Miles Davis
Tutu

Regarding the album, this album with its Mephistophelean cover featuring a grim black and white Miles in close-up, everything and its opposite has already been said. Some spoke, and still speak, of a masterpiece, others of a missed masterpiece, still others of Miles "who is no longer what he once was," and others of Miles "unpredictable, better than ever." After so many years, all versions seem to have their own justifications, in general, and plausible and credible arguments in their defense.

Of course, a premise must be made, itself certainly full of potential controversies. The evaluation of an album, like any work, must necessarily be done with direct knowledge of the work itself and of the period (which is obviously impossible for much of art, except for highlanders...)? Does direct knowledge, at least, help? Or, on the contrary, is it entirely irrelevant, and anyone, with good culture and decent knowledge, can reliably assess any work?
This to say: those who were there and heard those sounds for the very first time, which would be heavily imitated, sometimes appropriately but much more often nonsensically, have "more of a say"? The same goes for Elvis: those who heard and saw those things back then can judge any robbiewilliams pathetic, with more knowledge of the facts than a twenty-year-old?

An open discussion, and perhaps an interesting one. The fact remains, I assure you (and anyone who was present, purchasing and listening back then can guarantee it to you), those sounds amazed, left one speechless. And there was much more of a sense of genius than of bluff.

Miles came from the turns we know, and it wasn't the first time he amazed. By then, he considered improvising on a complex harmonic line superfluous, eventually reaching the questionable "beach" of the single-chord piece. Many found it easy to criticize this too: "it's not a choice: he can't do it anymore, he's no longer capable."
Today, with much more competence (it's not immodesty: it's just due to the millions of minutes spent listening to the most diverse...), I partially agree with the criticism: in my opinion, Miles had a beautiful sound, he knew how to create an incredible atmosphere, generated by the enormous soul he was lucky to carry within him. But technically he was the shadow of the Miles one listens to with Trane or with Evans (...both of them...). The phrasing is now stylized: the centrality is the sound and, as I said, the atmosphere.

In reality, whether this choice was dictated by awareness or necessity we will never know. The fact remains that the album, for me, evaluated as a completed, intended, and finished work, is beautiful and is undoubtedly a landmark in the history of jazz. It is necessarily: it is a turned page, an ultra-imitated page, followed by very tiny pages of steps forward, and an infinity of steps back.

Miles, like Faber, knew how to surround himself with capable people. Here he gave ample space, even compositionally, to Marcus Miller, an excellent electric bassist, who was able to build around the perfect confines of the protagonist an absolute work, a perfectly fitting "suit." The first resemblance that comes to mind is what Pagani did with "Creuza de mä."

And Tutu, with its fun-rock-fusion-jazz, with its mixed acoustic and electric percussion, with those present, powerful bass lines, perhaps the true main school of the album, and of course that muted trumpet that knows how to say what it wants better than anyone else, is a monument to the '80s, to the crossing of the jazz history threshold, and of music in general.