YO MILES! Shinjuku

The playing is again fantastic, full of drive, technical skills and musical joy. It starts with this kind of mad tribal hypnotism that makes you want this music never to stop, followed by lots of quieter moments but full of crackling intensity, in the best Miles Davis vein, allowing especially Wadada Leo Smith to go deep into his known emotional spritualism on trumpet. And the album ends with a phenomenal duet between the trumpeter and Zakir Hussain on tabla, this almost becoming Smith's second nature to perform with percussionists.

Typically iTunes has posted the review for the wrong album here. They posted their review of the Shanachie YO MILES! release. This is a different album composed of four original tunes in the Miles' electric 70's style that were originally released on the Cuneiform YO MILES! albums: SKY GARDEN and UPRIVER + one live, previously unreleased track, MUHAMMAD ALI, that features, in its latter half, a burning duet between Wadada on electric trumpet and the the great tabla master Zakir Hussain. Wadada tells me that this release, SHINJUKU, is his favorite of our 5 YO MILES! albums. The players here are: Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet; Kaiser, Mike Keneally and Chris Muir on electric guitars; Michael Manring on bass; Steve Smith on drums; Karl Perazzo on percussion; Greg Osby (alto) and John Tchicai (tenor and soprano) on saxophones; and Tom Coster on keyboards, and Zakir Hussain on tabla drums.