Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a sinister gem, September 23, 2000
Few lps offer the complete feeling of doom and overt fear as Miles' "Get Up With It" does. It'e easy to see why now- Duke Ellington's death; Miles' escallating drug abuse; his hip left him in constant pain; loss of then lady friend Betty Mabry to Jimi Hendrix, of all people; failed record sales...all these factors and more contributed to Miles' very very dark demeanor during the mid 70's, and his music wreaks of his pain.The very dark, sad, minimalist "He Loved Him Madly" showcases Miles' deep pain in terms of Ellington's death. At points, the music sounds like it is going to stop, but Miles, mainly on the keyboards (an increasingly common Miles trait in this period), keeps this melancholic gem going to its completion- arguably one of the most touching tracks in the Miles Canon. The bizarre "Rated X" is among one of Miles' most out there efforts, combining what we now call hip hop, with funk, and Stockhausen. The mix makes for an almost danceable, completely eerie, experience. The danceable (for part of the track, anyhow) "Calypso Frelimo" is an upbeat affair despite its being played in minor keys. Miles' showcases his still intact trumpet playing chops- his notes biting, scathing, and drenched with wah wah. The deep african percussion by Mtume, funky bass playing by the underrated Mike Henderson, and the rock solid drumming by Al Foster keep this gem going through more minimalist and quiet middle passages, then back to its climatic finish. And so it goes. Mere words can not do this, or any Miles lp, justice. The music needs to speak for itself, and this lp speaks to all the senses we have and probably beyond them. This lp is not easy listening, to be sure, but well worth the effort. the rewards are one thousand fold.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Miles' darkest, most intense disc...a real trip, December 6, 2000
Without a doubt, one of the greatest albums of them all, a double set only comparable to the likes of the Stooges' "Funhouse" in its darkness, intensity and raw, funky sexuality. Now for starters let's get something straight: I loathe "fusion", and to even CONSIDER putting Miles' music of the '70s in that category - a genre filled with lilly-livered chumps like Return To Forever and the Yellow Jackets - is a great disservice to Miles and his music. From 1969 to '75, Mr. Davis pioneered and created his own unique sounds, a mixture of hard funk, psychedelic rock, avant-garde electronics and free jazz, that has never been equalled in regards to its sonics or its "vibe". There is NOTHING that can touch the raised-middle-finger jab in the guts felt when one puts on discs like "Dark Magus", "Live Evil", "Agharta", "Big Fun" or "On The Corner". The feelings of utter loathing and despair, the overwhelming EMOTION of these discs can be too much, yet nothing can prepare you for 1974's "Get Up With It", a disc of such wildness and total lack of any commercial forethought (and thank the heavens for that) that it was granted pretty much instant deletion upon release and has mainly only been available from Japan for the last 25 years. Start with the cover: a big, slightly unflattering, grainy photo of The Man. It's the sight of a man against the world, battling for his own identity. Hit the first track, "He Loved Him Madly" (a tribute to Duke Ellington), a 32-minute ambient piece only broken up occasionally by Peter Cosey's mumbling guitar lines. It's one of the saddest damn songs you'll ever hear, and you can bet yer booty that if it was made by a bunch of white guys in Berlin ca. '71, every Krautrock freak in town would be hailing it as a classic. Next track "Maiysha" is a schizophrenic one. For ten minutes in merely putters along like a lite Latin number, interrupted sporadically by Miles' Sun Ra-like organ, then it stops, gets into a hard groove and proceeds to move along to Peter Cosey's awesome guitar screeches for another five minutes. Hot. "Honky Tonk" is up next, a brief interlude of stop-start rhythms and noisy organ crunch. It prepares you for the next track the unstoppable "Rated X", THE peak of Miles' - or maybe anyone's - sonic capabilities. Part hyperdive breakbeat rhthyms, part uber-funk, and nine parts pure noise, there is no other sound on earth as MOVING as this song. Get up with it. Disc two starts with "Calypso Frelimo", another 32-minute piece that starts where "Rated X" finishes off. Ecstatic peaks of dark psychedelic jamming, aided by Miles' wah-wah'd trumpet, gel and compete. "Red China Blues" is a brief number that kicks it in a Chess-Records-meets-Ornette way, and the 15-minute+ "Mtume" once again takes you for a ride with its collision of Cosey's guitar (a highly under-rated player in a field with the likes of Sonny Sharrock) and about half a dozen percussionists. Finishing is "Billy Preston", more chilling mid-range avant-funk to close the set. "Get Up With It" is the perfect summation of what was filling Miles' head at the time: the avant electronics of Stockhausen, the cyclical funk of James Brown, the wailing psych guitar of Hendrix, the improvised freeness of Ornette Coleman and as The Man himself put it, "a deep African thing". Many words have been written on Miles' music of this period, but to really GET it, you have to LISTEN to it. Not a word is spoken on GUWI, yet it speaks volumes on its creator's alienation and sense of despair. As far as so-called "out-rock" goes, this is about as "out" as you could get, and certainly about as purely "psychedelic" as music has ever gotten, so do the done thing and get with it.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
space age music from the spaced age, May 21, 2002
After buying this album and "On the Corner" on a whim, I was instantly impressed by how both of these albums (particularly "Get Up With It") defy categorization. This is not jazz, it's not funk, it's not rock, it's not soul, it's not ambient: it just is, and IS wonderful at that. This two-disc set features two showcase tracks: "He Loved Him Madly" and "Calypso Frelimo." Though I think "Calypso Frelimo" is the better track (featuring some wild, wah-wah filtered trumpet playing by Miles), "He Loved Him Madly" is eerie, moody, lovely. This track, and the fugue-like "Rated X," are thirty years ahead of their time -- the warped pop of Radiohead, the Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin are unmistakably informed by these atmospheric and rhythmic sounds (whether they know it or not). Recorded between 1970 and 1974--when rock, soul and funk were easily outdistancing jazz in both popularity and artistic influence--Davis responded by creating something wholly new and other. "Get Up With It" (and especially "On the Corner") apparently remain touchy albums for die-hard Davis fans who prefer his earlier, legendary recordings ("Birth of the Cool," "Miles Ahead," "Kind of Blue," etc.). Lester Bangs notes as far back as 1980 that the daring music on these two albums by Miles "got kudos from jazz critics who never listened to them again and were rejected by fans." It's been twenty two years since Bangs wrote that, and we should now be ready to absorb what seemed alien in 1974.
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