Album Review: Miles Ahead soundtrack

When I was 16 years old, I bought a copy of Kind of Blue from the K-Mart (of all places) in my hometown in rural Illinois. I wish I could remember why I did that, or more importantly, why I knew to do that even at a relatively young age. Shortly thereafter, I bought a copy of, and tried reading, Miles Davis’ autobiography—but at 16, I only had so much patience, and I didn’t stick with it for very long.

As I’d written recently in another review, jazz is a genre I’ve always had an interest in, but have always held back on exploring the depth of. So I’m not super well versed in the depth of the canon of Miles Davis—specifically later period Davis, so that is one of the reasons I was interested in listening to the soundtrack to the recently released pseudo-fictionalized biopic Miles Ahead.

Definitely not serving as a “greatest hits” collection by any means, the soundtrack pulls a small handful of early period Davis, but focuses mainly on his experimental, funk infused later works—eleven of Davis’ tracks are included on the album, many of which are edited or truncated due to running time constraints; the rest of the soundtrack is comprised of music from contemporary jazz composer Robert Glasper.

Oh, also, eight of the album’s 24 tracks are small snippets of dialogue lifted from the film itself.

So here’s the deal—I haven’t seen Miles Ahead. And there’s a good chance I won’t see it; at least not for a while, or maybe not at all. Here’s my thing with movies—I just kind of gave up on them. Like, I see advertisements for movies, and hear about movies, and sometimes I think, “Oh well maybe that’s something that I’d want to see.” But rarely do I go out of my way to see movies. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that the closest movie theater is a good 20-ish minute car ride away, and the nearest “art” movie theaters are all an hour away (which is where Miles Ahead is currently playing as of me writing this.)

We also don’t have a ton of extra time for endeavors like that—I work two jobs, and my wife is involved with all kinds of extracurriculars in our town, so rarely is there a weekend where we both are completely free, and think to ourselves, “Oh let’s go see that Miles Davis biopic.”

In sitting down to listen to and write a review of the soundtrack to Miles Ahead, I guess it’s a little difficult to appreciate this album completely when it is taken out of contexts—both the original context all these Davis pieces were taken from; as well as the context of their usage in the movie.

And I guess if I saw the movie, maybe I’d appreciate the snippets of dialogue a little more, or at least have a better understanding of why these specific ones were chosen. But without that frame of reference, they are just kind of annoying. Like, they remind of how Quentin Tarantino used to include tracks of dialogue from his movies on the soundtracks—something that I never was 100% sold on in the first place.

 So who is the intended audience for the soundtrack to Miles Ahead?

That’s a really good question. Perhaps it is for the Davis completest—the person who already has these 11 songs already in their original form, but wants to have them again in this collection to support the film they are included in; or perhaps it is for the passing fan—someone such as myself who is limited in their knowledge on the subject but wants to learn more.

Removed from the context of the film, these edited versions of lengthy latter day Davis pieces are a gateway of sorts, if you want them to be. There’s just enough there to get you interested in what you are hearing before it awkwardly fades out and into the next song; there’s just enough there to make you start diving into Davis’ canon to learn more. But for an artist who has nearly 50 studio albums to his discography, where do you begin?

The early period Davis is obviously classic, and of course it’s the more accessible—the titular track and the iconic “So What” are pleasant ways to ease into the later material—as are the tracks that follow, though you can hear Davis experimenting with his arrangements and musical textures with the excerpts from “Solea” from Sketches of Spain, and “Nefertiti.”

The latter day Davis that’s selected here isn’t so much inaccessible, which helps make diving into what is represented here a little less daunting—beginning with “Frelon Brun” you can hear him starting to segue into different and denser territory. That becomes apparent on “Go Ahead John” and “Black Satin.”

Outside of serving as a brief introduction to this latter day Davis material, one thing this project also did was introduce me to composer Robert Glasper—and along with his contributions to the soundtrack here, including the excellent closing credits song “Gone 2015” featuring rapper Pharoahe Monch, Glasper himself is prepping a companion album due out next month. It’s apparently not a Miles Davis “remix album” per se, but it recontextualizes Davis into a modern setting, which has already created quite a stir among “jazz snobs” who have posted reviews on the iTunes page for the album.

It still may be up in the air who the Miles Ahead soundtrack is really for, but despite that question, the variety sprawled across the 11 Davis pieces shows the lengths of imagination and diversity among his canon.

Miles Ahead is out now via Sony.