Miles Davis: Doo-Bop-A-Lu-Wah: The Musical!

Easy Mo Bee is a fellow who does not like to leave things unfinished. Like any good producer, he is restlessly willing to shape and hone a work until things are fine-tuned down to the smallest details—a fine quality in rap recording, where a person really needs a sharp ear for slick beats and hooks. But of course the most famous example of that dedication, at least in the jazz world, was his early-'90s collaboration with the late Miles Davis—the trumpeter's famously unfinished dive into hip-hop that was cut short by his health issues and sudden death in 1991, which Bee finished assembling into the posthumous Doo-Bop (Warner Bros., 1992).

The album was a polarizing one, blending that trademark trumpet with smooth rapping and new-at-the-time electronic beats. It was probably destined to rank among his less famous milestones, coming after a career full of groundbreaking albums and garnering divisive reactions from every quarter. What was even less famous—practically unknown at all until rumors began leaking out for its 30th anniversary—was that Davis and Bee had conceived the work as not just a record but a stage show. Their plans were as ambitious and colorful as Davis's flamboyant pants on the cover. The raps were first intended as lyrics for the production, which could have been one of the world's first hip-hop musicals had it been finished even vaguely on time. It would have been an epic story of music, love, friendship, possibly dance battles, probably drugs, and definitely more swearing than a gang of sailors fighting a gang of truckers.

However, it was not to be. Doo-Bop earned its infamy and even a Grammy, but the unfinished manuscript only surfaced a couple decades later, having gotten bundled in with a closetful of technicolor stage clothes from the Davis estate which sat in a secondhand Brooklyn clothing shop until they came sort-of-semi-into fashion again. Once the unfinished work was found in a weekend jumble sale and eventually returned to Bee, he relates, "the memories just came flooding right back like it was yesterday and I knew it was time to dust off the old SP-1200 again."

If the public never quite knew what to make of this jazz-rap-hop fusion in the early '90s, a post-Hamilton world should be much more receptive. The horn work (some trumpet tracks taken from the original Davis jams, others filled in by some top-shelf guests) is distinct as ever in that unmistakable Prince of Darkness style. The beats are surprisingly fresh, the grooves capably funky, the raps slick and raunchy, the lyrics... serviceable... and above all, the story sweeping and moving. From budding romance to relationship drama to back-alley noir and even a high-speed chase, it builds to an emotional climax that will doubtlessly merit a bucket of Tony awards.

The world's full judgment will have to wait until the actual musical premieres, apparently planned for Doo-Bop's 35th birthday. For its part, the original soundtrack is a wild ride full of colorful swagger and freewheeling funkitude. In the past tradition of extensive Davis box sets, an expanded Complete Sessions edition offers an even deeper trawl through the vaults—a set of early demos, over two hours of trumpet-and-beat jams, and a bonus disc of Bee freestyling stream-of-consciousness lyric ideas in one near-miraculous 63-minute take. In any form, Doo-Bop-a-Lu-Wah: The Musical! should be a worthy revisitation and possibly a revelation for those who considered the first outing just a tepid experiment. If it takes a decade or two for a Davis experiment to get a fair hearing, any longtime listener knows that it would hardly be the first time.