Miles Davis
Aura

Aura, aurae. Latin. First declension. "Breath", "breeze", "wind", but also "light", "sudden glow", "fleeting gleam" (Aeneid VI, 204: "auri per ramos aura refulsit", "among the branches the gold sparkled"). Magnetic luminescence, impalpable, elusive, the aura is the "warmth" that emanates from things and the soul, a varied and composite bundle of different timbres and nuances. It is magnetism that spreads from a source of hidden energy whose origin is unknown. It is "transport", "ascendant" in the sense of fascination, of the attractive capacity of one entity over another. It is the property of hypnotizing, immobilizing, stunning, the mysterious property of Socrates who, like a torpedo, drew his interlocutors to himself with the mere power of a phrase, of a discourse. But also the property of seducing, involving, exciting, an immaterial and invisible vital breath that spreads through the air and by air, allowing a few, unique individuals to "shine with their own light". It is charisma.

It is what Palle Mikkelborg recognized in Miles Davis.

Miles was the source, the generator of energy, the Danish musician the receiver, tasked with converting into musical forms, into concrete sound matter a sequence of non-linguistic messages that many manage to capture, not all can decipher. The opportunity for the meeting between the two presented itself completely fortuitously: the presentation to Miles of the prestigious "Sonnings Music Award" in December 1984. Fascinated by the enveloping magnetism of the Genius from Alton, Mikkelborg wanted to dedicate to the American colleague a suite meant to appear on the last album that Miles would record for Columbia, concluding a multi-decade relationship, before his move to Warner for "Tutu" and the other albums of his later period.

Recorded in Copenhagen between January 31 and February 4, 1985 (but only published four years later), "Aura" is - according to many and including myself - Miles's artistic testament, as well as one of the highest expressive peaks in the music of the entire twentieth century. A wonderful, unique work even within the vast Davis discography, possessing an intensity and an evocative power that fully justify its now recognized status as a "masterpiece".

A work in which, once again, Miles looked and pushed "beyond", beyond the confines of music understood as a mere sonic manifestation, beyond the goals he himself set and improved over the course of an ideal progression continued for more than three decades. A work for which it is reductive to use the category of "Jazz", more appropriate but still not exhaustive is the use of the definition "Fusion": there are points of contact - primarily at the rhythmic solution level - with the Fusion of the decade that any aficionado of the genre could identify without effort, but it seems quite difficult to associate "Aura" with the contemporaneous production of a Corea or a Hancock, just to name two illustrious examples, and this based on one main element: for the first time in 22 years (it was 1963, at the time of collaboration with Gil Evans) Miles records again with a large Jazz orchestra (the "Danish Radio Big Band" directed by Mikkelborg himself, composed of about thirty elements); yet, what you hear is still far from the common notion of "orchestral Jazz", without necessarily resorting to distant precedents but also thinking of Zappa as an arranger for big band albums like "Waka-Jawaka" or "The Grand Wazoo". It is avant-garde, it is the luminous expression of an ideal of post-modern music that shuns the demarcation between genres and especially the systematic use of cacophonies and noisy repertoires that much tradition had considered a significant aspect of any avant-garde; it is a symphony, a reasoned, rational and coherent sequence of movements, a succession of more emotional cues corresponding to as many thematic motifs.

The determination of the movements (and consequently, the choice of their peculiar sound setting) was carried out by Mikkelborg on the basis of a brilliant intuition: namely, the fixation of a semiographic code that clearly established a correspondence between psyche and matter, between the ideal conception of music and its actual realization "in the field". Ten are the letters that compose the first name and last name of Miles (M-I-L-E-S-D-A-V-I-S); to each of these letters was associated a tonic based on a pre-existing alphabetic system devised by Mikkelborg himself. All ten notes constitute the foundational skeleton of the scale path heard in the Introduction, while the remaining nine movements are predominantly monotonal compositions corresponding to each of the colors (and shades of color) that the Danish musician had recognized in Miles's "aura": in order, white, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, electric red, indigo, violet. The ten basic tonics are "unrolled" and organized into a coherent phrasing by John McLaughlin's guitar, opening the introduction against the background of an ethereal and rising "continuum" orchestral, a prelude to the coordinated "explosion" of bass, drums, and percussion in odd time signature, while the English guitarist deepens the solo - allowing Miles significant, if sporadic, interventions - over passages of dizzying speed; much of McLaughlin's expressive attitude in "Aura" recalls Mike Stern of "The Man With The Horn" or "We Want Miles", and here we perhaps have further confirmation of how much the Boston guitarist was indebted to the "Mahavishnu" style.

In "White", it is Miles who takes the lead, developing the theme on the tonic of the moment, aided by the perfectly contextual intervention of Niels Eje's oboe and cold triangles and background percussion, for a nuanced, "atmospheric", desolate composition that decreases in intensity over a long, majestic progression of over six minutes. Mysterious and enveloping "Yellow", opened by Lillian Toernqvist's harp (and again by the oboe, to create a blend with an ever more "classical" flavor), before session guitarist Bjarne Roupé's guitar brings a decisive sharpening of the sound, well emphasized towards the end by the orchestra's claustrophobic and "heavy", resounding intrusion in its entirety.

The vaguely Funk "free-form" of "Orange" and the "steady-groove" of "Blue" recall (partly) the suggestions of contemporary Japanese Fusion by Kazumi Watanabe (his "Mobo" is one of the albums from the period that Miles most appreciated); in the first, McLaughlin's guitar is worth the whole piece. "Red" (along with "Electric Red", not much different from it) is certainly the most technological and genuinely electronic movement, an ideal deepening of solutions adopted by Miles in the disks of the more recent past, "Decoy" and "You're Under Arrest"; the integration of "slapped" bass and dry drum-machine is the most direct confirmation. Pat Metheny-like atmospheres dominate the start of "Green", but it is perhaps the second part that arouses the greatest interest, with the splendid lines drawn by Bo Stief's double bass. "Indigo" is built on the characteristic "drive" of orchestral Swing, the conclusive "Violet" marks the return of McLaughlin for nine minutes of pure enchantment.

Superb. Immense. Unattainable. Three adjectives that would nobly describe what is heard in an album of this caliber. Five stars, of course, but no numerical values can account for this manifestation of pure musical Genius.

On the twentieth anniversary of his passing, I want to remember Miles with the work that most marked me. 

Never again anyone like Him.