THE MAN WITH THE HORN

The Man with the Horn is the coming back record after Miles Davis latest record four years ago. Miles Davis had troubles with his drug addiction and it took him some time to drop this addiction and meanwhile he stopped producing music. This record is critisized as not being as good as before quitting the drugs, but I think this record offers some really good material.

Miles Davis did always succeed in finding great musicians for his band. In this set-up a really awesome guitarist was hired: Barry Finnerty. He plays as fast as John Mclaughlin and delivers some really impressive guitarsolo's on the first side of the record. The mood is dark and the compositions are interesting. Take for example "Back seat Batty" which has a thick garageguitar theme. This song takes you from the garage to a ghetto with sinister trumpets to get back to the garagetheme again: really great!

As is the case in many works of MD the compositions are made around some theme and between the repeating of the theme all the musicians get the chance to show their soloskills. The Man with The Horns is no exception to this rule, except on side two. The first song still has the main structure, but the second song is a soul song with lyrics. And the last composition is just some jamming with no real theme. The second side is some backdraw compared with side one. The lyrics are fine, but not really interesting and the jamming without structure is not as good as the earlier composition on side one.

Side one: 4 stars/ Side two: 3 stars.