Description
Re: 11-04-2025
Recorded When Miles Davis Opened for the Grateful Dead in San Francisco at Fillmore West: Black Beauty Surges Ahead into a Future Jazz World, Features Superb Performances and Rich Colors
First-Ever Domestic Vinyl Release of 1973 Live Album: Mobile Fidelity’s Numbered-Edition 180g 33RPM 2LP Set Plays with Captivating Energy, Presence, and Clarity
1/4″ / 15 IPS analog copy to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe
Dateline: April 10, 1970. Setting: The storied Fillmore West in San Francisco, CA. Context: Miles Davis, three days removed from his first session for Jack Johnson and, with newly recruited soprano saxophonist Steve Grossman in two, opening shows for countercultural heroes the Grateful Dead on the latter’s home turf. Result: The initial rumblings of a thrilling era in which Davis and his cohorts would again upend jazz and popular conceptions of the genre with music steeped in groove, improvisation, and hang-on-for-your-life adventurousness. All captured on Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West.
Mastered at MoFi’s California studio, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, and housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 33RPM 2LP set helps bring what went down that spring evening in Bill Graham’s venue to your listening room with exceptional clarity, balance, and presence. Originally only released in Japan in 1973 and unavailable in the United States until the late ‘90s on compact disc, this marks the first time Black Beauty has been issued on domestic vinyl. The wait is worth it. Given Davis was only a few months away from releasing the pioneering double album Bitches Brew, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that much of the fare here adheres to similar explorative approaches. Turbulent rhythms, provocative trumpet passages, and rich, saturated tonal colors that seemingly splash against a blank canvas take precedence over any traditional attempts at organization and melody.
Tracklist:
Side A:
- Black Beauty Part I
Side B:
- Black Beauty Part II
Side C:
- Black Beauty Part III
Side D:
- Black Beauty Part IV
