Miles Davis and Marcus Miller

The collaboration between Miles Davis and Marcus Miller started with the controversial but remarkable Tutu. The album has that lazy-lightweight-80s-pop-fusion sound on the surface, but underneath Miles played dark, piercing, muted trumpet that made the heavy impact.

Their joint effort continued for the soundtrack of Siesta. Even though the orchestration is much less intricacy than what Gil Evans had arranged for Sketches of Spain, the album featured some mesmerizing Latin groove and fine duets between Mile’s trumpet and Miller’s bass clarinet.

Amandla marked the final collaboration between the two. Whereas Tutu laid down the foundation, Amandla took it further. The compositions were richer and Miles’s playing were fuller. He even blew without a muted device on “Mr. Pastorius.” It sounds such a damn pleasure to hear Miles played jazz again after all these years.