The renascent Miles Davis is still developing; this material is fresh and original and it sounds like more preparation has been done than on preceding albums. The music gives the impression of being more arranged and more precisely executed. Less seems left to chance, but there is plenty of room for spontaneous invention in solos.
The rhythmic framework remains the same – rock and funk but no swing – and a typically edgy dissonance pervades harmony and melody. More synthesisers are played, and one of the players is Robert Irving III, who also composed and arranged two very fine tracks, Decoy and Code M.D.
Another who fittingly looms large in composer credits is the eminent guitar stylist, John Scofield, who co-composed the whole of side two with Davis. That’s What Happened is based on a transcription of part of Scofield’s solo on Speak on the last Miles album, Star People. Scofield is, predictably, one of the outstanding soloists on the record, though Branford Marsalis runs him a close second, arresting the attention with his haunting sound and oblique melodies.
Miles Davis mostly takes only his fair share of solo space, but he does rather over indulge on the self-composed and weakest track. Freaky Deaky, where he plays no trumpet, but fills time fiddling about with a synthesiser. Little of Miles’ trumpet playing sticks in the mind, but there are two or three interesting phrases on the slow, bluesy That’s Right. Does he lose his way here, or does he intentionally mimic a faltering New Orleans veteran?
Discography
Decoy; Robot 415; Code M.D.; Freaky Deaky (19.58) – What It Is; That’s Right; That’s What Happened (19.14)
Miles Davis (t/syn); Mino Cinelu (pc); Al Foster (d); Robert Irving III (syn/eld); Darryl ‘The Munch’ Jones (elb); John Scofield (elg); Branford Marsalis, Bill Evans (ss). Recorded Montreal and New York.
CBS 25951
