Miles Davis - The Man With The Horn (1981) {1996 Japan Master Sound, SRCS 9132} [re-up]

×

Miles Davis - The Man With The Horn (1981) {1996 Japan Master Sound, SRCS 9132} [re-up]

Close

Miles Davis - The Man With The Horn (1981) {1996 Japan Master Sound, SRCS 9132}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (image)+CUE+LOG -> 360 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 121 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 24 Mb | 5% repair rar | Super Bit Mapping
© 1996 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SRCS 9132
Jazz / Post Bop / Fusion / Trumpet

If I rate Get Up With It a five, or maybe Live/Evil, or Big Fun, or On the Corner, fives, or maybe even Sketches of Spain, a five, or Kind of Blue, then I guess this is a three and a half, or a four, so I give it a four, as if this were American Bandstand. But it's a Miles Davis record. If it's Miles or Coltrane, or, oh I don't know, Poulenc, perhaps people could "check themselves" just a bit. Man With the Horn is a fine record, a bridge in some ways, if you will, between some of the pre-electric Miles, as "jazz," and the psychedelic fusion, and then the later fusion funk. Man With the Horn is precious to me, and not enough people appreciate it, in my opinion.

Personally, I love the vocals on the title track, maybe for sentimental reasons, like why I love 10 CC's "I'm Not in Love," or even Brian Hyland's "Gypsy Woman," or Marvin Gaye's Mercy, Mercy, Me," if I catch them in the grocery store or on the street. If you can't dig that, well … I was listening to Kind of Blue yesterday and loving the solos by Miles, Coltrane and Cannoball. I was listening to Aura while typing day before yesterday and thinking not enough people seem to have appreciated that very beautiful collection of abstract soundscapes. Even Miles Around the World deserves some serious attention and respect. I say it that way because the slap bass funk, even by the great Folly, isn't exactly my thing, but I was blessed to see that band live. I'll never forget it!! For me anyway, the song "The Man With the Horn," goes straight to my heart. Whatever else you say, Miles is gone. You won't see him perform again. Like Lester Young, Duke, Bird, or Trane, or even Sun Ra, or Elton Dean, like so many others, they're gone. But we have the magic of their music. So to the critics, like Christopher Walkins said on Saturday Night Live, "young man, you're not all that." He also said, "Baby girl, let your freak flag fly." Miles would second that. Maybe put doo-bop in your car stero and drive around some urban soundscape, maybe Williamsburg, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights or Flatbush. Roll down the window. Dig Mystery, The Doo Bop Song, or Blow or Fantasy. Christoph Anders once sang that he was old when he was young. Miles was young when he was old.

For Miles Davis, the six year layoff between the release of PANGAEA and THE MAN WITH THE HORN was marked by isolation, physical pain and dependency…a sense of inertia. At points on THE MAN WITH THE HORN you can hear him straining to get his chops back up, although ultimately, his musicianly instincts served him well during odd passages of rope-a-doping, and for every broken note there is a blast of vintage Miles.

THE MAN WITH THE HORN introduces yet another striking band, featuring future leaders such as reedman Bill Evans, guitarist Mike Stern, bassist Marcus Miller and drum innovator Al Foster. The opening "Fat Time" combines Miles' love for the flamenco airs and melodic gravity of Spain with a contemporary hard funk style. Evans and Stern act as virtuoso foils, a la Coltrane and Hendrix, the latter's influence apparent in Barry Finnerty's boiling clouds of distortion on "Back Seat Betty" (which settles into a coy, laid back blues vehicle for Miles' muted horn), and a rivetting "Aida," in which Miles reprises the rhythmic tumult of his mid-'70s band with dramatic give and take between his horn and a fiery guitar-driven vamp, as Al Foster thunders away underneath.

Miles, the avant garde experimentalist of the '70s, never revealed his affection for pop music and song forms we hear in the sentimental R&B devotionals of the title tune or the straight up funk of "Shout." But in closing, as if to reasure us, the swinging, medium-tempo walking blues "Ursula" suggests that no matter the setting or historical milieu, Miles Davis always remains…Miles Davis.

×

Miles Davis - The Man With The Horn (1981) {1996 Japan Master Sound, SRCS 9132} [re-up]

Close

×

Miles Davis - The Man With The Horn (1981) {1996 Japan Master Sound, SRCS 9132} [re-up]

Close