he played and made them his own. The playing is impeccable and Wayne Shorter's tenor saxophone guides and blends with Davis' rise and fall horn dance. These fall well among the best Davis recordings up to that date. Certainly nothing to deserve the "death threats" Davis would garner in the next several years.

The remaining three cuts bring Chick Corea and his electronic keyboards into the mix. From the standpoint of 2004, this was at best a timid fording into the "fusion" river; but for many of the "jazz orthodox" acoustic instruments are the gold standard of jazz and they accept no substitutes. Charges of jazz heresy would follow in any event. To my taste, I don't care for the tone of early electronic keyboards and their tendency to crowd all other instruments out of the room. But this to me is more a question of balance than an objection to the electronics themselves. My early objection to Corea's playing revolved around the fact that it totally obscured Hancock's playing in the mix. That was until I read that while Hancock is credited he was in fact not even there. I wonder why at this late date the album notes haven't been corrected if this was so; but in any event I stopped trying to listen for something that wasn't there.

"Two Faced" is credited to Shorter while the remaining two cuts are Davis' own compositions. Many think "Two-Faced" in the crown of WATER BABIES and I am prone to agree-although I have a particular fondness for "Sweet Pea". At eighteen minutes "Two Faced" is a small foreshadowing of what was to follow in IN A SILENT WAY-[...].

All reservations aside, WATER BABIES is a little treasure that should be enjoyed more widely than it is. It also shows Miles Davis not as a man who lost his chops-but rather a man who had already done "it" all before and was turning to explore new worlds. WATER BABIES was Miles giving a fond farewell as his ship slipped from the docks of the old world.

Water Babies was one of the first albums to be released durings Miles's retirement in the late 70s. Columbia was digging through the archives and they packaged together two very different sessions. They used Corky McCoy's cartoons as cover art, but this music has very little in common with On the Corner.

The first three tracks are from June 1967 and feature the 2nd Great Quintet (Miles, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams). All 3 themes are by Shorter, and feature the same dry, exploratory style that this group perfected on its other LPs. If you like the albums Sorcerer and Nefertiti, you'll enjoy this stuff as well. (Wayne also recorded "Capricorn", "Sweet Pea" and "Water Babies" on his own album, Super Nova.)

The next three tracks (of which "Splash" is a bonus track not on the original LP) were recorded in November 1968. By this time Dave Holland had replaced Carter on bass. Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock both play electric piano, giving the music a similar feel to Filles de Kilimanjaro though it doesn't match that album's excellence. "Two Faced" is a haunting Shorter composition that runs for 18 minutes and features beautiful playing by Wayne and Miles. "Dual Mr. Anthony..." is a typical late 60s boogaloo -- funky, a little heavy on the cheese factor and not really distinctive except for Tony Williams's explosive drumming and Wayne Shorter's fierce blowing. "Splash" is also a boogaloo, though a little less cheesy.

Water Babies doesn't really hang well as an album and I'd still recommend any of the Quintet's other 6 albums (E.S.P., Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, Filles de Kilimanjaro) over this one. The material is available elsewhere, on the '65-'68 and In a Silent Way box sets, if you prefer to hear it "in context". But overall the music is good enough that Miles fanatics who don't have the box sets will want to pick Water Babies up.

[This review is based on the 2002 reissue, which had an identical tracklist.]

This album was originally released here in the USA in 1977, to close a gap in 'new' product caused by Davis' six year disappearance from the music scene. That explains why NEFERTITI-era music has ON THE CORNER-era cover art. Then again, the music shows Davis in transition from his 1960s quintet to the electric eclecticism of his 1968-1975 period...

The first three tracks are in the straight-ahead vein of Davis' second classic quintet (Hancock, Shorter, Carter, and Williams). In my mind, the CD MILES SMILES is the first option to sample this era--the tracks here are fine representations of the era, but they don't define it. The last three tracks (including the bonus track SPLASH) show Miles adding new personnel and new instrumentation (e.g., electric piano) to his music. As with the first three tracks, these efforts are interesting to hear, but are not the first place you would go to hear the most memorable music by Davis at this crossroads. I wouldn't recommend this be the first choice for newcomers to Miles' music of the late-1960s, but it won't likely disappoint those who already have the key landmark CDs in their collection.

From the late 1960s, these are "missing link" sessions between the classic Miles Davis 1960s quintet and the more electric music of "In A Silent Way," "Bitches Brew," etc. that was to come. The title track is a Wayne Shorter composition featuring a plaintive Davis, superior here to the performance on Shorter's solo recording. The quintet is augmented to a septet by the addition of Chick Corea on electric piano and Dave Holland bass on "Two Faced" and "Dual Mr. Tillman Anthony," creating a near dual rhythm section. Its unfortunate that this recording has not received wider circulation.

Don't fret - just buy this album now... Great stuff! Recorded with musicians like Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter - this is no hit and miss - every song is a treasure.... The music here is a lot like "Fillies De Kilimanjaro" but a bit more experimental. Just a pinch more... Great, great recording. Miles sounds better than ever at this point in his career.

"Water Babies" is a collection of numbers that were recorded in 1967-68. But the LP wasn't released until 1976 during Miles Davis's "leave of absence." The 6 tracks all sound great individually, but when thrown together on one album, it sounds a bit disjointed. Even so, there's no denying the power of the material. The first three selections feature Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Tony Williams from the famous Quintet, and they have that "Miles Smiles/Nefertiti" feel, particularly the title jam and "Capricorn." But for me, things get much more interesting on the second half of "Water Babies," which has material recorded in 1968 and has a warmer, electric vibe. The best of these tracks is "Two Faced," an 18 minute jam that stands out due to Herbie Hancock piano; it sounds like it could be an outtake from "In a Silent Way" or "Filles de Kilimanjaro." Miles completists will get a kick out of this jam, which helps make "Water Babies" worth the trip. While there's much to admire, this is hardly what I'd call an "essential" Miles Davis album. But that doesn't mean in any way you should avoid "Water Babies." However, you should check out "Miles Smiles," "Kind of Blue," "In a Silent Way," and "ESP" first before giving this disc a spin.

This is a decent disc but for those of us who already own Complete In A Silent Way you should know that tracks 4 and 5 on this disc are already released on that boxed set. The other 4 tracks are very good though. If you don't have the IASW boxed set definitely pick this up.

Forget where this comes in the Miles Davis discography. Today, it doesn't matter if this was a record company creation from studio leftovers when Miles was on an extended hiatus. It's got two different bands, both great, one acoustic and one a little more electric. Chick's electric piano sounded dated in the '60s, but it's now kind of cool because you don't hear this kind of tone anymore. This is a chilled out album, an in between mix from the end of Miles' '60s straight-ahead days and the start of his long spacier period. There is nothing here you won't want to keep hearing for eternity.

Water Babies is a collection of unreleased acoustic songs Miles recorded with his second great quintet of 1964-1968(title track, capricorn, sweet pea) and Miles'early fusion quintet in which Chick Corea replaced Herbie Hancock on keyboards and Dave Holland replaced Ron Carter on Bass (two faced,dual mr. anthony tillmon williams process, and splash). The whole album like much of Miles' work in this period, is really free-flowing and mellow. Evidence of Miles'small steps to fusion are great on the Corea-Holland quintet. This whole album is great with no stinker tracks. To those of you who are just getting into the wonderful world of the music of Miles Davis, I say get this if you want but the 1959 masterpiece Kind of Blue is the standard starter. Any of the six studio albums(E.S.P.,Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, Miles in the Sky, Filles de Kilimanjaro) and two live albums(Miles in Berlin and Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965) by the second great quintet are great starting places for Miles newcomers.