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THE LAST WORD

 

Introduction During 2001-2 Warner Brothers was busy with the creation of a boxed set that was to include everything Miles Davis had recorded in the studio during his time with the company, 1985-1991, including many previously unreleased studio outtakes, plus some particularly noteworthy live material from the same era. The box was to be called The Last Word, and was initially earmarked for release on Rhino Records in September 2001, to commemmorate the 10th anniversary of Miles's death. Yours truly was approached in the beginning of 2001 by Matt Pierson, head of jazz at Warners, who declared himself a huge fan of Miles Beyond, and asked me to write the liner notes for what initially was going to be a 6 CD set. So far, so good. One of many problems was, however, that the Miles Davis Estate was, at the time, annoyed with some aspects of Miles Beyond. Pierson was confident that he could sort it all out, and asked me to go ahead with writing the liner notes. There were positive sounds from the Estate, but soon after I had finished the text, the Estate eventually vetoed my participation in the project. Frustratingly, the Estate has also since blocked several other attempts by record companies to enlist me in the writing of Miles-related liner notes. Particularly given the rather insubtantial reasons for their annoyance, it's been a long time to hold a grudge against someone who is on your side. I'm told, however, that the people in the Estate have finally dropped whatever axe they had to grind with me, and so I've deleted most of the story from this page... Let bygones be bygones, no reason to keep this story alive, etc, etc... Attempts to put out the boxed set continued, but some time in 2002 the release was quietly abandoned altogether. Officially no reasons were given. When I queried an insider at Rhino, he would only say: 'Estate problems.' So while it is unlikely that you'll ever get to hear all of the music included in the original 6-CD set, here, at least, are my original liner notes... 2010 update: apparently there have been movements this year within Warners to release finally this boxed set, but the very latest is that the project has been shelved, once again... I'll let you now if there are any updates on that! —Paul Tingen, November, 2010. The liner notes are split up in three sections: Main Text Tributes (still to come) in honour of Miles by Bill Frisell, David Sanborn, George Duke, Marcus Miller, Michel Legrand, Robben Ford, Tommy LiPuma, John McLaughlin, and Quincy Jones. Track Listing of the original 6-CD set and (still to come) the track listings of the final 4-CD set.