After decades of neglect, Scritti’s classic Cupid & Psyche 85 seems to finally be getting its due.
Rough Trade released a long-awaited remaster of the album in 2021, and singer/guitarist/co-songwriter Green Gartside has put it front and centre of his occasional live shows over the last 20 years or so.
But now a new 2022 remaster (by Chris Athens) has been released as a single CD/2-LP Deluxe Edition, with seven bonus tracks including two extremely rare mixes.
But is it any good? Not ‘arf. It’s the reissue this writer has been waiting for, finally putting his original Virgin CD out to pasture.
The package comprises the original classic album (thankfully with the John Potoker mix of ‘Perfect Way’ rather than the rather puny original), plus the usual mixes that have appeared on all subsequent reissues: ‘Flesh & Blood’ and extended versions of ‘Absolute’, ‘Hypnotize’ and ‘Wood Beez’.
Also included are two out-of-print mixes of ‘Perfect Way’, one only ever released on a US promo 12″. They give a new perspective on the song, with intriguing elements revealed.
And there’s a fun dance mix of ‘Lover to Fall’ that seems to have only briefly appeared previously as a single for the French market. It’s a bit tinnitus-inducing but also fascinating if you love the song.
One of the interesting things about the album is the volume difference between the Arif Mardin-produced tracks (‘Wood Beez’, ‘Absolute’, ‘Don’t Work That Hard’) and the other Green/David Gamson-produced stuff.
No remaster is ever going to square that circle, but this is the closest we’re ever going to get. This new mix also increases the instrument separation and ups the top-end a little bit. ‘A Little Knowledge’ in particular has never sound more sumptuous.
The packaging is excellent – the CD is a solid gatefold digipak with original artwork/photography/lyrics plus very interesting/unobtrusive liner notes from Gartside and Gamson. We find out how long Gary Langan took to mix ‘Hypnotize’, what it was really like to work with Mardin and how Robert Quine came to play on the album, amongst loads of other interesting stuff.
If you’re already a fan of Cupid, the new mixes, pristine sound, liner notes and neat packaging make this deluxe edition an essential purchase. The only downside is the lack of credits for the remixes.
But the album may be relevant for new listeners too. Scritti may have been influenced by Kashif, The System, Leon Sylvers III, Michael Jackson/Quincy Jones and various other early-‘80s acts, but their influence is detectable in much current music.
More knowledgeable bods than your correspondent cite The 1975, Carly Rae Jepsen, HAIM, Dirty Projectors and Hot Chip. So Cupid & Psyche 85 is probably as relevant today as it ever was, and this deluxe edition does it proud.
In the blizzard of books, articles and tribute albums released to celebrate Miles Davis’s recent centennial, here’s one of the more interesting – though extremely flawed – items.
‘Rethinking Miles Davis’ is a new academic work from Oxford University Press which looks to reassess Miles’s legacy, character and, particularly, his 1980s music.
The tone is set by Tony Whyton’s first chapter entitled ‘Miles Behind’, which starts with a disclaimer: ‘The following chapter focuses on the work of a misogynist and serial abuser of women. Any pleasure derived from the study of Miles Davis should be considered in direct relation to these acts.’
Whyton moves on to claim that, especially in light of the #MeToo movement, we need to ‘think about Miles differently’ and move towards a new kind of jazz appreciation in general.
Essentially it asks us to strip away Miles’s ‘romantic’ myth (the Prince of Darkness, the baddest mother****er, etc.) and focus on reality, informed by other articles about Miles’s battery of women, from Pearl Cleave to Eric Nisenson and Miles’s autobiography itself.
In essence, Whyton is asking oft-considered question of whether we can/should separate a great artist from their deeds – Miles, Picasso, Michael Jackson, Eric Gill or Dali . The short answer may be ‘yes’, but Whyton attempts to persuade that this is a false position.
(Maybe a more interesting question is whether our propensity to ‘forgive’ an artist their deeds is dependent on one’s ‘hierarchy’ of their supposed evils – it’s interesting to survey the above list again…).
It’s a noble pursuit, but seems in vain – this writer is pretty sure lovers of Miles’s work can quite easily separate his musical nous from his sometimes highly questionable actions*.
But there’s much better stuff in ‘Rethinking Miles’. Nicolas Pillai looks at Miles’s appearances on TV and in videos, and the various references to his work which appear in movies. There’s very interesting, original information regarding his ‘Miami Vice’ guest appearance and collaboration with Spike Lee on the ‘Tutu Medley’ video.
Some errors suggest shoddy proofreading and/or research though – he mistakenly credits Mike Gibbs with directing ‘The Miles Davis Story’. It was Mike Dibb. And he rather blithely describes Miles as ‘acting the pimp’ on the cover of You’re Under Arrest, apparently failing to consider Ian Carr’s assertion that he’s dressed in the attire of a ‘Spanish dancer’.
Another interesting section is Pedro Cravinho’s work on tracking Miles’s visits to Portugal over the years, and how that country’s press treated him during his tours.
Elsewhere Roger Fagge’s chapter investigating Miles’s posthumous Doo-Bop album and exploring jazz’s flirtations with hip-hop is engaging and well-researched, with some new insights into the project and an analysis of how Kendrick Lamarr, J Dilla and Robert Glasper bring jazz into their music.
But by far the best – and simplest – section of the book is William Ellis’s collection of Miles-referencing ‘One LP’ photos, featuring Marcus Miller, Terence Blanchard, Eddie Henderson, Mike Stern and others discussing the effect Miles’s music had on their lives and careers.
Elsewhere Tim Wall’s looks at Tutu‘s position in Miles’s discography, its relationship to the work of Prince and Madonna, and Miles’s decision to sign for Warner Bros.
There’s an unfortunate section looking at Tutu’s place in the pantheon of ‘smooth jazz’, spending far too much time on Warner Bros’ ‘fusion’ legacy, and there’s a rather poor exploration of Marcus Miller’s pre-Tutu session career, describing Donald Fagen as a ‘soft rock king’ and Dave Grusin as a ‘jazz instrumentalist’!
Wall also fails to locate another of Miller’s key influences in putting together Tutu: Herbie Hancock’s Speak Like A Child (which Hancock himself claims was influenced by Gil Evans! So everything comes full circle…).
There’s also only the briefest mention of Miller’s pre-Tutu solo albums, particularly 1983’s Suddenly, where he had already rehearsed a fusion of drum machine and real drums, and also worked at combining synth bass and bass guitar.
Wall also inexplicably compares Tutu to Byrne & Eno’s My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock and Material’s Memory Serves, and rather over-eggs the album’s influences from Prince and Madonna (only one track on Tutu shows any kind of Prince influence – the closing ‘Full Nelson’).
It seems that most critics are unable to spot that Tutu is an extremely original piece of work, more reflecting Miller’s outstanding compositional abilities and Miles’s good instincts than anything else.
But Wall’s article does outline Tutu‘s mixed critical reaction, particularly from the jazz and (American) rock press, but fails to acknowledge the reception it received in the UK, where it was mainly greeted as a funk or even pop album.
The October 1986 edition of The Face magazine reviewed it alongside David Sylvian, Loose Ends and Human League, and also named Tutu as its seventh best album of 1986, alongside Prince, Anita Baker, Iggy Pop, The Smiths, Janet Jackson, Run DMC, Cameo and Talking Heads.
There are other strange omissions – co-producer Tommy LiPuma is mentioned only once (the author also has apparently/curiously never read Ben Sidran’s biography of the Tutu co-producer) and he also fails to acknowledge that it was LiPuma – not Miller – who reportedly first played Scritti Politti’s ‘Perfect Way’ to Miles.
Wall also supplies a chapter trying to understand better Miles’s ‘shock’ signing for Warner Bros after almost 30 years on CBS, but fails to add much to Paul Tingen, Ian Carr and George Cole’s exemplary work on the matter. And again there are a few odd factual errors, including describing Elvis Costello as an ‘icon of American popular music’!
Will L Finch writes about Miles’s work on the ‘Dingo’ soundtrack alongside Michel Legrand, as well as his appearance in that film. But he misspells trumpeter Chuck Findley’s name, though does include some interesting work on Legrand and the musical antecedents for his soundtrack.
Finally, there’s also a chapter on Miles’s arrangers by Wall and musician/writer Bobbie-Jane Gardner, looking at his collaborations with Gil Evans, George Avakian, Miller and LiPuma.
So, while patchy and error-strewn, ‘Rethinking Miles Davis’ will be a vital addition to any fan’s library. The chapters on Portugal and Miles’s TV appearances certainly offer new material, and even the more humdrum sections will provide food for thought, if not a total ‘rethink’ of Miles’s career.
*But certainly it can be a (refreshing?) shock in our somewhat cossetted age to revisit even Miles’s most ‘media-friendly’ TV appearances, like ‘The Arsenio Hall Show’ or ’60 Minutes’. He seems brutally honest and totally unpolished compared to the relatively ‘coached’ personalities of today. But this writer’s suggestion to the general fan would be to ignore those pieces of footage completely. And while his Autobiography may signal general feelings about musicians, friends and events, it’s full of factual inaccuracies. In short, all of Miles’s public utterances should probably be taken with a huge pinch of salt.
You know you’re doing something right when the boss takes an interest.
GRP Records was just coming into its own when label co-founder Dave Grusin co-produced, arranged and played keyboards on brilliant guitarist Kevin Eubanks’ fourth solo album Face To Face, released 40 years ago this month.
Part of the so-called Young Lions generation, Eubanks’ first major gig had been with Art Blakey. His playing was a turbo-charged fusion of Wes Montgomery, George Benson and John McLaughlin, and by 1986 he was a seriously hot property.
Face To Face remains probably his best solo album to date and one of GRP’s best too – but it’s still not on Spotify and bloody hard to find on CD… It apes the kinds of albums Verve and CTI were making in the 1960s with Montgomery and Benson, mainly jazz, Latin and pop covers with rich string arrangements and high production values.
But this one also benefits from some fantastic bass playing from Marcus Miller and Ron Carter (but hardly any drums – Buddy Williams is almost inaudible and the rhythmic energy comes from the percussion, guitar and bass).
As the 1980s progressed, mastering engineers were looking for new ways to push the bass front and centre in the mix, and here Miller obliges with one of the hottest slap tones ever committed to vinyl – the version of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Moments Aren’t Moments’ and title track are almost comical examples.
Grusin writes a new middle eight for the Bacharach/Bayer Sager classic ‘That’s What Friends Are For’, inspiring an absolutely brilliant Eubanks solo, while Carter and the guitarist duet beautifully on Charlie Parker’s ‘Relaxin’ At Camarillo’ and Montgomery’s ‘Trick Bag’.
Elsewhere the delicious version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s ‘Wave’ may be its best cover version bar none. The three Eubanks originals are cool too, marrying his love of bebop, funk and McLaughlin. The mixture of his steel-string acoustic guitar and Miller’s bass is original and exciting.
Sadly Face To Face proved a bit of a false dawn in terms of Eubanks’ tenure on GRP and subsequent solo career, though his brief period on Blue Note in the 1990s has some fans. He also spent a long time on TV in Jay Leno’s ‘Tonight Show’ band, and guested fruitfully with artists like Dave Holland, Greg Osby and Will Downing.
But arguably his solo career has been hampered by a lack of memorable original compositions, not a problem on Face To Face. Happy birthday to one of the great guitar albums of the 1980s.
You could put forward a pretty good case that John Scofield was THE guitarist of the 1980s.
Probably best known for his incendiary playing in Miles Davis’s band between 1982 and 1985, he also enjoyed a distinguished solo career.
Whilst focusing on straightahead jazz during the early part of the decade, his stellar ‘fusion’ period between 1984 and 1988 – encompassing classic albums Electric Outlet, Still Warm, Blue Matter, Pick Hits Live and Loud Jazz – featured excellent original compositions and formidable players such as David Sanborn, Don Grolnick, Omar Hakim, Darryl Jones, Dennis Chambers, Hiram Bullock and George Duke.
In the meantime Sco was much in demand as a sideman, playing with everyone from Terri Lyne Carrington to Tommy Smith (this playlist gathers some of his greatest music of the 1980s) whilst also teaming up with fellow guitarist Bill Frisell, drummer Peter Erskine and bassist Marc Johnson in the latter’s Bass Desires project that produced two classic albums on ECM Records: Bass Desires and Second Sight.
Immediately recognisable with his chorus/overdrive sound and molten, legato style – always informed by the blues – Scofield’s solo career has since gone from strength, and we now find him ensconced in a highly productive spell on ECM, his latest album being Uncle John’s Band.
movingtheriver caught up with John to talk about his wonderful 1980s as he prepared for a European tour with keyboardist John Medeski – he’s ever the road warrior and seems full of energy and good humour.
MTR: I’d love to know a little about how/when you signed with Gramavision Records, and did you consider other options for your mid-‘80s solo career such as ECM?
JS: I signed with Gramavision shortly before I recorded Electric Outlet. They were very interested and made us a good deal when no one else had contacted me. After I met (ECM founder/producer) Manfred Eicher at the Bass Desires recording session he expressed interest but I had already signed a multi-record contract with Gramavision. After that I stayed with other New York-based companies (Blue Note and Verve) because I met those people here at home and they were major international labels. I’m quite happy now that I’ve found a home at ECM that is aligned with my current musical direction.
Drummer Steve Jordan plays some wonderful stuff on Electric Outlet – was he overdubbed at the end after you’d tracked everything with a drum machine?
Yes, exactly. I had bought a Roland drum machine and used it to make a four-track demo at home with me playing guitars and bass. I recreated that in the studio and had Steve overdub on all the tunes. He was incredible and nailed them so quickly. We’d played together a bit before – he was on my Who’s Who album in 1978.
I’m fascinated by the work you did with saxophonist George Adams during the 1980s, especially More Sightings (1984) – can you tell me how that came about?
I had played with George in New York on gigs with the Gil Evans Orchestra and then did a tour and album as a guest with the George Adams/Don Pullen band. Then George wanted to do the tour with Hannibal Marvin Peterson. They invited me and we ended up recording a live show in Zürich. I loved George’s playing and we were friendly. I even got him to come in to record with Miles for Columbia in 1983, but it seems that that recording session was lost somehow. I believe it was at The Hit Factory on Broadway. When they were putting together some CBS tapes for reissue, I was told by Michael Cuscuna that they didn’t find anything from that session… That’s all I know. It was Miles‘s band but with George on saxophone. (Adams is understood to have guested with Miles’s band in the studio on 16 June 1983 and also in concert at the Avery Fisher Hall in NYC on 26 June 1983, and was also part of the big band which played with Miles at Montreux in 1991 – Ed.)
Is it true that Kenny Kirkland was supposed to play keyboards on Still Warm but didn’t show at the last minute? And please tell me how the fabulous Omar Hakim came to play on the album.
Yes, Kenny was a friend and I was lucky enough to get to play with him a bunch, but somehow he didn’t show up at rehearsal so I asked Don Grolnick. I think Kenny just had his dates mixed up maybe? I’m not sure. It was a real loss that he died so young. Omar and Darryl Jones were playing with Sting at that time and I knew Omar although I had never played with him but I thought that he and Darryl could really lock it in. They sounded fantastic together.
So was Still Warm recorded just after you left Miles?
I think it was before the last tour. The last stuff I did with Miles was later in the summer in Europe and then Japan.
How much rehearsal time did you get with the bands in general for Still/Blue/Loud? Or did you give the band demos to learn in advance? Because a few of these compositions are treacherous, I’m thinking of stuff like ‘Trim’ and ‘Loud Jazz’ – how did Dennis learn them (he famously doesn’t read music – Ed.)?
For Still Warm, I think we probably had one rehearsal, then one in the studio. I think I made demos of the tunes to give everybody, but I can’t remember. By Blue Matter and Loud Jazzwe were a working band. I had been playing some of the Blue Matter songs with a different keyboardist and drummer along with Gary Grainger. Gary recommended Dennis and I guess he learned the songs at rehearsal. Maybe I made demos… I just remember Dennis trying a go-go beat on ‘Blue Matter’ which I hadn’t tried before. I think I wrote that song just before the session and had never played it live. Then we played a week at Fat Tuesday before going into the studio with Dennis and Mitch Forman. For Loud Jazz, we rehearsed but also played the tunes live on tour before the recording.
Regarding producer Steve Swallow’s role, did he select material? The albums have stood the test of time so well because they’re generally free of 1980s production clichés.
Steve has been a friend and mentor to me since the ‘70s. He was interested in production and multi-track recording and I knew he would be great at it. Although he didn’t select the material, he probably helped me with selecting my own tunes. He was really involved in mixing and had suggestions for the arrangements. Because Gramavision had their own studios, we were allowed to mix for many hours and treated mixing more like we would for a pop record. We were really lucky to have the great engineer Joe Ferla, to whom we deferred for many of the mix ideas. Along with Steve, he was responsible for the sound.
Can you tell me a bit more about the tune ‘Gil B643’ – presumably it’s a tribute to Gil Evans? And was the title at all influenced by the movie ‘THX 1138’?
B643 was Gil‘s apartment number! We lived at the same building in Manhattan.
I’d love to know a bit more about ‘Picks And Pans’ and its 6/8 feel, it strikes me that it’s a very influential tune in ‘fusion’ but was it influenced by Joe Zawinul’s ‘The Juggler’ (from Weather Report’s Heavy Weather)?
I liked Joe’s tune but I don’t think I got the beat especially from that…but there were other examples of that kind of beat. Probably lots of them. Maybe it first came from Afro-Cuban music like Mongo Santamaria’s ‘Afro Blue’. Or you can take a jazz waltz and just put a backbeat in there!
Which is your favourite of the two terrific Bass Desires albums and why?
I can’t say that I really have a favourite, but I just remember the chemistry for the first record was really exciting and it was great when we realized we could play together and that the group had a different sound, largely because of Bill Frisell and his unique approach. Also the sound with the two of our styles working together. That’s not to take anything from Marc and Peter, who really contributed so much and brought in material and if it weren’t for Marc having the idea of putting us all together, it would never have happened. I remember we played some gigs together before we went in the studio as well as rehearsing. I think we played a strange cabaret club in New York City. I can’t remember the name of the place and we probably also played a gig in Boston as well before we went into the studio with Manfred Eicher.
How did Dennis Chambers and Gary Grainger come onboard for the Blue Matter band – did you headhunt them, did they audition, or a bit of both?
I was looking for an electric bass player and my friend, the keyboard player Marc Copland, recommended Gary who he had played with in Washington DC. He said Gary could play anything on electric bass and it turned out he was absolutely correct. I then played with Gary in another configuration and he recommended Dennis. Gary and Dennis grew up together in Baltimore and were old friends. I had heard about Dennis with The P-Funk All Stars and was so surprised to learn that he was looking to play more jazz/fusion. Actually, Darryl Jones had played me a great board tape and said, ‘Isn’t this drummer fantastic?’ But we didn’t know who it was. I found out later that it was Dennis so I was a fan already even though I didn’t know it!
Hiram Bullock is an inspired rhythm-guitar choice on Blue Matter – was he a Steve Swallow recommendation?
No, I knew Hiram was great. I knew him from the New York scene and we were friends. I wanted rhythm guitar on that one track and I thought he would do a better job than I did – I think he did.
Was ‘Blue Matter’ influenced by Miles’s ‘Tutu’ (composed by Marcus Miller)?
I just had a generic triplet-ish backbeat in mind. It had no relation to ‘Tutu’ – not at all. ‘Tutu’ sounds a bit like (Burt Bacharach tune) ‘The Look Of Love’, right?!
How did you achieve the final minute of ‘Time Marches On’ where you solo over that ‘drone’ – was it a slowed down tape loop?
No, we just did it in real time.
I’d love to know your favourite guitarists of the 1980s, any genre…
Mainly I liked the jazz guys Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, George Benson, Pat Martino. But I always loved the blues guys starting with Hendrix and Clapton back in the ’60s, plus Otis Rush, Albert King and BB King. I always admired my contemporaries Metheny, Stern, Frisell, Abercrombie, Mick Goodrick… I went in the fusion direction because of my experience with Miles. If it wasn’t for him, I probably would’ve been just playing bebop and giving guitar lessons!
The only time I saw the Blue Matter band in London was a really weird but brilliant gig in the East End in summer 1987 I think, maybe it was called the Mile End Theatre? Do you remember that? And in general do you have good memories of touring the UK and Europe?
Was that the Half Moon Theatre? I’ll never forget the gig. The late John Cumming brought us to London and I played many gigs subsequently for him. Maybe it was my first one in London as a leader? Not sure? That band was so strong. We really had some success in UK/Europe in those days.
Did Miles ever give you feedback on your 1980s solo career, or did you ever seek it out?!
I know he liked my tunes because I wrote ‘You’re Under Arrest’ for him and gave him a demo of a bunch of other stuff, some of which ended up on my records. He said he was gonna record everything but then when I quit the band in order to go out on tour with Blue Matter, I didn’t get a chance to do any of that with Miles. He had moved on to Tutu. I remember I played him some of Blue Matter for him once and he was really blown away by Dennis’s playing…
Finally, how do you look back on your 1980s career in general? Was it a great era for guitar-based music?
It was an incredible time. It was great because of getting to play with Miles and all the exposure it got me, and then starting my own career, playing funk/jazz with those guys. I was so influenced by Miles and his direction in the ‘80s. But, for me, Weather Report and Herbie’s Head Hunters were the greatest. I think it was a really good era for guitar when you think of Holdsworth, Stern, Metheny, Robben Ford and so many more. And of course the classic rockers like Clapton and Beck were around. Pop music in general had some pretty hot-shot guitar stuff in there, and funk was really everywhere. Thanks to Sly…
Thanks John and good luck on the European tour…
John Scofield at the Cape Town Jazz Festival, 2003. Photo by William Ellis
Bryan Ferry’s one and only UK #1 album to date (and biggest-selling record in the US) was released 40 years ago this month.
The Antony Price/Simon Puxley cover is seductive, the Bob Clearmountain mix is delicious, the grooves are pleasant, there’s an array of great players, and this writer can’t resist playing his vinyl copy every year or so.
So why is Boys And Girls always a strangely underwhelming listen?
Despite its big sales and Ferry’s watertight reputation, it has also failed to garner any posh anniversary write-ups in the monthly music mags and didn’t even make Classic Pop mag’s 2015 readers poll of the 100 best 1980s albums. Maybe it could/should have been Ferry’s Let’s Dance (and one wonders why he didn’t enlist Nile Rodgers to produce?).
Ferry completed the album just as he was mourning the death of his father (reflected in the lyrics to ‘The Chosen One’?) but started work back in summer 1983 with producer/engineer Rhett Davies, veteran of Roxy’s Avalon as well as the classic King Crimson double of Discipline and Beat (Davies left the music business for 20 years soon after working on Boys And Girls…). They devised drum-machine beats and laid down keyboard beds while Ferry outlined vague lyric/melody ideas.
Work mostly took place at The White House on London’s King’s Road (meanwhile, less than a mile away in Stanhope Gardens, David Sylvian was devising his own mid-1980s triptych, arguably a far more successful fusion of pop, white funk, ambient and jazz…), a demo studio owned by Ferry’s manager Mark Fenwick. Musicians were then brought in to overdub onto those eight-track demos – seven studios and 30 musicians/singers are credited!
The songs have various nods to the Avalon era. ‘Windswept’ (named by Ferry in a 2003 interview as one of his six favourite songs, the others being ‘Do The Strand’, ‘Avalon’, ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’ and ‘Mother Of Pearl’) seems inspired by B-side ‘Always Unknowing’, ‘Slave To Love’ obviously nods to ‘Avalon’ while ‘Sensation’ is built around a melodic motif embedded in ‘Take A Chance With Me’.
The piecemeal recording process affects the material though – Boys And Girls desperately misses the quirkier aspects of Avalon, with those vital contributions of messrs Manzanera and Mackay (not to mention bassist Alan Spenner).
David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler, David Sanborn, Nile, Marcus Miller and Andy Newmark are vaguely familiar now and then, but other big players are anonymous. Ferry’s patented piano work is almost entirely absent.
‘Slave’ is a case in point (though does feature some of that Ferry piano). Built around one of the hoariest old chord progressions in commercial music (incidentally very similar to the verses of ‘Dance Away’ but without that song’s interesting key change or atmosphere…), Ferry doesn’t bother with a bridge (or what Americans call the ‘pre-chorus’) or interesting chorus, just repeats the verse chords again and adds the chanted vocals.
He generally eschews bridges and modulations on Boys And Girls, sticking mainly to two-chord vamps (Avalon, in contrast, featured several ONE-chord songs, apparently influenced by Miles’s On The Corner and James Brown, but they really worked…).
The title track drearily cycles E-min/B-min, while ‘Stone Woman’ sticks rigidly to a very dull D-min/B-flat. Both songs are mercifully/abruptly cut short, Ferry unable to elevate the material with strong melodies.
Still, the music is beguiling and beautifully-appointed (though side A seems much too long, my stylus really struggling to get through ‘Windswept’) and yes, this time next year movingtheriver will probably be reaching for the vinyl, saying ‘Maybe this time’…
It was ten years to the day that I published my inaugural articles for movingtheriver, pieces on Prefab Sprout, Marcus Miller/Miles Davis, Peter Gabriel , Keith LeBlanc, Prince and Level 42.
The site was a few years in the planning but really only became a reality during an enforced period of reclusion via illness.
Anyone who sets up a project as a labour of love knows how quickly it becomes both a lifeline and passion. Over the past ten years, it’s also been great fun sharing stories and opinions with readers, writers, musicians and bloggers alike.
I’m not sure what the future holds for the site. Substack and YouTube beckon and WordPress has its issues (some of you may have mistakenly been sent a test post by the WP backroom bods recently…).
But the keyword is enjoyment. So hope to see you in ten years…
Surprisingly few musical memoirs take the reader right into the recording studios of the 1980s and 1990s, documenting what actually went down during the making of some classic albums.
In his enjoyable new book, Jason Miles – synth player/programmer for Miles Davis, Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, Roberta Flack, David Sanborn, Diana Ross, George Benson, Will Downing, Marcus Miller, Chaka Khan, Scritti Politti and The Brecker Brothers – does just that, in the process outlining the joys and sorrows of the American music business in its money-drenched pomp.
‘The Extraordinary Journey Of Jason Miles’ traces the author’s young life as a teenage Brooklyn jazz fanatic to becoming a first-call studio sessionman for some of the biggest artists on the planet. The book is also notable for outlining the considerable pressures – and potential threats to one’s mental health – of coming up with the goods and harnessing the ever-evolving music technology when time is money.
There’s a memorably tense episode when things go very wrong on a Vandross session and an unsparingly honest view of putting together his Miles Davis-celebrating Kind Of New project with trumpeter Ingrid Jensen. Jason also outlines his struggles bringing award-winning tributes to the music of Grover Washington Jr., Ivan Lins, Weather Report and Marvin Gaye to life.
Printing problems bring about a few curious errors/typos but the book is an absolutely key text for Miles Davis fans, a fast-paced, brave, uncompromising read also featuring some superb photographs. There are also intriguing, fond portraits of musicians such as Bernie Worrell, Lenny White, Marcus Miller and Joe Sample.
Also it strikes movingtheriver that we don’t have much first-person documentation of great 1980s and 1990s Black music – ‘The Extraordinary Journey Of Jason Miles’ corrects that, and sheds more light on who actually played what on Tutu and Amandla, though sadly my favourite ‘80s Davis (and Miller) album Siesta barely gets a mention (Jason tells movingtheriver he will write about it in his second book, coming soon).
(Postscript – One of Jason’s gripes is the lack of credit he has received through his career – sure enough, my remastered CD copy of Davis’s Amandla only gives him a sole credit, on the classic track ‘Mr Pastorius’… But Jason assures movingtheriver that Warners has made corrections to more recent versions of the album).
The heart always beats a little faster when there’s news of a ‘previously unreleased’ Miles project. And if it’s from the 1980s, even better.
The era is still one the least understood/lauded periods of Miles’s work, despite the stellar efforts of George Cole.
It also has not been served well posthumously, particularly by his final label Warners; in recent years there has been the weirdly undercooked/incomplete Rubberband project, and the appallingly-mastered/incomplete Warners Years box set.
So hopes were high for Sony’s new Bootleg Series 7, which takes in the years 1982 to 1985 and looks at the sessions that made up the (classic) albums Star People, Decoy and You’re Under Arrest. The packaging looks OK:
But what about the music? Before his death, Teo Macero, producer of many epochal Davis albums and also Star People, was very critical of the ‘complete sessions’ boxes that appeared after Miles’s demise. It’s safe to say he would not like this either.
We essentially get a collection of long studio jams, featuring the occasional familiar section – generally the best bit of the jam, expertly filleted by Teo. He really earned his money during this era of Miles music. There are also some alternative versions of You’re Under Arrest material, a few full-length, unedited versions of released tracks and one or two outtakes such as ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It’.
The full, unedited versions of ‘Freaky Deaky’ (Darryl Jones’ first recording with Miles) and ‘Katia’ (before Miles took his razor blade to John McLaughlin’s remarkable solo) are well worth hearing. Marcus Miller plays a brilliant bass solo on ‘Remake Of OBX Ballad’. There’s also a really strange duet featuring trombonist JJ Johnson and Miles on keyboards.
Unlike some of the previous Bootleg Series albums, there’s a lack of interesting studio chatter, which would have enlivened things (though there is the occasional brief Miles interjection). And there are still tracks that refuse to leave the vaults, such as the version of Nik Kershaw’s ‘Wild Horses’.
Disc one just contains too many formless jams, with Mike Stern, Miles and Bill Evans struggling to put together cogent solos (despite Al Foster’s beautiful drumming), and basically the band is crying out for John Scofield’s arrival in autumn 1982. He brings immediate relief, from both a soloing and compositional perspective. The live disc is serviceable and quite well recorded, but certainly not one of the best nights from the 1983 tour.
Essentially, we learn three things from the very uneven Bootleg Series 7: Scofield was a vital addition to Miles’s band and prolonged his career, Miller was Miles’s best bass player of the 1980s and Macero did a great job on Star People. But we probably knew all of that already.
So, basically, it’s another opportunity missed. I’ll stick to the original albums, with one or two exceptions. But you gotta check it out if you’re a fan of Miles’s 1980s music. George Cole covers the box in a lot more detail here.
It’s no coincidence that alto saxist/composer David Sanborn’s purple patch (1980-1982) came about just when genres (yacht rock, soul, funk, jazz, R’n’B) were breaking down to create one of the most egalitarian musical eras.
Hideaway, his fifth studio album, was the breakthrough, and I love it. Released in February 1980, it made #2 on the Jazz chart, hung around in the Urban Contemporary charts for over a year and was nominated for a Best R&B Instrumental Performance Grammy.
For some, Sanborn’s solo material will always be ‘smooth jazz’, but I’d point to four aspects of his music that elevate it above similar material, particularly on Hideaway – his tone and his note choices, both born of the ‘50s and ‘60s St. Louis jazz and R’n’B scenes; his writing; and also the playing of top-notch guests. On Hideaway, the stars are drummer Steve Gadd (Gadd fans, this is the album for you), bassist Neil Jason and keyboard player Don Grolnick.
The title track remains a classic. Sanborn lays down rich Fender Rhodes soul chords while Gadd constructs a perfectly judged post-disco drum part heavily involving cross-stick and floor tom, laying just behind the beat, with an unexpected, explosive fill just before the fade. Jason is given free rein and comes up with an outrageous bass performance.
Hideaway also benefits from Steely/Doobies man Michael McDonald co-writing two tracks. Sanborn doesn’t have anything much catchier than ‘Anything You Want’ and ‘Again An Again’ in his repertoire. ‘Carly’s Song’ and ‘Lisa’ are memorable ballads with beguiling harmony, while Gadd provides another brilliant commentary on ‘If You Would Be Mine’.
Rick Marotta appears to expertly marshal ‘Creeper’ through its slow half-time groove – guitarist and frequent Sanborn collaborator Hiram Bullock was so taken with it he later wrote a sequel called ‘Son Of Creeper’.
Hideaway’s packaging helps too – its minimalist cover is a winner, as is the photo featuring Dave reclining in his apartment with a Magritte over his left shoulder and paramour draped over his right. Warner Bros. were just realising he wasn’t the worst looking guy in the world.
The only downside: in a classic bit of Warners penny-pinching, they add the very dull (and certifiably smooth-jazz) ‘The Seduction’ from the ‘American Gigolo’ soundtrack to the streaming and CD versions but in the process edit down ‘Anything You Want’ and the title track to ‘single’ length. Best try to find Hideaway on vinyl.
When people say ‘I hate jazz’, I sometimes wonder if they’re really saying they know a crap composition when they hear one.
Legions of talented jazz sidepeople have been given solo record contracts only to deliver music that proves they can’t write decent tunes.
A case in point is saxophonist and William Hurt-lookalike Bill Evans. He’s had a very solid career but his solo work is distinctly underwhelming.
(And then there’s the name. If you play jazz, you probably need a stage name if you have exactly the same moniker as a bona fide legend from decades gone by – the pianist Bill Evans died in 1980.)
But give Sax Bill some credit – he was an absolutely vital figure in Miles Davis’s 1980s comeback, a good friend and carer of the trumpeter and player of several gritty solos on record (Star People is a good place to start). But by 1983 Bill found himself inexplicably frozen out, barely getting any solo space from Miles.
He got the message and jumped ship to join John McLaughlin in the new Mahavishnu Orchestra and also embark on a solo career which kicked off with 1984’s Living In The Crest Of A Wave, a pretty anodyne collection of new-agey fusion. Let’s call it The Metheny Effect. Many tried and failed to ape that guitarist’s mixture of Ornette Coleman-inspired melodicism, Latin flavours and down-home, Midwestern, open-sky simplicity.
With its folky themes, puny production, emphasis on soprano sax, fretless bass, ride cymbals and an ‘environmental’ bent, LITCOAW could almost have come out on Windham Hill. Only the closing title track works up any kind of energy or interest, when Evans finally busts out the tenor and blows up a storm over Adam Nussbaum’s frenetic jazz/rock groove.
Evans’ followup, 1985’s The Alternative Man, was his first record for the illustrious Blue Note Records and as such should have been a celebration. Unfortunately it was an object lesson in how not to use technology, and just the kind of ‘80s ‘jazz’ album that illustrates what a brilliant job Marcus Miller did on Miles’s Tutu.
Evans in the main stumbles around with ugly Linn Drum patterns, electric drums, blaring synth pads and raucous hair-metal guitar solos, all topped off with some fairly insipid soprano playing. A few tracks and you’ll be wanting to break out the Albert Ayler or David Murray albums, and fast.
The only interest predictably comes with two more open, organic offerings, the excellent ‘Miles Away’ which reunites Evans with his Miles colleagues Al Foster on drums and Miller on bass. And ’Let The Juice Loose’ is fun, a cool bebop head featuring some enjoyably un-PC Strat-mangling from the late great Hiram Bullock.
But hey – some of this music brings back good memories, when I was digging around the Record And Tape Exchange and Our Price for bargains and closely monitoring the personnel on the back of my favourite Miles and McLaughlin albums.
These albums also definitely represent a weird time for ’80s jazz, when established labels were signing all and sundry, fishing around for the next Young Lion or Metheny.
And thankfully a few dodgy early solo records didn’t hurt Evans’ career much, as he’s gone on to be one of the most respected players on the scene.
After decades of neglect, Scritti’s classic Cupid & Psyche 85 seems to finally be getting its due.
You know you’re doing something right when the boss takes an interest.
Bryan Ferry’s one and only UK #1 album to date (and biggest-selling record in the US) was released 40 years ago this month. 
movingtheriver.com 