A Guide to '80s Miles by eleventhvolume

luka

Well-known member
I've never heard any '80s Miles. I just assumed it was as bad as they told me it was. Never bothered verifying it, but I was wrong, and eleventhvolume is going to demonstrate why
 

Leo

Well-known member
so much pressure on someone who just posted for the first time. I'm sure he's up to the task, but this is tossing him into the deep end.
 

luka

Well-known member
credits, who was playing wah-wah... it's not going to be some casual off the cuff thing. 'oh yeah man check out back seat betty its rad' this is going to be a major statement.
 

eleventhvolume

Active member
Haha, here's the shiny new recruit, sorry I'm late. I only read music feeds once a week so only just saw my name. That's right Luka, I've got a pencil and paper out and here I go.

The first Miles record I heard was The Man With The Horn which in any mention I've seen just gets slagged as a bad record. I've never been able to hear that. Turn up the first two tracks Fat Time and Back Seat Betty loud and they're beautifully dark and thrilling - a great mixture of jazz and rock. And I'm saying that as someone who's not that into rock. The rest of the album isn't quite as good, but it's all intense and richly textured. Throw in the wonderfully cheesy title track that could sit very happily next to Everybody Loves The Sunshine and I'm a happy man. And that's just Miles' first record of the '80s.

I wish they'd do box sets of his 80s albums like they did for the 70s ones, but it won't happen because the music's seen as a sell-out (exactly what he was accused of with his '70s electric jazz) and doesn't fit neatly into a nice genre. Reviews mock You're Under Arrest because Sting pretends to be a policeman briefly on it, but who cares? Miles was using the studio, creating musical short stories and ending with armageddon by way of covers of Human Nature and Time After Time. I think he earned the right to those, but apparently they're not comparable in quality to the 50s show tune covers (which I also love), but why? There's that Naked City track Jazz Snob Eat Shit which is a sentiment I can get with. .

I agree with you CrowleyHead, Tutu is brilliant, but it's also part of a trilogy with Marcus Miller that also includes the soundtrack Siesta and Amandla which are just beautiful. There's so much great music throughout that last decade of his, including the amazing 20 cd Complete Miles at Montreux.
 

eleventhvolume

Active member
Just to follow up for anybody like me who was hoping that '80s Miles would get the box set treatment. I watched this: https://www.jazziz.com/miles-monday-the-legacy-of-miles-with-john-jackson, but I wouldn't recommend it (people talking about 'merch' a lot). However, the man being interviewed says there is lots of unreleased 80s Miles and that they're intending to start releasing it soon. He also says that some of it they didn't know what to make of - even more promising. I did read somewhere else that a lot of material for Decoy was canned because it was too uncommercial, again great! Particularly if it's along the lines of Robot 415 and Freaky Deaky. I love that album, but it's always struck me as an odd one with its side one being studio and side two live tracks.
 
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