The first taster track Sony leaked from this new Miles Davis box set in June was the trumpeter’s take of What’s Love Got To Do With It, the Tina Turner hit from 1984. Previously unreleased, the recording was one of many outtakes from sessions that produced Davis’s You’re Under Arrest – the 1985 album best remembered for his renditions of Michael Jackson’s Human Nature and Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time.
Listening to What’s Love for the first time, with Davis’s sweet, muted horn blowing the song’s familiar melody over light, groovy accompaniment, it’s a real head scratcher that it didn’t make the final cut of You’re Under Arrest – an album that’s mostly filler funk vamps and curious skits resulted in it being, for many, far from arresting. Had it of featured, it would certainly have gone on to further raise Davis’s commercial status in the way the Jackson and Lauper songs did, especially in the live arena where his performances of these songs through the 1980s would arouse audiences in much the same way Stella By Starlight and So What did in the 60s.
Besides the Tina track, its been documented that during the You’re Under Arrest sessions, the then MTV-obsessed Davis was also recording arrangements of songs by the likes of Toto, Dionne Warwick and Lionel Richie. Just as Hendrix, Parliament-Funkadelic and Sly Stone had inveigled Davis’s electric period in the 1970s, mainstream pop music had become the stimulus for his 80s sound and vision. So much had his passion become pop, Davis was even posing to the press his loco opinion that “jazz is dead”, derailing any conversation of his own golden periods with say Bird, Dizzy or Coltrane to instead wax lyrical about Thomas Dolby, Scritti Politti or Prince – with whom he recorded and was dubbing the “Ellington of the 80s” in interviews.
While this new box set doesn’t recover any of the music Davis cut with the purple one, or indeed spotlight the Prince of Darkness himself melodiously noodling over arrangements of Africa or All Night Long, Davis fans are undoubtedly in for a treat. Across three discs we are privy to some fascinating findings from a period of the 1980s that, despite being largely dismissed by the purist “swing wing” of Davis’s fanbase, did prove musically fruitful. Featuring tracks that never made it onto the albums Star People (1983) and Decoy (’84), disc one opens with Santana, a 13-minute funk jam sounding more like a nod to Prince than an accolade to Carlos. Over a strong, repetitive drum groove from Al Foster and some stunning electric bass embellishment from Marcus Miller, Davis’s busy, muted trumpet lines lift and intensify, often around Bill Evans’s similarly ornate swirls on soprano sax or young Mike Stern’s funky fretwork.
With an almost orchestral overtone (highlighting the influence and involvement of Gil Evans as uncredited arranger through the Star People sessions), the takes of Minor Ninths and Remake of OBX Ballad are especially fascinating here. Through the former we hear Davis switch from horn to keyboard to accompany a lone solo from trombonist J.J. Johnson before moving to the Oberheim synthesizer for the latter, a ghostly full-band ambient piece that slowly creeps into swing. The blues-licked Freaky Deaky is heard here in two of its demo stages, bouncing between various feels and Davis blowing gnarled lines over congas, bass and a lazy, repetitive riff from guitarist John Scofield. The track introduces other members of a new personnel that Davis had deployed for Decoy – Darryl Jones on bass, drummer Vince Wilburn and keyboardist Robert Irving III – and carried forward to You’re Under Arrest.
On disc two the alternative and extended recordings of the bittersweet Time After Time and Human Nature are real finds in that they reveal some early, contrasting approaches to the songs from both Miles and the band. The studio session of the latter is distinctly raw and more live-sounding, featuring longer, less literal solos (from Scofield and Davis especially) than the released version. Indeed, listening to a track like Katia too, it’s particularly fascinating to hear the material from You’re Under Arrest in a stripped-back state, prior to its slick, polished production job. Minus Miles’ curious voice-overs, drug-referencing sound effects and Sting imitating a French policeman, what became the cluttered One Phone Call/Street Scenes is heard here as Right Off, a funky jam revisiting Right On from A Tribute To Jack Johnson, displaying great energy and some inspired interplay between these monster musicians.
Heavy on synths, slap bass and some real stand-out moments from our man with the horn, the outtakes, demos and unreleased studio tracks collected heard here – together with a rarely heard live show from Montreal in 1983 – document Davis’s modish move into the 1980s. More than that we hear evidence of further greatness, the sound of a master musician still evolving, pushing boundaries and delving into new musical avenues with a band of funky young lions, this time probing pop.
Discography
CD1: Santana; Minor Ninths Part 1; Minor Ninths Part 2; Celestial Blues Part 1; Celestial Blues Part 2; Celestial Blues Part 3; Remake Of OBX Ballad; Remake Of OBX Ballad (full studio session); Freaky Deaky Part 1; Freaky Deaky Part 2 (66.17)
CD2: Time After Time (alternate); Time After Time (full studio version); Theme From Jack Johnson (Right Off)/Intro; Never Loved Like This (studio session demo); Hopscotch (slow); Hopscotch (fast); What’s Love Got To Do With It; Human Nature (alternate); Katia (full studio version) (61.40)
CD3: Speak (That’s What Happened); Star People; What It Is; It Gets Better; Hopscotch; Star On Cicely; Jean-Pierre; Code 3; Creepin’ In (83.12)
Davis (t, kyb, syn, ); Bill Evans (ss, ts, f); Bob Berg (ss); Mike Stern, John Scofield, John Mclaughlin (g); Marcus Miller, Darryl Jones (b); Al Foster, Vince Wilburn Jr (d); Mino Cinelu, Steve Thornton (pc); J.J. Johnson (tb); Robert Irving III (kyb, programming). Columbia Studios, NYC; The Record Plant, NYC; Theatre St. Denis, Montreal, Canada; all 1980s.
Columbia/Legacy 19439863852
