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Yo Miles!
Yo Miles! Henry Kaiser and Wadada Leo Smith: Upriver
by Jeff Stockton
Last year the Yo Miles! collective released Sky Garden (Cuneiform), a two-disc set that surveyed ("covered" trivializes its accomplishment) Miles Davis' brand of funky '70s jazz fusion. At over two and a half hours, it was a massive slab of music. Upriver is also a massive slab. And once again it begs the question, Does the world need another 25-minute version of 'Bitches Brew'? Yo Miles! speaks to the affirmative. The group is larger than the band ...
read moreYo Miles!: Live At The Fillmore - Oct. 21, 1999
by Mark Sabbatini
There's no definitive proof, but it seems safe assuming Henry Kaiser is the only professional musician to use the actual South Pole as a guitar slide.
Kaiser, part of the Yo Miles! ensemble seeking to capture the trumpeter's 1970s improvisational spirit, achieved the feat a few years ago while trying to become the first pro to compose and record an album entirely in Antarctica. Assemble a group of players like this and it's pretty clear even if they ...
read moreYo Miles!: Sky Garden
by Jerry D'Souza
In paying tribute one must go beyond the obvious. Yo Miles! succeeds in doing so on the second release that tips the group's collective hat in the direction of Miles Davis. It would have been simplistic to let a tribute to Davis lie in the wake of his music. Yo Miles! has gone beyond the fundamental with songs that breathe the spirit of Davis to create an atmosphere that resonates with a fire and an essence of their very own.
read moreYo Miles! - Lightning (There Records, 2010)
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Music and More by Tim Niland
Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and guitarist Henry Kaiser are keeping the spirit of Miles Davis great electrical music circa 1969-1975 very much alive by playing music that was influenced by the original source material, but brought up to date by their original compositions and improvisations. Smith and Kaiser are added and abetted by a number of different musicians on this album which begins with the lengthy opening jam Thunder and Lightning." Clocking in at over twenty minutes, the music develops ...
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A "Yo Miles!" (Henry Kaiser and Wadada Leo Smith) Two-Fer! - Shinjuku and Lightning (2010)
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Something Else!
By S. Victor Aaron Since very early on we've eagerly pounced on records that re-image that dense, impenetrable period of Miles Davis between about 1969 and 1975 when he first defined fusion jazz and then kept redefining it again and again. This is music that doesn't come easily to most people; they must go to it, get inside of it and slather themselves with it. Even then, many folks might not get it." I'd admit that there's a few cuts ...
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