Various Artists: Panthalassa, The Remixes (Sony)

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Various Artists: Panthalassa, The Remixes (Sony)
It's hardly surprising that the period of Miles Davis' career most reviled by jazz critics at the time - the late 60s to mid 70s - should be enjoying a revival. It is urban and funky, crosses the lines between jazz and rock, and has more in common with the hip-hop aesthetic of today than the straight-ahead jazz of then or now.


You can hear its echoes locally in Nathan Haines and the New Loungehead, and LA trumpeter Mark Isham's latest album, The Silent Way Project, paid tribute to Davis' wah-wah pedal years.

Last year, production wizard Bill Laswell's excellent Panthalassa album remixed and remodelled Davis music from the period into ambient dub fusion pieces, and recreated Davis for a new, hip and very 90s audience.

This five-track, 50-minute album of remixes from that album takes the idea a step further, but with mixed results: King Britt and Philip Charles add Fender Rhodes, moog synth and drum programmes to a pleasant if unremarkable remake of Shhh over loping bass. Laswell's own "reconstruction" of On the Corner keeps the narrow-range trumpet and bass up front of funk drums and tabla.

There are two versions of Rated X, by Doc Scott and Jamie Myerson, which get rid of Davis' trumpet almost entirely and simply use the skeleton of what's left for statements of their own. The former is so pointlessly distant from its source material you wonder why he bothered pretending the original music was there at all. The latter is a rapid but vacant drum'n'bass.

Most interesting is DJ Cam, who retains only the most meagre of Davis' signature trumpet lines over thumping electronic drums and scratching for his In a Silent Way remix. But Davis sits in, sounding thoroughly contemporary in the resetting.

Overall though, less about Davis and more about opportunities lost when ego gets in the way.

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