Miles Davis - Star People
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‘Tough Tenor Favorites’ - Johnny Griffin
with Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davis, Horace Parlan, Buddy Callet & Ben Riley
Jazzland (1960)Comment
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On the last tune of this now. It's not bad, though not as strong as much of his earlier work - I wasn't expecting it to be though.Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
I wonder what Forumistas' favourite 80s Miles albums are?Comment
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I am probably the only one on this forum who liked and still likes Tutu, which I listened to the other day after a gap of several years, and found its ballads to be exquisitely evocative in images-laden sense of distancing, for want of a better way of describing the feeling induced; but I would think Decoy has to be my favourite, both for the suggestiveness of its experimentations, like it was saying, why not you try something like this? - and that fabulous slow blues on Side 2, co-conceived with Gil Evans.Originally posted by Joseph K View PostComment
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Miles' 1980's output is pretty ropey but it broadly coincides with when I was getting into jazz. I think I was initially shocked by his electric work in this decade which sounded very modern at a time when I was checking out Bebop and players like Monk. When I discovered Davis' music, it was more through Gil Evans than anyone else and whilst Gil was the catalyst for me in exploring so much that was new in jazz, Miles Davis seemed "too electric" for my tastes at that time. As a consequence, I came to his output from that era in the late 1980s.
I agree with SA with the blues track on "Decoy" which is terrific but my impression of this part of his output is mixed. The comeback album "The man with the horn" was slaughtered when it was released but it probably has the last recorded evidence of a free, jamming Miles that has any bearing to his previous output. I suppose it is closer to his 70s work than what followed and is not as bad as it's reputation would suggest. Mike Stern is good on it. "Star People" came out to great acclaim when I was a sixth form college although I still have not heard it! The two other albums I had are "You're under arrest" with it's covers of Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper as well as some sprawling originals featuring the guitars of Scofield and McLaughlin. It is effectively 50/50 pop music and some rockier elements of jazz. It also has a lot of dialogue on it which makes it sound hopelessly dated.
"Tutu" was an album I avoided for ages until I picked up a copy in a sale around 1992. At the time I was surprised how good it was and it still had a snap about it. Unfortunately, the studio processes used on the record are really old-fashioned. It is akin to Arthur Blythe's notorious "Put sunshine in it" but at least Blythe attempted to play some jazz over the funky, programmed beats. "Tutu" sounds like the kind of production Marcus Miller might have done for Luther Vandross with Miles' trumpet substituting for the soul singer's vocals. The tunes are catchy yet Miles was simply cut and pasted in to the mix. If you want jazz, this is not the album to look for it.
Best of the bunch I think is "Aura" which is an orchestral piece written by Palle Mikkelborg. On this record, the trumpet is effectively just providing timbre and the "real" music is to be found in the writing which evokes the likes of Stravinsky and Messaien. There is also a very good slow blues on this record too and it you set aside your reservations about the 1980s synth sounds, it is the best in Miles' discography for that period.
If Miles' recorded output was limited to 1980s, he would largely have been forgotten by now. If you consider what other trumpeters such as Kenny Wheeler, Wynton Marsalis, Lester Bowie or even Doc Cheatham were doing in this decade, all of it merits more attention that Miles' efforts to gain kudos from a pop crowd. By 1980s, you could argue whether or not he still had any relevance.Comment
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Yes - From what I recall reading and/or listening about ten years ago when I bought the complete Miles on Columbia box, 'Aura' is one of the more interesting albums of 80s era Miles...
I listened to Decoy BTW ... it's not bad but I think Star People is a bit better.Comment
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Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
"Decoy" features both John Scofield and Branford Marsalis who had be heard to much better advantage in their own albums. I believe they were both pretty under-whelmed by Miles by that time with Branford making some comment that the gigs were pretty boring because the band just played vamps. I do not dislike the records and on "The man with the horn", Miles actually plays some jazz. However, he was well past his prime by that point and effectively little more than a poseur. He had effected a harmonic stereotype by this point and , of course, his tone was immediately recognisable. For me, the problem is that he was largely irrelevant when compared to what was happening elsewhere with jazz at the time.
As a teenager getting in to jazz in the early 1980s, the then contemporary Miles seemed very modern yet by the time I was about 17, I had a better grasp of how varied contemporary jazz was at that time. You need to remember this as more than the era of Wynton and the New Neos as this was the same decade when the likes of Joe Henderson would be putting out classic albums, avante garde composers such as Henry Threadgill cemented their reputations along with the likes of AEoC, a whole swathe of jazz musicians in Europe were creating new music on labels like ECM whereas the likes of Scofield, Frisell, Abercrombie, Brecker, Jarrett, etc came to the fore. There was also a vibrant alternative "Downtown" scene that shook up jazz, whether played by the likes of Bobby Previte, John Zorn or Thomas Chapin. The "tradition" was also represented by players such as Arthur Blythe and David Murray. The jazz scene in the 1980s was very vibrant.
Personally, I felt that there was so much to explore than Miles Davis did not seem too relevant with how jazz evolved. I was even listening to more fusion related stuff back then such as Terje Rypdal and Tania Maria who were incredibly different in how they perceived jazz could reflect popular music. When Miles received credit, it was more often for collaborations such as "Aura" which was left on the shelf for about five years before being issued. As I said, I think Miles was cut too much slack in the 1980s and when you consider the wealth of truly great jazz in that era, you have to ask yourself whether it was worth checking out. Not only had his technique diminished but the musical interest diminished at the same time. In trying to be popular and "hip", the music misses it's goals. I feel that he ceased to be an innovative musician in this decade although I probably would not have been quite so critical at the time. Perhaps the biggest criticism is that the real innovation in funk / fusion jazz emerged in the 1990s with groups like Martin, Medeski and Wood who blended this with free jazz sensibilities. Prior to this , Miles had been ploughing his own path and not really picked up on whatever was happening to influence MMW.Comment
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Sonny Clark - I had forgotten what a fine album the "Time label trio session is. Arguably his finest work, here are two versions of "Junka the first from the trio session and the other a blue note quintet version with a superb Hank Mobley soio.
elmoComment
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As with playing standards, playing vamps is not necessarily boring is it? I mean, Miles in the late 60s - early 70s played vamps and it's among the most magical music I know of. I think the 80s work is sublunary by comparison (although I have the title track of You're Under Arrest currently on and it's pretty good).Originally posted by Ian Thumwood View PostComment
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The Wire magazine voted "You're under arrest" as one of the essential records of the 1980s in it's end of decade poll but it probably sounded better about 6 years after it's release that it does from the perspective of 2020. It is not a record that I have played for a long while but it struck me as the point by which Davis wished to see himself as a pop artist. I am pretty sure that this record was made by a studio band too.Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
The whole problem with his output in the 1980s is that he was no longer setting the trends and his technique had seriously diminished. Towards the end, he seemed like a pastiche of himself, the trademark sound cut and pasted on music made by others who he wasn't even in the recording studio with. His line ups rarely featured more than a scattering of genuine talent (Marcus Miller, John Scofield, Mike Stern, Kenny Garrett, Bill Evans, etc who can be heard to better advantage elsewhere) in comparison with previous line ups where the standard had been the best. In the context what else was happening in jazz in the 1980s, Miles' records seem like a sideshow. At the time, it really felt like jazz had upped it's game and the pop /fusion route was probably the least interesting one the music could have taken at that time. If you can make a case for Miles' uneven output from "The man with the horn" onwards, it feels like the same criteria could apply to a lot of the Smooth Jazz that was becoming popular at the same time. As I said, "Aura" remains the best thing he did in the 1980s and this was largely through the writing of Palle Mikkelborg. The rest of the stuff has it's moments such as the slow blues on "Decoy" but it was the law of diminishing returns. Even the material recorded live towards the end of his career is all show and little genuine substance, the work of musicians such as Steve Coleman at the time illustrating just how far behind the curve Davis was by this point in adopting elements of popular music into a credible advance in the music. By the second half of the decade, Davis could do little more than coast when playing live and tended to over-rely on the likes of Kenny Garrett.
Having discovered and absorbed jazz in the 1980s, I concur that Miles still exerted a presence at that time yet the music had effectively left him behind. If you want a comparison, I think the later Louis Armstrong discs made towards the end of his career make a good comparison. It is recognisably Louis and there are moments when you appreciate what a unique voice in jazz he was. However, like Louis, Miles' appeal at this point was far broader than jazz. He was using up a lot of past credit in the end.Comment
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‘Laughin' to keep from cryin'’
Lester Young, Roy Eldridge & Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison with Hank Jones, Herb Ellis, George Duvivier & Mickey Sheen
Verve (1958)Comment
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Miles Davis - Aura
I'd say this is possibly the strongest 80s Miles album. John McLaughlin's presence helps, as well as Messiaen-esque harmonies so overall it represents an interesting stylistic miscegenation...Comment
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Given that Mikkelborg's conception was effectively a step beyond Gil Evans's in terms of harmonic elaboration, I wonder what Gil himself made of it. One point I would suggest about the later Miles's playing was that it was as good, in my opinion, as it had ever been, responding free of tonal reference for those parts of Aura that are to all intents and purposes atonal, a belated reply to the German trumpeter Manfred Schoof's challenge 20 years previously*! - and, from literally thinking outside the recording box, with some of his most touching ballad improvising on Mr Pastorius, from the otherwise rather disappointing Amandla follow up to Tutu, of 1989.Originally posted by Joseph K View Post
*I've searched frantically for the quote from Schoof, but to no avail. Such is life!Comment
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SAOriginally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
The two things that remain interesting regarding Miles' playing in the 1980's was his use of timbre and the harmonic language he employed. More often than not, the only thing "happening" in the music was the way he employed harmony. I am really surprised by your defence of Miles in this era because the crux of the issue with jazz is improvisation and the ability of musicians to react to each other. The way he approached recording often meant he was not even in the studio when the rest of the band were effectively providing a backing track. To me, this is almost the antithesis of the notion of spontaneous creativity with an album like "Tutu" effectively encasing Miles in a set of tight, rigidly defined arrangements which you could have more in common with the way someone like Glenn Miller worked than Miles did in an earlier era. Even if you compare the work with Gil Evans, Miles' work is far "freer" and uninhibited than in the recording made with Marcus Miller. Miller's writing is catchy and the charts have a pop-sensibility yet this is effectively a context as rigid as with a commercial swing band from the 1940s - the banks of synths substituting for an orchestra. I agree that Miller did this really well which should not be a surprise given his experience as Luther Vandross' MD. On top of this, I would have to disagree about the quality of Miles' playing too and I am not convinced that he fully regained his chops after his 1970s hiatus nor his prowess as an improvisor.
Picking up on Gil Evans' writing, Mikkelborg's "Aura" was perhaps the first instance where it was possible to witness someone else challenging for Evans' crown when it came to writing to a large ensemble. It remains the most musically important record Miles Davis made since the late 1960s/ early 70's but more salient to your narrative that jazz is a music which seek to rise to challenges and evolve is the fact that this was precisely the kind of record which pushed upon the doors for many of the orchestral jazz writers working from the 1990s onwards including Bob Brookmeyer, Jim McNeely, John Hollenbeck, Maria Schneider, etc, etc. In my opinion, this is the true worth of this record, throwing challenges from 20th century classical music as a basis for improvisation and a context for musical exploration. in the UK, the likes of Mike Gibbs and Neil Ardley had been pushing the envelope in this area too. Perhaps a more interesting question would be to conject how Miles would have reacted to the challenge of a Hollenbeck or Schneider? I would put to you and Joe that Hollenbeck's recent efforts to deconstruct pop music in the context of big band arrangements is seriously radical in a fashion that Miles covering "Human Nature" , "Time after time" or Scritti Politti's "Perfect Way" is ultimately pretty lame. Miles was reluctant to divorce himself from the pop quality of the material and this ultimately led to an artistic cul-de-sac. By the end of the decade and considering just how creative jazz was in the 1980s, Miles was pretty much marooned and effectively put his money on the wrong horse.
I do not mind Miles' 1980s output and I have a number of records that I bought at the time. They are ok to listen to albeit very dated. The issue for me is that none of it is of the same calibre of anything he produced in the 50s and 60s and on the one occasion when he did produce a "serious" jazz record, it was off the back of someone else. The comparison with the final recordings of Louis still stands - aside from the album with Mikkelborg, Miles' work in the 1980s was inherently conservative with little pretense of being innovative.Comment
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