(Columbia/Legacy)

It was the last straw. Throughout the 1960s, Miles Davis had stretched ever further away from his bebop roots, first with the dreamy modalities he cocreated with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, then with the gauzy ambient soundscapes of In a Silent Way and the electric jazz-rock crosstalk of Bitches Brew. But 1972's On the Corner was just too much. From the pimp-city cover art, to Michael Henderson's steady-state funk bass lines, to the incessant ethnic needling of tablas and an electric sitar, it was obvious that this music was not jazz; even the leader's trumpet sounded more like Sly Stone or James Brown's singing than Dizzy Gillespie's horn.

Jazz fans were enraged. The reviews were universally hostile. Sellout accusations flew. At one concert, a respected critic accosted the Prince of Darkness with a trenchant complaint. "Every move you've made musically, I've been there," he protested. "But I can't get to where you're at now."

Davis, as ever, had the last word. "What the fuck am I supposed to do, muthafuckah?" he replied. "Wait for you to get there?"

Davis didn't & couldn't hang around. But the music is still here, and has kept its provocative currency. The Complete On the Corner Sessions contains more than just six CDs' worth of brilliant interplay, and more than just the unedited source material for the original On the Corner, Big Fun, Get Up With It, In Concert, Dark Magus, Agharta, and Pangaea LPs. It's also where you'll find the roots of Tortoise and Weather Report, where trip-hop, postrock, and nu-jazz were born, where Medeski Martin & Wood and John Zorn's Electric Masada and a thousand others took their inspiration.

In short, this set contains the future, and even if getting there entails travelling back in time, it remains an essential voyage for anyone who loves the music of today.