Recorded live at the Jazz Open in Stuttgart in 1994, ESP 2: A Tribute to Miles features former members of Miles Davis bands reunited for the second time since his death in 1991. Over the course of his career, Davis led bands that included, among others, John Coltrane, Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans. While the players here are frighteningly proficient, none of them are quite of that calibre and their dress sense certainly doesn't measure up to their forbears: ESP 2 are a mess of ballooning trousers and garishly mismatched shirts.... It falls to saxophonist David McMurray to take the lead. Respectfully, no one replaces Miles Davis on the horn, though his familiar, muted trumpet sounds do feature on "Desiree's Desire", replicated hauntingly on sampled keyboards as if broadcast from the hereafter. The "Opening Medley" is the best thing here, recalling the frenetic crosstown fusion fury of Miles early 70s work. Occasionally, ESP 2 are guilty of lapsing into the somnambulant jazz-funk blandness that characterised Miles last work. Still there are fitful moments of beauty here--the sepulchral ambience of "Blue n Green", for example--which distinguish this from a mere session musicians' workout, while "The Man with the Horn" affords an interlude of soulful warmth, courtesy of guest vocalist Carla Cook. Otherwise the band are as self-absorbed and uncommunicative as Davis himself notoriously was. On the DVD: A Tribute to Miles comes to disc with no extra features. The digital 5.1 soundtrack is clear as cut-glass, however, while the video aspect ratio is 4:3. --David Stubbs [show more]
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A tribute to the music of legendary jazzman Miles Davis, performed live at the Jazz Open, Stuttgart, July 1994, by a band which includes Robert Irving III, Adam Holzman, David McMurray, Randy Hall, Mino Cinelu, Victor Bailey, Ricky Wellman and Carla Cook.
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