Hey, buffista hivemind! Iffen I love 69 Love Songs and The 6th's Wasps Nest, what next of the Stephin Merritt oeuvre should I go out and track down? Do I go for Future Bible Heroes or the Gothic Archies?

And how do I find out easily what songs Claudia Gonson has played on? Either I don't use allmusic.com right or they aren't tellin'.

Hey, buffista hivemind! Iffen I love 69 Love Songs and The 6th's Wasps Nest, what next of the Stephin Merritt oeuvre should I go out and track down? Do I go for Future Bible Heroes or the Gothic Archies?

I am a big fan of the twofer The Wayward Bus/Distant Plastic Trees. It's his earliest stuff, and the production is basement rinky dink, but the songs are already fully formed, great lyrics and great pop hooks. (I disagree with AMGs assessment, incidentally.)

Most folks find the second 6ths album disappointing compared to the first. I like and own The Gothic Archies, but it's a bit of a novelty and practically an EP. I'm getting an erinaceous music package together and could send that your way.

Future Bible Heroes!

I love the second 6ths record, and agree with Christgau's short review -- "OK, '73 Love Songs,' then."

I am a big fan of the twofer The Wayward Bus/Distant Plastic Trees. It's his earliest stuff, and the production is basement rinky dink, but the songs are already fully formed, great lyrics and great pop hooks. (I disagree with AMGs assessment, incidentally.)

Most folks find the second 6ths album disappointing compared to the first. I like and own The Gothic Archies, but it's a bit of a novelty and practically an EP.

I agree with every bit of this. FBH are definitely better than GA though.

I keep meaning to pick up the Gothic Archies, and forget every time I'm in a music store.

-3 hours until the David Bowie concert! screeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaam

I love Miles, but he recorded for over 40 years & I'm not familiar with all his periods, much less familiar with the stuff in each period. Anyway, I'm not linking to them, but you can find all of these at AMG, Amazon, etc.

Phases of Miles Davis

1) The Bird Years: See "The Legendary Dial Masters, Vols. 1 & 2" and "Bird/The Savoy Recordings (Master Takes)" for the in-depth version, or Rhino's "Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Collection" for the streamlined take. I think I feel about this as David feels about James Brown: respect it, dig/love a lot of it, understand the historical importance (if bebop is to jazz as quantum mechanics is to physics then these two albums are the Heisenberg and Schrodinger papers that announced it to the world; that was probably more arcane than intended) but am left somewhat cold nonetheless. That said I love the Miles-included session that produced the title track, "Ornithology" and "A Night in Tunisia".

2) The Birth of the Cool: Miles, with help from John Lewis (MJQ) and Gerry Mulligan among others, launches "cool jazz", which took its name from this album. Great line up of players, writers & arrangers. Not their fault that much of what got labelled "cool" or "West Coast jazz" (a real misnomer) sucked.

3) The Prestige Years: I'm going to cheat here and recommend "Chronicle: The Complete Prestige Recordings (1951-1956)". This is actually less of a sketchy maneuver than it appears. The early part of this period was not a great period for Miles. Personal problems, reacting against the cool jazz he started but not really settled in a new direction, it's kind of a mess. The most notable stuff he recorded for Prestige came out of a handful of sessions from which were drawn multiple albums.

3a) First, the recordings that came out as "Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants," "Bags' Groove" and "Walkin'" were one related group of seesions with 3/4 of the original MJQ plus Horace Silver on piano & Sonny Rollins on tenor, and Monk for a couple legendary tracks. The Prestige box has "Bags' Groove" and "Walkin'" which helped launch hard bop and which are essential.

3b) The series of albums David mentioned earlier ("Relaxin'", "Workin'", "Steamin'", "Cookin'") came from two marathon sessions. Seems like there was a fifth, but I can't think of it. Anyway, whether it was done to recreate the feeling of a gig (the positive spin) or to get a bunch of material in the can to fulfill the contract (negative), what's usually referred to as Miles' "classic" or "first great" quintet -- Miles, Coltrane, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums, and Red Garland on piano -- recorded for the better part of two days and released basically all of it. The weird thing is that it was released almost completely in reverse order of how it was recorded. So the original release order made it sound like they were really "Cookin'", so to speak, & started to run out of gas, but really it took them a while to get warmed up and find their groove, and they were smoking when they wrapped it up. And I'm not picking one since the boxed set has all of them.

4) Classic quintet on Columbia: Milestones.

5) The Gil Evans albums: Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain and a few years later the Jobim tribute Quiet Nights. Basically trumpet/flugelhorn concerti for Miles with settings by Gil. I'd pick one of the first two. The first has one of his great moments, Kurt Weill's "My Ship". Porgy's probably the best all the way through, but both are great. Sketches of Spain has some real high points. I'm not a big bossa nova fan so the Jobim is a distant fourth.

6) Modal Miles, Pt. 1: Kind of Blue. The obvious choice for the One True Miles Album, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Inexhaustible to these ears. Easy to hear from listen #1 but it never reveals all it has to give. Everyone's great. Bill Evans is gorgeous. A breakthrough for Trane. Miles... whew! And Paul Chambers, the "Mr. P.C." of the Coltrane tune, owns the album from his "So What" intro through to the end.

I have to leave and we're not even out of the Fifties!

I have to leave and we're not even out of the Fifties!

Heh. Excellent running start, though, Joe. I bet more than a few folks are taking notes.

Wow. Thanks, Joe. I only have 8 or so Miles albums (I've spent more time building my Coltrane and Mingus collections), but this helps a lot, since most of my Miles albums are from the late 60s and early 70s (plus, y'know, Birth of the Cool, Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, and Someday My Prince Will Come).