Excerpt from The Last Miles:
Rubberband: the lost Miles Davis album
Producers Zane Giles and Randy Hall on the album’s concept
When Miles moved from Columbia Records to Warner Bros in 1985, he recorded an album that marked a radical departure for him. The album included calypso, funk, Latin and soul tracks and would also have featured Al Jarreau and Chaka Khan. But Warner Bros scrapped the album and Miles went on to record Tutu.
“It was fat grooves, really funky, Miles talking. It was street and funky and dirty. We didn’t go after writing a great jazz song, Miles wanted the street thing; he wanted the chord changes he wanted to play. The basis was to take it to the street like On the Corner, it was Miles taking more chances,” says Hall. Giles adds, “Miles kept saying ‘I don’t wanna do my usual stuff. I wanna do something different.”
In 2019, Rubberband was finally released. Read the full story about how Rubberband came to be released, over 30 years later.
- Miles 80s Music Collections - a round up of various Miles compilations from the 1980s
- The Man With The Horn Album Primer - An Introduction To Miles’ 80s album
- We Want Miles Album Primer - An Introduction To Miles’ live album from 1982
- Star People Album Primer - An Introduction To Miles’ album from 1983
- Decoy Album Primer - An Introduction To Miles’ album from 1984
- Miles Live - a round up of the various Miles live albums from the 1980s