There’s no point in debating the point that Miles Davis is the most important figure in jazz. No one else is as widely recognized outside of jazz circles nor as influential within them. Throughout the trumpeter’s five-decade career, he pioneered a number of movements, ushering in fundamental shifts in what jazz was. After cementing his status as a bebop great, he went on to pioneer cool jazz, then changed the face of jazz by embracing rock music, psychedelia, electronic instruments, and experimental recording techniques.

That experimental streak was perhaps never as fierce or fearless as on On the Corner, which saw him taking the heroin-hot mania of Bitches Brew and the extended-form ambience of In a Silent Way and distilling them into a dystopian block party.

It’s been well documented on this blog that Davis’ Electric Period (and his collaborators’ work in the same era)  is one of my favorite sections of music history. Sometimes I feel like In a Silent Way might be my favorite record of all time. But On the Corner has eluded me for quite some time, and I’ve found myself being unable to comprehend its mix of funk, acid jazz, and tape manipulation (which Davis described as “Stockhausen plus funk plus Ornette Coleman.” It’s also worth noting that Davis kept a copy of Stockhausen’s Hymnen on repeat in his Lamborghini). There are no defined heads or solos or riffs. There is only groove and vibe, repeating hypnotically like some sort of primal stream of consciousness.

And from the recording itself, that’s exactly what it was. The raw tapes were culled from hours of jam sessions between Davis and his band, which included faithful collaborators Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Bennie Maupin, Michael Henderson, and John McLaughlin, as well as a host of new faces (the complete credits—which aren’t in the liner notes at all—list twenty musicians besides Davis). These jam sessions were criticized by some of the musicians as being chaotic and unstructured—cellist Paul Buckmaster even said it was his least favorite album to work on.

But when it comes to On the Corner, this is as much producer Teo Macero’s album as it was Davis’. Where his cut-and-splice technique had been used extensively on previous albums in Davis’ electric period, it’s the primary mechanism behind this record. Working alongside Davis, Macero cut sections of the hours-long jam sessions and spliced them together to create a more cohesive melodic narrative from the chaos, adding effects and overdubs to further polish the work.

The result is, in a word, revolutionary. It feels more like In a Silent Way than any of the rest of his electric albums, but the nocturnal tranquility of that album is replaced by a bubbling hyperactivity. Still, it has more in common with the long-form atmospherics of that record than the monstrous funk of Bitches Brew or Live-Evil. There are fewer standout moments, instead requiring the listener to immerse themselves in the 20+ minute explorations.

Unsurprisingly, it failed to find much of an audience at the time. The jazz community hated it, saying that Davis lost the plot in an effort to win over young listeners. As a result, On the Corner was Davis’ last proper studio album until 1981, instead focusing on live performances until temporarily retiring in 1975. But in the years since, On the Corner has gained a cult following, with some naming it his greatest work. While I’m not sure I’d go that far, it’s certainly an essential record, and one that I’m glad to finally stop ignoring.