Tutu

This two-CD (plus DVD) set is a better bet than last year's A Night in Monte Carlo: it celebrates the same creative funkiness of the mid-80s Miles Davis bands that bass guitar virtuoso and composer/arranger Miller had a big hand in, but here in more focused form, without symphony orchestras or singers. The canny Miller still goes for a soul-pop bravura and some technical posturings Miles would have avoided (hard to imagine the Prince of Darkness doing anything as uncool as swapping quotes from Sonny Rollins's St Thomas with his sidemen, or letting his bass guitarist acknowledge a sharp sax solo with a congratulatory sliding-note whoop) but there's a lot of very inventive jazz-making here, particularly from the gifted young partnership of trumpeter Christian Scott and saxophonist Alex Han.

Miles Davis - Tutu (1986) {2011 Deluxe Edition} {Warner Jazz 8122797687}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 883 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 286 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 183 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1986, 2011 Warner Jazz | 8122797687
Jazz / Fusion / Trumpet

This package contains the original, studio-concocted Miles Davis set that Miller mostly composed. There's also a previously unreleased gig from that year's Nice Jazz festival, delivered by a powerful octet including the late Bob Berg on tenor sax. As liner-note writer Ashley Kahn points out, I made an about-turn over this music in the 80s, from first doubting it as bland funk to reconsidering it as late-flowering Miles, creativity galvanised by Miller's input. But more importantly, Kahn's fine essay offers insights into Miller's assessment that producing finished studio tracks for Miles to blow on didn't work: you had to leave them as rougher sonic sketches and let his improvising bring them to life.

Hamiet Bluiett - If You Have To Ask (1991) {Tutu CD888128}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 277 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 129 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 13 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1991 Tutu Records | CD 888 128
Jazz / Post Bop / Contemporary Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Baritone Saxophone

The title referes to a celebrated riposte of Louis Armstrong's when asked by a white lady what jazz really was. In the context of that his quotation of the celebrated waltz theme at the beginning of "Black Danube," a tune described by drummer Carvin as "James Brown in 3/4 time," has to be seen as slightly ironic in the context of Bluiett's now thoroughly Africanized approach to jazz performance. The rhythmic base, whether by Carvin or Asante, is in most cases the essence of the piece, over which Bluiett improvises with considerabl freedom.