Toot toot

Ah, 1980s Miles Davis. To be honest, post-70s Miles is not something I’ve explored much, indeed this and Star People are the only 80s Miles albums I’ve heard, and tonight was my first listen to this. This (his first Warners album after nearly 30 years with Columbia) was actually mostly the work of Marcus Miller, who’d been his bass player on some of those comeback albums; Miles himself only has one co-writing credit and apart from the cover versions Marcus Miller wrote everything here and played most of the instruments.

Apparently it was Miles’ biggest hit in years, and also one of his most critically divisive at the time… which I can kind of understand, cos even by his electric period standards Tutu is a long way from conventional jazz, much as Bitches Brew had been in 1970… except Tutu sounds like 1986 in a way that Bitches doesn’t. Hard to explain, except maybe to say that Bitches obviously sounds of its time and yet also not, whereas Tutu is 100% of its time. On this first hearing what I heard most prominently was 1986. It was screamingly 1986. And the music, not just the production, sounds like 1986. It’s recognisably 1986-era R&B/funk. It’s good at being that, I think, but I need to give it more listens before I can really hear past all that 1986…