Consumer Guide Album

Miles Davis: Tutu [Warner Bros., 1986]
Miles's endgame at Columbia was true fusion--improvised jazz-rock, pretty good of its sort, but what a sort. This is more like pop-funk Sketches of Spain, with the starperson's trumpet glancing smartly off an up-to-date panoply of catchy little tunes, beats, and rhythm effects. I cried fraud at first, and if you have no use for catchy little anythings you'll agree, but I changed my mind. Marcus Miller acquits himself in the Gil Evans role, George Duke gets off a nice lick, and Scritti Politti provides a snappier cover than Cyndi Lauper. Minor, and his best in a decade. B+