Hip-Hop, Doo-Bop, and Beyond

Over his nearly five-decade career, the constant in Miles Davis’s career was change. In a now-famous interview with the Washington Post in 1969, Miles Davis told journalist Hollie West, “I have to change. It’s like a curse.” He would maintain this creative imperative until the end of his life.

Inspired by the sounds of hip-hop wafting into the open windows his Manhattan apartment during the summer of 1990, Davis connected with Easy Mo Bee — a production savant whose work with Big Daddy Kane, the Notorious B.I.G., Mos Def, and Tupac Shakur made him a star.

Recording parts for the album that became Doo-Bop the month before his death, Davis remained at the forefront of innovation with this final session — a posthumous release issued by Warner Brothers in June of 1992 that won the GRAMMY for Best R&B Instrumental Performance.

On March 19, SFJAZZ kicks off a weeklong celebration of the Miles Davis centennial with a night devoted to the influence of hip-hop on this landmark album and its own subequent impact, featuring Easy Mo Bee and a stacked roster of guests.

Easy Mo Bee will kick things off with DJ set, followed by an in-depth panel discussion hosted by Sway Calloway (of Sway In The Morning) featuring Easy Mo Bee, Miles’s nephew and drummer Vince Wilburn of Miles Electric Band, saxophonist and NEA Jazz Master Donald Harrison, and Bay Area-based DJ Flow. The event will then close out with an afterparty session with DJ sets by Easy and DJ Flow.

Looking back to the production of Doo-Bop, the Miles Davis estate had this to say:

Miles’ death on September 28, 1991 came after nearly a month in a coma, a month after his last public appearance at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. The impact on the world was immediate and reached far beyond the circle of jazz. He left behind stunned friends and fans—as well as a partially finished album in the hands of a hip-hop producer named Easy Mo Bee.

“We got six songs done and I was working on them when I got the call from (Miles’ road manager and producer) Gordon Meltzer. I was like, ‘Ohhh man.’ I was thinking that he would bounce back from it. Miles seemed like a strong guy.”

Doo-Bop, the album that Easy Mo Bee would complete, adding two more tracks that used trumpet parts from the 1985 Rubber Band sessions, became Miles’ first posthumous release in 1992. It initially was intended to be a double album exploring the full breadth of Miles’ funk and hip-hop infatuations: one disc fulfilling the long-standing promise of a collaboration with Prince; the second featuring co-productions with (Fishbone guitarist) John Bigham, (hip-hop producer) Sid Reynolds, Easy Mo Bee, and perhaps others.

Born Osten Harvey, Jr., Mo Bee was establishing himself in 1991, having produced breakout hits for rappers Big Daddy Kane and The Genius (aka GZA of Wu-Tang Clan). His first meeting with the trumpeter took place that spring in Miles’ Manhattan apartment at an audition alongside a half-dozen hip-hop producers. Mo Bee credits a perfectionist streak for helping him beat the competition.

“I’m a guy with an (E-mu Systems) SP-1200 sampling drum machine and an Akai S950 rack sampler. What I do is I call it creative sampling, not just plain looping like a lot of people do. I get really, really intense with my sampling. It has a lot to do with harmonics and everything has to be in tune.”

Miles wasted no time kicking off their collaboration.

“I started playing the cassettes of my mixes I had brought and that’s when all of the magic happened. I played the track that ended up becoming ‘The Doo-Bop Song,’ and he was like, ‘Man, that’s me. I want that.’ He heard a track I had been working on for The Genius, and he asked, ‘You could do that for me? That, right there?’ I said, ‘Yeah, Miles, yeah.’ All that came to my mind was that OK, he likes the funk in it. So I said to myself, who stands for the funk? No better than James Brown. So we ended up clearing ‘Give It Up, Or Turnit A Loose’ for ‘Blow.’”

“The Doo-Bop Song” and “Blow” joined four other tunes—“Mystery” (the album’s “acid-jazz track” according to Mo Bee); “Chocolate Chip” (which used a sample from the 1970s soul/funk group Pleasure); “Sonya”; “Duke Booty”—on which Miles layered his trumpet over Mo Bee’s beats, samples and on two tracks, rapping as well. One thing he decided to avoid was the then-popular use of vinyl noise.

“In 1991, it was the cool thing for a producer to sample an old record and keep the crackle and pops. I remember I wanted everything to be really tight and clean sounding, and not all programmed. I programmed drum sequences but other things like the bass-line or maybe the high hat, I left with a loose, real time feel so the track could feel a little fluid, you know?”

As their sessions were winding down, Mo Bee was surprised by an invitation to join Miles’ touring band after they finished the album: “He pointed to the sampler and said, ‘Yeah, your machine, you bring it, come with me.’” Miles departed for a summer of concerts that included a gala reunion in Paris’ Parc de la Villette that featured Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, John McLaughlin, and other former and current band members, followed by the Gil Evans retrospective in Montreux.

“Then in September 1991,” as Doo-Bop’s liner notes later explained, “Miles went into the hospital. ‘For a tune up,’ he said; ‘just routine, nothing major. I’ll be right back.’”

Miles Davis' Doo-Bop and Beyond, featuring Easy Mo Bee, DJ Flow, Sway Calloway, Vince Wilburn, and Donald Harrison will be held in Miner Auditorium on 3/19. Tickets and more information are available here.