Quad LP/Tape Poll Davis, Miles: Bitches Brew [SQ]

With all due respect to Q-Eight, I will stand by my comments regarding both Miles titles existing on Q8. Although I didn't buy them, I remember them being very rare and finding them at a Treasure Island (JC Penney's discount store) location in Milwaukee. I would have bought them, but opted for the SQ releases, since they are the entire album, which the Q8's were not. Yes, i've had lots of clients over the years claim to have seen things that didn't exist, so I know about wild goose chases.

Future Blues by Canned Heat does exist. I own one. I purchaed it at EJ Korvettes (remember them) in Arlington Heights, IL. It is very rare and I recall it being out of print already when I purchased it in early '73. It was the same day I bought my Akai CR80-DSS.

I'll plead ignorance on the Caravan and Ohio Players titles. I own Fire and Honey on both Q8 and DTS CD. I don't recall any other quads by Ohio Players.

I, too have seen literature touting vaporware, like "Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. 2" in SQ, which never materialized. Catalogs don't verify existence.

Linda

Q-Eight said:

Listed in the Quad Discography:

MILES DAVIS -
* Bitches Brew. Columbia [2 LP] GQ-30997 (SQ). CBS/Sony SOPL-24/25 (Later SOPJ-58) (SQ) [Japan]
{The quad 8-track version of this title has been moved to the "NOT RELEASED" discography as no evidence exists that it was ever made}

* Live - Evil. Columbia GQ-3092582 (SQ)
{The quad 8-track version of this title has been moved to the "NOT RELEASED" discography as no evidence exists that it was ever made}

Now, I've only been into Quad for about 12 years and have never seen either of these on Q8. I collect almost exclusively Q8's. These two tapes are up there in the same ranks as Caravan's "Girls Who Grew Plump in the Night", Canned Heat's "Future Blues" and The Ohio Players' "Contradiction" and "Skin Tight". Nobody has seen any of these tapes in the flesh (so to speak). If in the past 35 years, not a single copy has surfaced, chances are it was never released. Some catalogs may have shown their release however many times those catalogs have been proven wrong. Chances are though, many (or all) of these titles were mixed and prepared but cancelled at the 11'th Hour. A discrete Reel of Bitches Brew was recently discovered in the Mike Robin collection and converted.

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Linda,

Can you post a scan or picture of the Canned Heat Q8? That would be cool to have in the QQ archives.

I like being proven wrong. I used to doubt the existance of Funkadelic's Cosmic Slop, but we then had a member post a picture and then TWO of the bloody things showed up on eBay. I'd never seen one before that, and haven't seen one since. Lovely little twists of fate like that keep life interesting.

Never seen the Miles Davis abridged Q8s; by the same logic there should be a Don Ellis - Tears of Joy and/or Walter Carlos - Sonic Seasonings.

Leonard Berstein's Mass was a triple Q8 (like ELP WBMFTTSTNE) so why were double Q8s not a reality?

To my knowledge, there has never been a Q8 Tears of Joy. I'm a MEGA Ellis fan. I own CD, SQ and stereo LP versions.

I may be wrong on this one, but I'm not aware Sonic Seasonings ever was released in Quad. I vaguely remember something in the liner notes about being engineered in quad.

Yes, I have Mass on Q8x3. As I remember, there was a post card in the box to send for the book, which is 12". I also own an SQ copy, which was packaged with the book.

My guess as to why the Miles titles were abridged and the Ellis wasn't released on Q8 is that Columbia assumed they wouldn't sell at the higher price tag. Jazz fans (I'm one) are notorious for paying the cover, ordering the required two drinks and nothing more.

Linda

timbre4 said:

Never seen the Miles Davis abridged Q8s; by the same logic there should be a Don Ellis - Tears of Joy and/or Walter Carlos - Sonic Seasonings.

Leonard Berstein's Mass was a triple Q8 (like ELP WBMFTTSTNE) so why were double Q8s not a reality?

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Quad Linda said:

I may be wrong on this one, but I'm not aware Sonic Seasonings ever was released in Quad. I vaguely remember something in the liner notes about being engineered in quad.

Yes, I have Mass on Q8x3. As I remember, there was a post card in the box to send for the book, which is 12". I also own an SQ copy, which was packaged with the book.

Linda

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Isn't it in one of her infamous Billboard letters where Wendy Carlos mentions that, although Sonic Seasonings was recorded to be mixed in quad, it wouldn't get any sort of quad release because the matrix systems were so bad and she speculates that 'perhaps' CD-4 might be the answer? Since she was with CBS then, CD-4 was completely out of the question, which is sad because CBS had a state-of-the-art CD-4 mastering system and made some of the very best sounding CD-4 test pressings as part of Ben Bauer's work on the hierarchical Universal SQ system.

It's too bad MASS never got an SACD release since it was conceived to be heard in full quad surround sound - although Sony probably would have totally screwed it up like they did Bartók's Concerto For Orchestra. MASS is one of my favorite recordings to play though the Fosgate Tate II 101A and I can only imagine how it sounds in discrete form - I've never heard the Q8 or any of the homemade DVD-A/V transfers (if, indeed, there are any - I haven't come across any). Hearing E. Power Biggs Music for Organ, Brass & Percussion as a beautiful discrete DVD-A/V brought tears of joy to my eyes - I'm not kidding, it floored me. The Tate always seems to have some problems decoding that album correctly due to all the reverberation and the various SQ phase inter-relationships - plus it was encoded with the original 4/2 SQ encoder and not a Position Encoder or Forward Oriented encoder, so some directions simply are not encoded correctly at all on the SQ release. Hearing it in discrete form just blew me away. I'm sure MASS would be similar since it's an early SQ album too.

FYI: There is also a Japanese release of Live-Evil on SACD. Single layer.

http://www.amazon.com/Live-Evil-Miles-Davis/dp/B000067JQW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1307453552&sr=1-2

Quad Linda said:

A Q8 of Bitches Brew exists as GAQ-30997. Unfortunately, it is on a single tape, so it is not the complete 2-LP set. I've never heard the Q8, but have a mint SQ LP that I bought in 1973. There is a Japanese SACD, which I also own. It is a single-layer 2ch SACD.

The same is true for Live/Evil. The edited Q8 is GAQ-30954. I also have a mint SQ LP of this, but never heard the Q8. It was also released as a single-layer 2ch SACD in the US.

Linda

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Has anyone had the chance to A-B any Japanese SACD titles to their US counterparts? I would assume that they sound the same, but who knows?

Linda

silvahalo007 said:

FYI: There is also a Japanese release of Live-Evil on SACD. Single layer.

http://www.amazon.com/Live-Evil-Miles-Davis/dp/B000067JQW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1307453552&sr=1-2

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Quad Linda said:

A Q8 of Bitches Brew exists as GAQ-30997. Unfortunately, it is on a single tape, so it is not the complete 2-LP set. I've never heard the Q8, but have a mint SQ LP that I bought in 1973. There is a Japanese SACD, which I also own. It is a single-layer 2ch SACD.

The same is true for Live/Evil. The edited Q8 is GAQ-30954. I also have a mint SQ LP of this, but never heard the Q8. It was also released as a single-layer 2ch SACD in the US.

Linda

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I've been meaning to post about this, but forgot about it until now. I found this post interesting, being that I've never seen a Bitches Brew Q8, and this was the only time I've ever heard anyone claim of the existence of such a thing. So I brought this up during my visit with Nick. I figured, if anyone has heard of it or seen one, he would have. Well, he's never seen one. So this would have to be quite a rarity if it does exist. However, we did determine that the G prefix seemed to be used to indicate a double album edited down to single album length, so, that catalog number does make sense.

I only saw it once, and I already owned the complete set on SQ. It was a Q8 with a gold foil sleeve, not the later gold/green sleeves we all know. That makes it part of the first Columbia Quad release. Likely it was a stiff, and Columbia dropped it instantly. Who wants a partial album? I wish now that I had bought it, as I've become obsessive about Miles since. I saw him live several times before he died.

I own 7 copies BB: on SQ, SACD Japan 2ch, Complete Bitches Brew Sessions CD box, 40th anniversary box (CD & LP), in the Complete Miles Columbia Albums 71 CD/DVD box and Japan CD. The SQ is THE one to own.

Miles truly does run the Voodoo Down!

ArmyOfQuad said:

I've been meaning to post about this, but forgot about it until now. I found this post interesting, being that I've never seen a Bitches Brew Q8, and this was the only time I've ever heard anyone claim of the existence of such a thing. So I brought this up during my visit with Nick. I figured, if anyone has heard of it or seen one, he would have. Well, he's never seen one. So this would have to be quite a rarity if it does exist. However, we did determine that the G prefix seemed to be used to indicate a double album edited down to single album length, so, that catalog number does make sense.

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The Q4 that was "meandering" in a homebrewed DVD-A conversion is THE ONE!!! Truly astounding!!!!!

Has anyone seen or tasted this offering from the brewmasters at Dogfish?:

Oh yes! If you like stouts and/or porters, I recommend it. A dark beer with some nice chocolate and honey flavors.

It was initially only supposed to be released once to coincide with the anniversary edition of BB in 2010. But it was so popular they brewed it again last fall and I hear it will be out again this September. However there is only about a two week window to get it. It moves fast from the shelves.

silvahalo007 said:

Oh yes! If you like stouts and/or porters, I recommend it. A dark beer with some nice chocolate and honey flavors.

It was initially only supposed to be released once to coincide with the anniversary edition of BB in 2010. But it was so popular they brewed it again last fall and I hear it will be out again this September. However there is only about a two week window to get it. It moves fast from the shelves.

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If you live in a big beer town, like NYC, it can be difficult indeed. I can tell you rare brews just sit on shelves in Miami. I'm pretty sure I saw these around last fall, even in NYC.

I had a devil of a time finding Rogue's Bacon Maple Ale in NYC, but Miami was a breeze.

Micro brews and imports fly of the shelf in Chicago. There are dozens of brew pubs here, too. For a few years in the '80's, I brewed my own, which I got turned on to by a client. That truly was Bitches Brew. Makes the whole house smell like Milwaukee!

Now back to the Prince of Darkness.

Quad Linda said:

Micro brews and imports fly of the shelf in Chicago. There are dozens of brew pubs here, too. For a few years in the '80's, I brewed my own, which I got turned on to by a client. That truly was Bitches Brew. Makes the whole house smell like Milwaukee!

Now back to the Prince of Darkness.

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Goose Island Matilda: My favorite Chicago beer.

My rating based on the QR copy (only SQ was noted in the title).

Which is because only an SQ album was officially released. The Q8 remains listed as 'not released' though (see post above) there is a possibility a few copies were made, and Columbia never released commercial reels.

ED

I have no way of proving it at this point, BUT I swear I saw a copy of Bitches' Brew on a single Q8 in early '73. It was abbreviated. I had just bought my CR80-DSS Akai a couple weeks earlier. I saw it at a store that is long out of business called Treasure Island in Milwaukee. (Called the Treasury in Chicago, 'cause there's a grocery chain called Treasure Island.) It was a discount department store owned by JC Penney. They had a great Quad selection. I've posted theirQuad software ad from the Milwaukee Journal in another thread.

Immediately when I saw it, I decided against it, and bought the SQ, since that was complete. It was many months until I actually had an SQ decoder. I was regularly in virtually every store that carried Quad in both Chicago and Milwaukee. I don't recall ever having seen it again. Likely it quickly went OOP and was no longer duplicated because most everyone had the same reaction that I did. I saw a Live/Evil single Q8 at the same store. I never saw another copy of either. Although, I bought Indian Reservation in a gold, shiny Q8 sleeve at the same time, and I never saw another Columbia or Epic Gold shiny sleeve. All the others I own and have seen are the green-gold matte finish slipcovers.

Perhaps these will turn up and I'll be proved right. Otherwise, it simply appears that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

Ed Bishop said:

Which is because only an SQ album was officially released. The Q8 remains listed as 'not released' though (see post above) there is a possibility a few copies were made, and Columbia never released commercial reels.

ED

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Quad Linda said:

I have no way of proving it at this point, BUT I swear I saw a copy of Bitches' Brew on a single Q8 in early '73. It was abbreviated. I had just bought my CR80-DSS Akai a couple weeks earlier. I saw it at a store that is long out of business called Treasure Island in Milwaukee. (Called the Treasury in Chicago, 'cause there's a grocery chain called Treasure Island.) It was a discount department store owned by JC Penney. They had a great Quad selection. I've posted theirQuad software ad from the Milwaukee Journal in another thread.

Immediately when I saw it, I decided against it, and bought the SQ, since that was complete. It was many months until I actually had an SQ decoder. I was regularly in virtually every store that carried Quad in both Chicago and Milwaukee. I don't recall ever having seen it again. Likely it quickly went OOP and was no longer duplicated because most everyone had the same reaction that I did. I saw a Live/Evil single Q8 at the same store. I never saw another copy of either. Although, I bought Indian Reservation in a gold, shiny Q8 sleeve at the same time, and I never saw another Columbia or Epic Gold shiny sleeve. All the others I own and have seen are the green-gold matte finish slipcovers.

Perhaps these will turn up and I'll be proved right. Otherwise, it simply appears that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

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Maybe it's the powerful vibes from the incredible Q4 transfer of this Linda, but I can't help but imagine your story as a 16mm short film backed with the surround version of Pharaoh's Dance. Open ending of course, pending the existence of the tape but that makes it even cooler