Miles Davis – Aura (1989)

October 16, 2020

Aura is a suite of “songs” written as a tribute to Davis by a Danish composer called Palle Mikkelborg. Legend has it that Miles loved the songs so much, he offered to collaborate and make it a canonical Miles Davis record. It would eventually get released several years after recording, in 1989, and would be the last Miles Davis studio album to be released when he was alive.

Aura is all over the place, but sounds less like a demented infomercial than Tutu did. Songs are named after colours, and whilst the band shines again (like Tutu) rather than Miles himself, the man doesn’t feel like an afterthought this time, despite the massive number of musicians present. Aura is wide, all-encompassing, and surprisingly spaced out. The tracks meander through Weather Report styled jazz fusion, and dense atmospheric synthesizers. A strange one.