Miles Davis' Last Decade: Older Jazzman Plays Younger Music
Youth Technique
One of Miles' major accomplishments in the 80s is Tutu, an album whose style is also hard to name. Now it is simply called jazz, before for some time they used the term “techno-jazz”, even though techno itself, Detroit dance music, was still in its infancy.
The Tutu album was tailored and sewn for Miles by an outstanding man named Marcus Miller, a virtuoso bass player (in addition to the bass, he also perfectly owns half a dozen instruments, including the saxophone and bass clarinet), composer, producer. The main "trick" of the album was an unheard-of mix of analog synthesizers, drum machines, Miles' signature hoarse trumpet and a couple of violin tracks by Polish jazzman Michal Urbanyak. Marcus Miller is convinced that he is doing the same thing as Gil Evans - that is, conducting an orchestra. Only in this virtual orchestra, the sound of brass is reproduced by trendy analog synthesizers.
For the first time in decades, Miles is recording material written by outsiders, and not by himself or by members of the team. Keyboardist George Duke wrote one piece. The second producer, Tomi Lee Puma, who was more responsible for the technical process of recording, remembering that a couple of years ago Miles was very successful with a cover version of Michael Jackson's Human Nature hit, found another actual pop hit. Miles discovers an unfamiliar familiarity with the current pop scene for older jazzmen when he suggests playing the song "Perfect Way" by English new wave band Scritti Politti. Li Puma didn't mind. Moreover, he suggested calling the whole album that way.
It is curious that Davis and the now deceased Prince almost formed a collaboration at that time. This pop-funk singer had become so famous by that time that he was even compared to Michael Jackson. Davis is one of Prince's idols since childhood; Davis was enthusiastic about the young star: "It's a mixture of a young James Brown, Jimi Hendrix and Charlie Chaplin." Prince wrote the play Can I Play With U? and sent Davis a tape with the note: "Play over my music whatever you see fit." I liked the song. Miller composed the track Full Nelson (Nelson is Prince's real name) to seamlessly transition between Can I Play With U? and the rest of the album.
