THE GENIUS OF MILES DAVIS: 43-CD COLLECTION ASSEMBLES ALL EIGHT MULTI-CD BOX SETS RELEASED BETWEEN 1996 AND 2007
HOUSED IN AN ACTUAL TRUMPET CASE!
The consummate artistry of Miles Davis and the scope of his musical vision at Columbia Records is paid the ultimate tribute on THE GENIUS OF MILES DAVIS. For the first time, this new collection brings together the eight deluxe multi-CD box sets that were known asThe Miles Davis Series. Each volume – seven of which have collectible “metal spines” – explored a major phase of the artist’s development from 1955 (Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961) through 1975 (The Complete On The Corner Sessions). Each volume presented the music from various LPs, plus a wealth of previously unissued session material. The eight box sets, totaling 43 CDs of music, were originally released on Columbia/Legacy between 1996 and 2007, and won a total of eight Grammy Awards.
Several of the original box sets have sold out over the years, and have now been re-manufactured especially for this strictly limited-edition run of 2,000 copies of THE GENIUS OF MILES DAVIS. Presented in a replica of Miles’ own trumpet case, a collectible objet d’art in and of itself, each package will include a number of extras: an exact replica of Miles’ custom-made ‘Gustat’ Heim model 2 trumpet mouthpiece, a previously unseen and unavailable fine art lithograph by Miles, and a boutique quality t-shirt designed and manufactured exclusively by Trunk Ltd. for this package.
Weighing in at 21 pounds and individually numbered, THE GENIUS OF MILES DAVIS is destined to be a treasure in the hands of true Miles Davis aficionados. A D2C (Direct to Consumer) exclusive via GeniusOfMilesDavis.com, it is now available for pre-order at $1199.00 in advance of its September 14th release through Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.
[Note: THE GENIUS OF MILES DAVIS includes the eight studio session box sets that encompass the bulk of his original studio albums from the ’50s to the ’70s. It does not include the various Columbia/Legacy live performance multi-CD box sets, for example The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965, released in 1995; or The Cellar Door Sessions 1970, released in 2005.]
The signing of Miles Davis to Columbia Records made musical history in 1955. He continued to make musical history for decades to come, changing the course of jazz (and in the process, popular and avant garde music) “four or five times,” as he himself once quipped. There were important albums under his name in the late-1940s and ’50s before his arrival at Columbia, and there were also notable albums after his years at Columbia, from 1986 until his death in 1991.
But Columbia Records became the repository of the overwhelming majority of the signature albums recorded by Miles in his lifetime, many of them with long-time producer and collaborator Teo Macero. These individual albums were gathered together in their entirety for the first time last year as The Complete Miles Davis Columbia Album Collection. A functional chest with removable lid housed the 52 single and double album titles (70 CDs of music in total), each packaged in a mini-LP CD cardboard replica of the original jacket, with original artwork and spine.
THE GENIUS OF MILES DAVIS is also the result of a unique collaborative partnership effort between the Miles Davis Estate and Sony Music, which includes the redesign of the MilesDavis.com website. It is now the first unified and regularly updated site high lighting all aspects of his life. The dynamic web environment is not specific to Columbia/Legacy and Sony Music, in that it will cover product releases by other companies as well. The website, featuring news and vital information, video content, merchandise, and exclusive photography, will also offer special daily and weekly deals. THE GENIUS OF MILES DAVIS draws together more than a decade of studio archival research by jazz scholars, annotators, and reissue producers. Each of the box sets in The Miles Davis Series was anxiously greeted with raves by the critical establishment upon their release, and more than half of the box sets received at least one Grammy Award, some winning multiple Grammys. They are summarized as follows (in chronological order of the original music, not the Columbia/Legacy release dates):
Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961: This 6-CD box set (released in 2000) won two Grammy Awards, Best Boxed Record ing Package and Best Album Notes. Focus is on the evolution of Miles’ so-called “first great quintet,” comprising John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums), with important contributions by Cannonball Adderley (alto saxophone), Bill Evans (piano), Wynton Kelly (piano), and Jimmy Cobb (drums) – these sessions encompass the music for the LPs ‘Round About Midnight, Milestones, Jazz Track, Kind Of Blue, Someday My Prince Will Come, Miles & Monk At Newport,Jazz At the Plaza, and much more.
Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings: The inaugural entry in The Miles Davis Series, this 6-CD box set (released in 1996) won three Grammy Awards, Best Historical Album, Best Album Notes, and Best Recording Package (Boxed), only the second time in Grammy history that was ever achieved. The partnership with Gil Evans spanned 1957 to 1968, and encompassed the music for the LPs Miles Ahead, Porgy And Bess, Sketches Of Spain, and Quiet Nights, but there is much more to be heard here.
Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings Of Miles Davis (1963-1964): This 7-CD box set (released in 2004) explores Miles’ slow and careful development of his so-called “second great quintet,” whose rhythm section comprised Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), and Tony Williams (drums). Saxophonist George Coleman is heard on most of the music for the LPs Seven Steps To Heaven, Quiet Nights, Miles Davis In Europe, My Funny Valentine, and Four & More; and Sam Rivers joined for Miles In Tokyo. But it is not until the final CD’s Miles In Berlin that Wayne Shorter enters the picture and the classic quintet’s lineup was finalized.
Miles Davis Quintet 1965-’68: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings: Actually the second entry in The Miles Davis Series, this 6-CD box set (released in 1998) won the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes. The “second great quintet” of Shorter, Hancock, Carter, and Williams remains an all-time jazz standard, as heard on the music for the LPs E.S.P., Miles Smiles, Sorcerer, Nefertiti, and Miles in the Sky, plus about half of Filles De Kilimanjaro and Water Babies.
The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions: This 3-CD box set (released in 2001) covers less than six months from September 1968 to February 1969. But it is one of the most critical periods in Miles’ career, as he transitions away from the “second great quintet” of Shorter, Hancock, Carter, and Williams. They are all here, to be sure, on the rest of the music from Filles De Kilimanjaro and Water Babies recorded in September and November. But by the time the In A Silent Way LP came into being, the picture had changed to include Chick Corea (electric piano), Joe Zawinul (organ and electric piano), Dave Holland (bass), and most significantly, John McLaughlin (electric guitar).
The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions: The third entry in The Miles Davis Series, this 4-CD box set (released in 1998) won the Grammy Award for Best Boxed Record ing Package, as it reprised the memorable cover art of the late Mati Klarwein. Again covering less than six months time – from August 1969 (the week after Woodstock) through February 1970 – this is when the influence of Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, James Brown, Santana, and Marvin Gaye, as well as the Beatles’ post-production editing pyrotechnics all came together for Miles. To his new quintet lineup of Shorter, Corea, Holland and Jack DeJohnette (drums), Miles often augmented the sessions with a dozen other players, among them: McLaughlin, Zawinul, Bennie Maupin (bass clarinet), Harvey Brooks (electric bass), Lenny White (drums), Don Alias (congas), and so on. The result was one of the greatest albums of Miles’ career, and one of the most influential records in post-modern jazz and rock.
The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions: This 5-CD box set (released in 2003) won the Grammy Award for Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package. The Bitches Brew dates ended on February 6, 1970; these dates continue 12 days later and span less than four months through June. The difference is the greater role of McLaughlin (joined by ‘free jazz’ guitarist Sonny Sharrock), and the fiercer edginess of the music. The back-story was the contention for Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight boxing title, and actor James Earl Jones’ portrayal of turn-of-the-century black boxing champ Jack Jefferson in The Great White Hope (on Broadway and on film). All this was on Miles’ mind in 1970, a year beforeShaft ushered in a new breed of African-American hero.
The Complete On The Corner Sessions: This 6-CD box set (released in 2007) is the final entry in The Miles Davis Series and is also the latest chronologically. It jumps ahead two years to 1972, by which time the quintet lineups were a thing of the past, and Miles had transitioned into the funk-rock-influenced large-group that would define his style for the next two decades. The sessions are chronicled through mid-1975, and encompass the music of the LPs On The Corner (1972), Big Fun (1974), and Get Up With It (1974), although more than half the music on the box set was previously unissued at the time of its release three years ago.
Inside THE GENIUS OF MILES DAVIS t-shirt is printed a quotation: “I can’t play like anyone else, I can’t fight like anyone else, I can’t do ANYTHING like anyone else. All I can do is be myself.” – MILES DAVIS. Over the course of these eight box sets and 43 remarkable CDs, his music is, indeed, like nothing else – but its haunting, turbulent, fearless, visionary, multi-faceted self.
Bitches Brew By Miles Davis Landmark Album Celebrates 40 Years
Recorded at the end of a tumultuous decade (August 1969), Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew reflected the chaos and beauty of a society stretched (and stressed) to its breaking point. This genre-bending, barrier-smashing double LP would become Miles’ first RIAA gold album.
BITCHES BREW: 40th ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR’S EDITION is a tribute to both the man who changed the course of jazz (“four or five times,” as he himself once quipped), and the album that virtually single-handedly brought jazz into the commercial rock era, earning a place at #94 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. The new super-deluxe release will be available in two separate packages starting August 31st through Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT. The two packages are summarized as follows:
- BITCHES BREW: 40th ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR’S EDITION, a box set containing a 48-page 12” x 12” book, and:
- Three CDs (two CDs containing the original 94-plus minutes of music with six bonus tracks), plus a third CD with a previously unissued performance by Miles’ group with Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira and Gary Bartz at Tanglewood, August 1970);
- DVD of a previously unissued performance by Miles’ Quintet lineup with Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette in Copenhagen, November 1969;
- Audiophile 180-gram vinyl double-LP gatefold replication of the original album mastered from the original 2-track analog masters for the first time in many years.
- BITCHES BREW: LEGACY EDITION, a three-disc package comprising the two album CDs (as above) and Copenhagen DVD (as above).
Released in April of 1970, Bitches Brew was informed by and reflective of the music that Miles heard being produced in the late-’60s by Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, James Brown, Santana, Marvin Gaye and others, as well as the Beatles’ post-production editing pyrotechnics. The original double-LP’s six tracks, as formulated in the studio by Miles and his long-time producer Teo Macero, presented a seismic breakthrough in jazz/rock/funk/R&B. The tracks comprised the 20-minute side-long “Pharaoh’s Dance” (a Joe Zawinul composition), followed by four Miles compositions, the 27-minute side-long “Bitches Brew,” then “Spanish Key,” “John McLaughlin,” and “Miles Runs the VooDoo Down,” concluding with the Wayne Shorter composition, “Sanctuary.”
The COLLECTOR’S EDITION takes full advantage of the LP-sized 12×12 box set format. It includes (in addition to the recordings and DVD) a lavish 48-page color book, memorabilia envelope (among the contents are a reproduction of a Miles Davis cover story originally published by Rolling Stone in 1969, and correspondences from the Teo Macero archives), and a fold-out poster of Miles in concert. The super-deluxe slipcase box set design complements the Kind Of Blue: 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition released in September 2008 on Columbia/Legacy.
In 1970, the Bitches Brew double-LP gatefold introduced the memorable cover art of the late Mati Klarwein. His uniquely surreal, psychedelic motifs caught the hallucino genic essence of Bitches Brew (and a year later in 1971, Miles’ Live-Evil), as well as Santana’s iconicAbraxas in 1970, the Last Poets’ This Is Madness in 1971, Earth Wind & Fire’s Last Days and Time in 1972, and dozens more album covers. Another example of Klarwein’s painting, Zonked, is featured on the COLLECTOR’S EDITION book cover.
At the heart of the COLLECTOR’S EDITION book is a 5,000-word essay written by journalist-author-producer-musician Greg Tate, an authority on jazz, hip-hop and the rise of the Black Rock Coalition. Tate has annotated some 25 albums over the past two decades. Introductory notes to the book are written by reissue producers Richard Seidel and Michael Cuscuna. There will also be an interview with drummer Lenny White (whose recording career began at age 20 on the Bitches Brew sessions) conducted by Ashley Kahn, journalist-author-educator and Miles Davis authority. Kahn’s Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (2001) is the definitive study of that album.
As the producers’ notes point out, 1998’s Grammy Award®-winning 4-CD box set The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions covered all the music recorded by Miles and his group between August 1969 and February 1970, using the same general instrument a tion and musicians. Starting in the summer of 1969, the core of the Miles Davis Quintet was Miles on trumpet, Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone, Chick Corea on electric piano, Dave Holland on acoustic bass, and Jack DeJohnette on drums. That is the group who succeeded Miles’ so-called “second great quintet”: Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Tony Williams. They [the second great Quintet] flourished from 1965 to 1968, and recorded five seminal LPs: E.S.P. (1965), Miles Smiles (1966), Sorcerer and Nefertiti (both 1967) and Miles in the Sky (1968). With the dissolution of that quintet, as the Tony Williams Lifetime began, and Hancock founded Mwandishi, and Ron Carter became an even more active first-call bassist for New York recording sessions – Miles cast about for new players to join him and Wayne Shorter.
The new quintet lineup of Shorter, Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette solidified during the 1968-‘69 recording of Filles De Kilimanjaro andIn a Silent Way. This is the group who performs on the Copenhagen concert DVD of November 1969. By March of 1970, they were a seasoned touring group that had accepted the challenge to go head-to-head with arena rock bands at venues like Bill Graham’s Fillmore where rock audiences embraced them.
But three months earlier at Columbia Studios in New York City, at the principal sessions of August 19th (“Bitches Brew,” “John McLaughlin,” “Sanctuary”), 20th (“Miles Runs the VooDoo Down”), and 21st (“Pharaoh’s Dance,” “Spanish Key”), the ranks had swelled to a dozen musicians, and looked like this: Miles on trumpet, Wayne Shorter (soprano saxophone), Bennie Maupin (bass clarinet), Joe Zawinul (electric piano – left), Chick Corea (electric piano – right), John McLaughlin (guitar), Dave Holland (acoustic bass), Harvey Brooks (electric bass), Lenny White (drums – left), Jack DeJohnette (drums – right), Don Alias (congas), and Jumma Santos (Jim Riley) – shaker. The only variation was Don Alias taking over for Lenny White on the 20th, but White was back on the 21st. The advent of multiple keyboardists, multiple bassists, and multiple percussionists and drummers is one of the defining sonic characteristics of Bitches Brew, and made a serious impression on the FM progressive rock audience.
The COLLECTOR’S EDITION adds four bonus tracks from August – alternate takes of “Spanish Key” and “John McLaughlin,” and rare edits (for 45 rpm single releases) of “Miles Runs the VooDoo Down” and “Spanish Key.”
Miles reconvened at Columbia Studios in New York for two days of sessions on November 19th and 28th (long after Copenhagen) with most of his group intact, except for Shorter. The lineup looked like this: Miles on trumpet), Steve Grossman (soprano saxophone), Bennie Maupin (bass clarinet), Herbie Hancock (electric piano – left), Chick Corea (electric piano – right), John McLaughlin (guitar), Ron Carter (bass), Harvey Brooks (electric bass), Khalil Balakrishna (sitar), Bihari Sharma (tambura, tabla), Billy Cobham (drums, triangle), and Airto Moreira (cuica, berimbau). The only variations were the additions of Larry Young (organ, celeste) and Jack DeJohnette (drums) on the 28th.
None of this music was used for the original Bitches Brew album (although all of it is heard on the 1998 box set). For the COLLECTOR’S EDITION, producers Seidel and Cuscuna have judiciously chosen to include two short pieces – single edits of “Great Expectations” and “Little Blue Frog” – as examples to show the evolution of Miles’ sound in just three short months. “These edited 45 rpm singles,” the producers explain, “bound no doubt for radio stations and juke boxes, were the only nod to traditional marketing that this album received.” Although the music on this single was not included in the original double LP, the single was released in February 1970 as part of the promotional set-up for the Bitches Brewfull album in April 1970.
When Wayne Shorter played his final dates with the group at the Fillmore East in March, it marked a turning point, as he went on to organize Weather Report, and Corea and Holland subsequently joined forces as Circle. Only DeJohnette stayed on with Miles (through the Jack Johnson and Live-Evil period).
Soon after the April release of Bitches Brew, while Holland and DeJohnette were still on board, Shorter was replaced by Gary Bartz on saxophone, Keith Jarrett joined as a second keyboardist (on organ, comple ment ing Corea’s electric piano), and Airto Moreira joined on percussion. “Their outstanding live Tanglewood performance from August 18, 1970, of four compositions from Bitches Brew” the producers note, “shows further development of the material due in large part to the added colors possible with the larger ensemble. In the hands of master improvisers, the constant evolution that a piece of music experiences is fascinating. The full story can only be told with the passage of time in live performance.”
Greg Tate explores a world of contexts in which to understand Bitches Brew both literally and figuratively. Miles’ fatherly instruction to Lenny White (some 25 years his junior) was “to literally think of all the assembling players as stewing in a big pot where they were all the bitches.” Tate then places the album “forthrightly within the pantheon of the period’s other goddess-muse inspired masterworks: Eric Clapton’sLayla, the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street, Santana’s Abraxas, James Brown’s Original Funky Divas, and Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain andCosmic Slop.”
After Bitches Brew, Tate concludes, “Miles didn’t wait five years to radically switch up his game in the ’70s – for the next half decade he will steadily release edgy, rough-angled and prophetic music that sounds as contemporary today as any front runner we care to choose – OutKast, Björk, Radiohead, the Roots, Erykah Badu, bring ‘em on – Bitches possesses all their contemporaneity and stuff beyond their grasp too, the shape of jazz to come, still.”
MILES DAVIS’ 84th BIRTHDAY – MAY 26, 2010 CELEBRATED WITH BOX SET, CD/DVD RELEASES,WEBSITE REDESIGN, MUSEUM EXHIBIT, AND MORE
Fifteen years and eight Grammy Awards after its launch in 1996, Columbia/Legacy’s critically acclaimed Miles Davis Series continues to honor the most prolific and influential figure in 20th century modern jazz. In celebration of Miles’ 84th birthday on May 26, 2010, the stage is set for a multi-tiered commemoration of the life and times, and the music and art, of Miles Davis.
A full slate of Columbia/Legacy releases – Bitches Brew: Legacy Edition, Bitches Brew: 40th Anniversary Collector’s Edition, the mammoth The Genius of Miles Davis collection, Kind of Blue in two separate vinyl LP configurations – along with the gala opening of the “We Want Miles” exhibition in Montreal, the newly redesigned MilesDavis.com website, and Monster Cable’s new “Miles Davis Tribute” headphones are among the key elements in the campaign.
Underscoring the festivities is Bitches Brew, Miles’ groundbreaking double-LP of 1969, whose 40th anniversary will be celebrated with two separate retail packages, both released August 31st by Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT:
- Bitches Brew: Legacy Edition (a three-disc set, comprising two CDs that contain the original 94-plus minutes of music, in their original 8-track studio mixes unavailable on CD for many years, plus several bonus cuts; and a DVD that contains a previously unissued concert performance by the Miles Davis Quintet filmed in Copenhagen, November 1969); and
- Bitches Brew: 40th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (the same three discs as above, plus a third CD comprising a previously unissuedperformance by the new septet lineup at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, August 1970; alongside a 54-page color booklet and a 180-gram vinyl double-LP gatefold replication of the original album).
(At DSPs, consumers will be able to purchase both discs from Bitches Brew: Legacy Edition, but the the DVD will not be available. The same two discs in Collector’s Edition will be available at DSPs but the third audio disc and the DVD will only be available in the physical box set. Amazon and other retail outlets will sell both titles, with a pre-order campaign for Collector’s Edition launching at MilesDavis.com on his birthday, May 26th.)
In September, The Genius of Miles Davis will be unveiled. A limited-edition box set designed as an actual trumpet case, the case will house the eight deluxe multi-CD box sets that are the crown jewels in the Miles Davis Series’ 15-year history. The distinctive gilt-edged metal spines and the lavish packaging of those eight box sets have placed them in a class by themselves:
● Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings
● Miles Davis Quintet 1965-’68: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings
● The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions
● Miles Davis & John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961
● The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions
● The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions
● Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings Of Miles Davis 1963-1964
● The Complete On The Corner Sessions
The eight heavyweight box sets – with a cumulative total of 43 CDS and eight Grammy Awards between them – will now be gathered in their original metal spine editions (except for The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions, which did not originally appear with a metal spine) in the 21-pound collec tion known as The Genius of Miles Davis. The trumpet case will contain a number of additional items, including an exact replica of the “Gustat” Heim 2 model mouthpiece used by Miles; a previously unavailable fine art lithograph chosen by the Miles Davis Estate; and a boutique-quality t-shirt manufactured exclusively for this package by Trunk Ltd.
Starting on Miles’ birthday, The Genius of Miles Davis will be available for pre-order at MilesDavis.com.
In November, Miles’ 1959 classic Kind of Blue album will be released in two separate vinyl configurations. Collectors will be able to choose between a standard 180 gram vinyl single LP, or a 2-LP 180 gram set cut at 45 RPM.
In 2010, Legacy’s presentation of the music of Miles Davis on record joins a global campaign organized in conjunction with the Miles Davis Estate and Miles Davis Properties LLC in partnership/collaboration with Sony Music. Dominating the cultural landscape is the colossal “We Want Miles: Miles Davis vs. Jazz” historic exhibition of art and memorabilia at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, on view from April 30ththrough August 29th (following its illustrious run at the Musée de la Musique in Paris from October through January).
The first North American multimedia retrospective exhibition devoted to Miles is divided into eight thematic sections ranging from his childhood in East St. Louis to the final concert of his life, at La Villette in Paris just weeks before his death in 1991. A wide range of exceptional works of art, archival materials, and objects, many of which are on view for the first time, chronicle Miles’ impact on the course of jazz, including rare or previously unscreened concert film footage; original musical scores; a selection of his trumpets and fellow band members’ musical instruments; original documents relating to his albums; stage costumes; vintage record pressings, and more. 20 listening stations throughout the 8,600 square foot area permit visitors to immerse themselves in the multiple musical currents reinvented by Miles: jazz, rock, funk, and more.
On display are compelling personal portraits taken by legendary photographers Annie Leibovitz; Herman Leonard; William Gottlieb; Dennis Stock; Baron Wolman; Amalie Rothschild; Lee Friedlander; Bob Willoughby; Anton Corbijn, and Irving Penn, among others. Not only are a number of Miles’ paintings on display, but also paintings and sculpture by contemporary artists influenced by him, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mati Klarwein, and Niki de Saint Phalle, among others. Images of works are available on the Museum’s website atwww.mbam.qc.ca/media/index_en.html.
Released in conjunction with the exhibit, Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc. has created a special 2-CD retrospective collection entitledWE WANT MILES. This snapshot of Miles Davis’ music features 23 tracks, drawn from the catalog of all seven official labels for which he did his most significant work. The two disc set celebrates the entirety of the continuously innovative trumpeter-bandleader’s monumental recording career.
A sample copy of The Genius of Miles Davis trumpet case will also be on display at the Museum.
In a unique partnership/collaborative effort between the Miles Davis Estate and Sony Music, the MilesDavis.com website has been completely redesigned. It is now the first unified and regularly updated site high lighting all aspects of his life. The dynamic web environment is not specific to Columbia/Legacy and Sony Music; instead it will include events and product releases by other companies as well. The website, featuring news and vital information, video content, exclusive photography, and more, will also offer special daily and weekly deals. The website already has four Miles t-shirts for sale through the Threadshop store, with many more items slated to go up for sale on his birthday.
One of the items for sale at MilesDavis.com (and other general retailers) is the critically-acclaimed “Miles Davis Tribute” high-performance in-ear headphones from Monster Cable. This is the world’s first audio hardware product to bear Miles’ name and signature and is available as a strictly limited edition item. Headphone purchasers will receive a bonus copy of Columbia/Legacy’s Kind of Blue: Legacy Edition 2CD set. Monster is offering a unique one-time Limited Lifetime Replacement Guarantee with the Miles Davis Tribute headphones – even if users accidentally break the headphones themselves, Monster will replace them once for no charge.
BETTY DAVIS T-SHIRT AT AMERICAN APPAREL
There’s a briliant collaboration currently going on between American Apparel, Viva Radio and Anthology Recordings that involves the amazing Betty Davis finally gracing the front of a t-shirt. Right now, yes right now, you can walk in to just about any American Apparel in America and purchase the above limited edition Betty Davis t-shirt featuring the amazing Baron Wolman’s (Rolling Stone’s chief photographer, and creator of THESE, and may other timeless rock photos) timeless imagery of the silver-booted sci-fi queen herself, Betty Davis. Buy the shirt and you also get a digital copy of a compilation that features tracks by Ms. Davis herself, Karen Dalton, Telegraph Avenue, Shoes, and a whole lot more.