Hip-hop

Jazz and Hip-hop are two of the great African American musical traditions that have gone on to be adopted worldwide. Over the years there have been several interesting songs and albums that blend the two. In this series of articles I’ll be talking about some of the ones I find most interesting. Feel free to suggest any albums or songs you think should be included in my upcoming posts.

“Doo Bop” by Miles Davis

Watch out for licks from my big fat stick
The stick is real thick call me Easy Mo Bic
But this Bic can't be flicked like a lighter to a joint
I'm easy not wider get the point?
In other words the Mo ain't a joke
And something like the trumpet I'm dumpin on the difficult folk
Miles in the style of the hip-hop bugle
Not your ordinary, or even Chatanooga the train that goes choo-choo
Like Norton saying Lulu
The horn casts spells like some witch doctor's voodoo
The notes from his trumpet make ladies get freaky like sex
Reach a climax - what's next?
Two hunkie dories just tickled your fancy
Not in your panties but up in your mind - That's where we stand, see?
That's why you seek for the need of a chance to be 
Part of the Easy Mo Bee and Miles Davis Fantasy...

Jazz legend Miles Davis was constantly breaking new ground; from his transition from hard bop to cool jazz in the mid 50’s, his orchestral recordings with Gil Evans in the late 50’s to early 60’s, moving from chordal to modal jazz with his second great quintet in the mid 60’s, and finally bringing electric instruments into jazz in the late 60’s to mid 70’s.

Davis’s career took a downturn in the mid 70’s due to problems with drug addiction and two arthritic elbows that made playing the trumpet excruciatingly painful. For several years he retired from all performances and recording. However he recovered from his personal and health problems in the early 80’s and went on to release several more recordings. Although he never reattained the acclaim of his earlier career – he was often criticized for setting lower personnel standards – there were a couple of bright spots, including an improbable and now famous recording of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” and a collaboration with Quincy Jones at the Montreaux Jazz Festival.

Always looking to break down barriers between jazz and other genres, Davis became interested in hip-hop in the early 90’s and began looking for artists to work with, eventually settling on Easy Mo Bee. Though a capable emcee, Mo Bee at the time worked mostly as a producer, having worked with Big Daddy Kane on “It’s a Big Daddy Thing.” He eventually went on to fame as the producer of Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ready to Die.”

During their recording sessions in 1991, Davis told Mo Bee that he was checking in to a hospital “for a tuneup” and died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 65. I remember watching the opening show of Saturday Night Live that night with Public Enemy as the musical guest, and Chuck D asked for 10 seconds of silence in memory of Davis – I was just crushed. In the end Mo Bee put together what he could, and the recordings were released as “Doo Bop” in 1992. The album went on to win the 1993 Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance.

Doo Bop is really a disappointment in many ways – though Mo Bee was an excellent producer, one can only wonder what it could have been had Miles elected to record with one of the more creative and talented emcees connected to Easy Mo Bee, like Big Daddy Kane, instead of the putting Mo Bee on the mic. What would Doo Bop have become if he had survived to complete it to his own liking and standards?

Much of Doo-Bop has an acid jazz feel, with thick, danceable breakbeats, Fender Rhodes-like synthesizers and Miles’s heavily reverberated trumpet cutting in, playing short licks between the empty space. Mo Bee only raps on three of the tracks: The Doo Bop Song, Blow and Fantasy; and only for a few short verses. The album is more about Davis than Mo Bee, which is how it ought to be given the circumstances under which it was ultimately released.

In the end, this album is more intriguing for what it could have been than for what it ended up being, though there are some decent tracks, of which I consider “Fantasy” my favorite. Easy Mo Bee deserves a great deal of credit for the way in which he was able to put together a cohesive album with this material after Davis’s death, and in so doing gave us a taste of where Davis might have gone musically if he had been given a few more years on Earth.

His trumpet can’t be played with, tampered with or picked up and thrown to the pavement.

Coming up in my next installment: “Hand on the Torch” by US3.