"In a silent way" was one of the albums that got me into fusion.......
Miles managed to draw in Tony Williams and John McLaughlin fresh from their groundbreaking work on "Emergency" along with Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland, Chick Corea ad Josef Zawinul to create a new kind of album!
No question this album will spiral you deep into space.......
It seems like Miles almost eases us all into this new sound....The aply titled A-side of the album, "Shhh/Peaceful," opens in a very soft, space-like manner with Corea's & Hancock's Fender Rhode and electric piano work, Williams cymbol rolls with Davis and McLaughlin answering each other in a peaceful manner. The opening chords of this album marks for me the dawn of somethng new...an almost audio birth with a promise that something wonderful is about to happen. As soon as I hear the opening chords of this album I know what I am going to sit in a silent way for about 40 mins!
But enough of the review....i will leave this for others who are better qualified to handle this one and all I can say is that I have been a huge fan of this album since the day I first heard it...
Now for the sound.....
I believe this album has been put on SACD a number of times, but sadly I dont own any of them so I can not offer an educated comparison to the MOFI release, but I can offer a comparison to my original Sony RBCD and that is it is an improvement!
First off let me say that this is not the best sounding SACD in my collection .....there are many other SACD's that outperform the dynamics and quality of sound over this one! I bet this is true of the other "In A Silent Way" SACD releases too as the original masters are just less dynamic than other pressings. This SACD offers more of an overall group sound where the individual artist is just as clearly distinguishable as on other SACD's. There is a definite presence of tape hiss and I think the SACD clarity brings this to life more so than the RBCD version. The hiss is not horrible or anything but just on higher volumes does become more evident. Also there is a small sonic glitch at the 11 minute mark (likely a cut in merging songs) almost which I suspect was on the original master and left on this version in its approach to retain its full integrity.
But having said that there is something about this MOFI SACD version that I really appreciate....it may just be that the recording is just so pure and "untouched" and in its bare form sounds real and authentic. No question the goal of Rob LoVerde was to retain the original master tape integrity without too much human intervention and for this I do hear and apprecite what he has done. Regardless of tape imperfections the clarity is good. For example during the 5:00 mins marker on side two (In A Silent Way/It's About That Time) you can actually hear very soft talking...almost whispers that I never heard before!
In summary the music is unforgettable......the sound is excellent but not an essential SACD but a good one!
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