Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Zimbabwe

Disc 2:

1. Gondwana

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26115 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 1990-04-20
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Live
• Dimensions: .37 pounds

Album Description
Although Miles Davis's health was quite weak at the time of this two-CD set (recorded the same day as the album Agharta), he has a few strong trumpet solos on these two very lengthy pieces ("Zimbabwe" and "Gondwana"). Just after these concerts, Miles would go into an almost six year hiatus from music. The music here is stunning with the dense ensembles and heated solos (Sonny Fortune on soprano, alto, and flute and the guitars of Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas) being quite boisterous, but very powerful. Pangaea is one of the finest recordings from the least-understood period of Davis's career (1971-1975).

Customer Reviews

Miles on a Mission: Driven
Pangaea; "the total land" (in Greek), the giant supercontinent (in geology and tectonics). Gondwana[land]: the portion of Pangaea that became western Africa, southern Europe, North and South America. Zimbabwe; a nation on the east African plate, near the Great Rift Valley system of southeastern Africa-- the plate separated from Africa following the breakup of Pangaea, but is now rejoined.

Once in a while, you encounter a created work that makes you realize that you have encountered a talent of ineffable depth and intensity. PANGAEA is such a work.

For many years, this (like "Agartha") was only available as a Japanese import. For reasons I caon not fathom, American jazz seems to have a more dedicated and intense following in Japan than in this country. Miles Davis is

Recorded as a second set the same day as "Agartha", it sounds like a completely different band. "Agartha" is a fusion CD; well crafted and structured, musically sophisticated, and thematically complex, yet unified. "Pangaea" is an intense, driven, harsh performance where Miles Davis and his colleagues have cast aside the polite and aesthetic qualities of 'good' musicians, and sound like theya re trying to call forth the lords of darkness to do their bidding.

If you expect a live set that sounds like an extended version of "Kind of Blue", this is not your CD. This is a CD for the people who like to listen to what's on the edge; and even though this was recorded in 1975, it's still so far out on the edge that it jars even the most jaded jazz fans even today. Unlike a lot of "avant garde" jazz which seemed to be just art-for-art-sake material, with its deliberately atonal, non-melodic, non-rhytmic compositions, "Pangaea" was clearly intended to be listened to, and compel listeners to pay close attention.

On the surface, it sounds unstructured and wild, but upon repeat listnings, it's clear that Miles Davis has something he wants to say musically: erven if it is driven out of him by his internal demons. At the time, he was using drugs to keep going, and his personal life was disintegrating. It was shortly after playing this set that he announced his (first) retirement from music.

While "Dark Magus" and "Agartha" can thrill you, "Pangaea" stuns and with its unrelenting force. Driven by the bass lines of Michael Henderson. Sonny Fortune blows some intense saxophone, but it's Miles Davis, with his funk-laden trumpet blasts who's clearly in charge of this voodoo ceremony.

Normally, bass lines are either disco-ish or they're so innoccuous that they work more like background. here, they are in dynamic competition with the sax & trumpet, and yet the whole work sounds like it's more 'together' than many more structuerd and planned pieces.

Like the MIR, which streaked across the skies of the southern Pacific, before crashing into the sea in early 2001, "Pangaea" sounds like the aural equivalent; a man who's life is about to crash, making sure that he exits public view in a blaze of glory.

This is a totally incredible CD. And from Miles Davis, a man who never feared to take chances or experiment, "Pangaea" remains a landmark in the iconology of jazz.

so thick
Like its counterpart "Agharta," (each double lp set represented a day and evening concert in Osaka Japan on 1 February 1975..."Pangaea" represents the evening concert), "Pangaea" is the pinnacle of where Miles wanted his deep, dark, African grooves to go to, and the cd is unlike anything he did before or since.

Divided into 2 parts, "Zimbabwe" (which consists of 2 parts unto itself, focusing on a piece Miles called "Turnaroundphrase") and "Gondwana (also a piece in 2 parts, focusing on the piece "IFE" from "Big Fun"), Miles brand of jungle funk flows like mollasses, the bass phrasings of longtime stalward Mike Henderson deep and muddy. Guitarists Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas add to the mix with their distorted wah wah stylings, and Miles, going between his wah wah trumpet and organ. Drummer Al foster and percussionist Mtume add to the mix with their deep African funk grooves. Sax/flautist Sonny Fortune chimes in with very intense soloing of his own.

The key to these lps is the group, and not the soloists- Fortune and Miles both blow solos- the collective jungle groove that they all help to obtain is what's key here, and man, do they hit it and quit it. The grooves are unlike anything you've ever heard before, and they rarely quit playing those grooves for the entirety of the 2 pieces (each piece over 40 minutes long). The results are trancy and very hypnotic.

This lp is not for beginners, nor for purists, but for Miles fans who understand what he was trying to (and did so ) accomplish. A masterful performance that tops all of his mid 70s live efforts ("In Concert," "Dark Magus," and "Agharta") "Pangaea" is a keeper.

!
I don't understand this record.

I remember the first time that I ever heard Pangea. Miles Davis was just sort of "there" for me. Like Led Zeppelin 3 (or the Wedding Present or Sonic Youth)is just there. Right? Anyway, I had Sketches of Spain (beautiful and perfect in its own way), Kind of Blue, blah, blah, but I was really into the heady stuff: Coltrane, Eric Dolphy. Then I picked this one up because I realized I knew virtually nothing about Miles' 70's stuff. I really expected something like Steely Dan or something.

Of all the music I have ever been introduced to, I have never been more taken back, more surprised than when I heard Pangea the first time. I didn't know that music like that existed. It doesn't sound like anything else and everything else at the same time. Primal funk. Dirty, swampy, thick, dense, flowing primal wah wah smack dream funk (It sounds like Miles met the devil).

Agharta, recorded on the same day (an earlier set), is roughly the same, maybe a little less intense, maybe more ambient. I didn't know stuff like this existed.

I like this better than the earlier 70's stuff like On the Corner, Dark Magus, Big Fun (different but more "understandable")because every time I listen to it I hear something else. It just flows like nothing else I know.

(In thinking about this, I am actually reminded of My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless." Both have the same kind of "fluff on the needle" ambience. Stuff to look deeply into. Stuff that, unless you're prepared, scares.)