On September 6th, Warner Bros/Rhino are set to release ‘Rubberband,’ an unreleased album session from 1985 by trumpeter MILES DAVIS.
The sessions were originally helmed by R&B producers Randy Hall and Attila Zane Giles and were 59-year-old Davis’s first recordings for his new label Warner Bros, which he joined in 1985 after a long and fruitful alliance with Columbia Records. They showed him going in a funkier and more R&B-tinged direction but the sessions were eventually aborted in favour of Miles hooking up with bassist/producer Marcus Miller, who produced Davis’s first official release for his new label, ‘Tutu’ in 1986.
Dusted down and retrieved from the archives, ‘Rubberband’ has been tweaked in the studio by Hall, Giles and Miles’s nephew, Vince Wilburn Jr (who played drums on the album) and includes vocal cameos from Ledisi (on ‘Rubberband Of Life,’ released on an exclusive Record Store EP last year) and Lalah Hathaway (‘So Emotional’) as well as some contemporary production touches. The album also includes studio versions of instrumental tracks ‘Maze’ and ‘Carnival Time,’ which Miles often included in his live sets at the time.
‘Rubberband’ comes in a cover that features a Miles Davis painting and includes liner notes by British writer, George Cole, author of the book, The Last Miles, which chronicled the final and arguably most controversial phase of Davis’s career.
‘Rubberband’ is set for release on September 6th via Warner/Rhino.
