Man With the Horn

Miles Davis | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000025K4
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #71,261 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Please Have Some Humility, July 22, 2006

By 

Stuart A. Macniven - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Man With the Horn (Audio CD)

If I rate Get Up With It a five, or maybe Live/Evil, or Big Fun, or On the Corner, fives, or maybe even Sketches of Spain, a five, or Kind of Blue, then I guess this is a three and a half, or a four, so I give it a four, as if this were American Bandstand. But it's a Miles Davis record. If it's Miles or Coltrane, or, oh I don't know, Poulenc, perhaps people could "check themselves" just a bit. Man With the Horn is a fine record, a bridge in some ways, if you will, between some of the pre-electric Miles, as "jazz," and the psychedelic fusion, and then the later fusion funk. Man With the Horn is precious to me, and not enough people appreciate it, in my opinion. Personally, I love the vocals on the title track, maybe for sentimental reasons, like why I love 10 CC's "I'm Not in Love," or even Brian Hyland's "Gypsy Woman," or Marvin Gaye's Mercy, Mercy, Me," if I catch them in the grocery store or on the street. If you can't dig that, well ... I was listening to Kind of Blue yesterday and loving the solos by Miles, Coltrane and Cannoball. I was listening to Aura while typing day before yesterday and thinking not enough people seem to have appreciated that very beautiful collection of abstract soundscapes. Even Miles Around the World deserves some serious attention and respect. I say it that way because the slap bass funk, even by the great Folly, isn't exactly my thing, but I was blessed to see that band live. I'll never forget it!! For me anyway, the song "The Man With the Horn," goes straight to my heart. Whatever else you say, Miles is gone. You won't see him perform again. Like Lester Young, Duke, Bird, or Trane, or even Sun Ra, or Elton Dean, like so many others, they're gone. But we have the magic of their music. So to the critics, like Christopher Walkins said on Saturday Night Live, "young man, you're not all that." He also said, "Baby girl, let your freak flag fly." Miles would second that. Maybe put doo-bop in your car stero and drive around some urban soundscape, maybe Williamsburg, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights or Flatbush. Roll down the window. Dig Mystery, The Doo Bop Song, or Blow or Fantasy. Christoph Anders once sang that he was old when he was young. Miles was young when he was old.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's pretty good., March 26, 2007

By 

C Jones "cj" (Tacoma, WA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Man With the Horn (Audio CD)

I like it. I go back to this one as much as "Amandla" or "Tutu." Mike Stern sounds great, the compositions are varied and interesting, and the title track is not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Cheesy, yes, but cool chord changes and nice synth tones round it out. The overall sound of the recording has a little more "gut," to me, than Miles' subsequent efforts in the 80s. That's not a good or bad thing, since I like all those ones, too, but it does make "Man with the Horn" stand out in one way.

Bottom Line: Perusing my iTunes collection of over 10,000 songs, many of the cuts from this album were among my most listened to. So, over the past year, I listened to this album more than any other Miles album I had.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 1/2 stars-- The comeback album., December 9, 2008

By 

Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Man With the Horn (Audio CD)

Having not performed or really played his horn since 1975, Miles Davis appeared to be done by 1981, when his 'comeback' album, "The Man With the Horn" materialized. Inspired by his nephew Vince Wilburn's band's recordings, Davis reemerged, recording first a pair of tracks with that band (Randy Hall on guitars and synths, Robert Irving III on keys, Felton Crews on bass and nephew Wilburn on the drums), then later jettisoning them for a new ensemble who recorded the majority of the record-- drummer Al Foster (the only holdover from his '70s band), percussionist Smamy Figueroa, reedman Bill Evans, then-barely-known-now-bass legend Marcus Miller and guitarist Barry Finnerty (replaced on one cut by Mike Stern). The results are, well, different from what came before.

Time, I think, has been a lot kinder to this record than both its initial reception and even feelings in the past decade-- Davis abandoned the deep funk vamps and fierceness of his mid-70s music for a brighter sound that anticipates the best of smooth jazz. With Foster and Miller serving as a quite capable anchor, the band hits a number of nice grooves-- openers "Fat Time" with its slinking rhythms and explosive "Back Seat Betty" both find the band hitting great grooves and while Davis' playing certainly isn't what it had been, he seems to take some inspiration in just playing again. Admittedly, Evans seems the more powerful and urgent of the horn players (his solo saves otherwise limp "Shout"), and certainly "Aida" is highlighted more by Miller's staggering bass playing than anything else (although Davis' manic solo is his best playing on the record)-- but this plays to Davis' strengths as a bandleader. He gets great performances out of people, in many cases better than they play anywhere else.

Having said that, there's really nothing that could save the title track, a slice of schlock smooth vocal jazz, but it's the only really unbearable piece on the record. By and large, "The Man With the Horn" is a good, albeit, not great, record.