Miles Davis: That’s What Happened 1982-85 album review — tight beats and melodic hooks

The seventh volume of Columbia’s intriguing Bootleg Series finds Miles Davis fully emerged from a five-year hiatus and mastering the sonics of 1980s pop. Gone are the thrashing drums, wah-wah guitars and Funkadelic bass lines that dominated his music when he “retired” in 1975. The stripped-down themes that bordered on abstraction are also no more. In their place are the tight beats, synths and melodic hooks that began to freshen popular music just as Davis returned to playing in 1980.

Yet it is only the live album, the third of this three-CD set, that captures the trumpeter with his mojo intact. Recorded in the summer of 1983, it presents Davis with a strong lip and, having absorbed the influence of Prince, a clear sense of direction. The first two albums are made up of previously unreleased mixes, songs and alternatives from the three albums he recorded between April 1982 and January 1985.

The first album draws on sessions that made up the albums Star People and Decoy — “Santana” points the way ahead, with guest trombonist JJ Johnson adding interest. The second comes from You’re Under Arrest, which took a year to record. Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time”, Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and the previously unreleased “What’s Love Got to Do With It” confirm Davis in command of his new aesthetic. Overall, though, the studio recordings are tentative and come across as more work-in-progress than finished article.

In contrast, the overlapping repertoire of the live set really lifts off. The opener, “Speak (That’s What Happened)” finds energy levels high and an unfettered “Star People” resonates with the blues. Drummer Al Foster pares down his beats for an uplifting “Jean-Pierre”, Darryl Jones, now a longtime bassist for The Rolling Stones, is rock-solid, and guitarist John Scofield delivers rhythm and grit. Davis conducts the band’s ebb and flow with fiddly keyboard stabs; on trumpet he is by turns imperious and playful.

★★★☆☆

‘The Bootleg Series, Vol 7: That’s What Happened 1982-85’ is released by Columbia Legacy