Savouring the lemony dynamism of Miles Davis

"A crisp, lightweight, slightly coy sequel to 'Tutu', wholly lacking that dark work's depth and brooding atmosphere, but not without its moments of lemony dynamism." Hmm, savour that lemony dynamism. This is the first line of an excellent little review of Miles Davis's 1989 album Amandla, a cassette version of which I picked up in a charity shop this week for the hefty price of 33 (and a third) pence. 

Amandla: plays at 33 and a third pence per minute

Yeah, I got the Miles Davis along with a Thelonius Monk tape (Monk's Classic Recordings) and a home-taped compilation purporting to be the "The Best of Blue Note". This one: 

But is it the best? A contentious claim compilation 

So yes, it was these three jazzy tapes for £1 in a Fulham charity shop - nice, as the Fast Show might have said (incidentally, isn't the FS's jazz presenter "dude" vaguely like Tony Wilson on So It Goes, a self-consciously laid-back, super-suave presenter who has a 2:1 from Cambridge but, y'know, treats it lightly and is only here for the music?). Three dusty tapes from a charity shop obviously isn't anything so remarkable, but to me it still highlighted the value of getting secondhand stuff from time to time. First, the sheer randomness is all part if it. These three tapes were in a couple of trays which appeared to be the remnants of some jazz/latin fan's mini-collection. Rifling through these was already quite an interesting thing to do. Then the home-made tape - on a high-quality (and now "vintage") TDK SA tape, no less (for more of my TDK appreciation, go here). This has got to be worth checking out, no? Anyway, though the Blue Note comp is fairly well-known stuff it's still quite nice to give it a spin and I'm going to mercilessly rip a couple of tunes from it then recycle the tape - into art (gulp). But best of all from this little tape-buying experience was finding a neatly-folded cutting on the Miles Davis album in the box, complete with its "lemony" appraisal:

One for the scrapbook: Miles Davis, backed by Rick Astley (not shown)

I have no idea where this has come from. It's not a typeface or magazine style I recognise. It's on good-quality paper though, which probably explains why it hasn't yellowed and half-crumbled away in the past 36 years. My first thought was, "It's probably from some jazz buff's magazine", as it's clearly written for a specialist jazz-appreciating audience. But no, on the other side of the cutting there's a colour photo of - wait for it - Rick Astley. Bloody hell! So god knows. But it's a nice discovery and well worth 33.333 (etc) pence. No man, you don't get this kind of stuff with your boring fucking streaming services; godawful adverts, yes, but not mysterious music press cuttings or homemade mix tapes. Anyway, enough of this waffling about the ephemera, what's the Miles Davis album actually like? Does it have any lemony dynamism? Er, I'd say yes. Yes, it does. On the one hand - and though Davis was undeniably one of the giants of jazz (along with, for instance, Thelonius Monk ...) - I don't really dig this particular kind of jazz-funk jazziness. I imagine it has its (fierce) acolytes but to me it's too relaxed, cool yes, but - despite its use of go-go rhythms here and there - lurching a little too far in the direction of noodling elevator music. But that said, it's still fairly ... groovy, and I'll happily stick it on from time to time and I even reckon it'll grow on me. In time. Probably about 36 years ...       

PS: since reading Andy Warhol's diaries a few years ago I can never think of Miles Davis without remembering that he was the subject of the very last Warhol diary entry (17 February 1987), five days before Warhol died. Warhol and Davis had both taken part in a fashion shoot for a Japanese TV programme. In a typically Warholian riff, he complains that Davis was given the star treatment (a $5,000 outfit with gold musical notes woven onto it) but they "didn't do a thing" for him. Warhol combines this griping with observations that Davis was a "clotheshorse" (meant approvingly, I think) and that he had long, very "delicate" fingers.