Wiki
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Release Date
18 May 1989
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Length
10 tracks
Miles' last recording for the Columbia label before heading for the financial allure of Warner Bros. in the mid-'80s was not released until 1989.
This critic's guess is because largely they had no idea what to do with it. Unlike anything else in his catalog, Aura is a ten-part suite composed by Danish flügelhornist Palle Mikkelborg as a tribute. Influenced deeply by serialism and the inspiration of Gil Evans, Mikkelborg composed a theme from ten notes based on the letters of Davis' first and last names.
The notes yielded a chord, which led him through the work. Employing a full orchestra and the guitar talents of former Davis collaborator John McLaughlin and famed European bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Aura's sections are named for the color spectrum, with the addition of white and "electric red."
The music is an amalgam of classical impressionism, European new music, jazz, rock, electronic, and other genres.
As a tribute and separate orchestral work, it's quite moving and beautiful, full of moody interludes and evocations of nuance, color, texture, and dynamic. With Davis added, soloing in his trademark muted, rounded warmth, the music becomes almost breathtaking. The Gil Evans influence is everywhere apparent in the way strings segue into keyboards and float there until the trumpet or wind section comes for them and brings them home. It's easy to be cynical about a work like this, and call it a pastiche of Miles clichés. Far harder is it to place the entirety of Davis' career in one place and hear it expressed with so much warmth and elegance, because that career was so mercurial. Mikkelborg gave Miles a fine parting gift when he left Columbia, and listeners are so very fortunate for his generosity.
Credits
Bob Belden – Reissue Producer
Palle Bolvig – Flugelhorn, Trumpet
Khephra Burns – Liner Notes
Per Carsten – Saxophone, Woodwind
Thomas Clausen – Keyboards
Miles Davis – Trumpet
Stacy Drummond – Art Direction
Niels Eje – Cor Anglais, Cornet, Oboe
Jens Engel – Trombone
Howard Fritzson – Reissue Art Director
Lennart Gruvstedt – Drums
Ole Kock Hansen – Keyboards
John Jackson - Reissue Assistant
Bent Jaedig – Saxophone, Woodwind
Ole Kurt Jensen – Trombone (Bass)
Uffe Karskov – Saxophone, Woodwind
Kenneth Knudsen – Keyboards
Perry Knudsen – Flugelhorn, Trumpet
Gilles Larrain – Photography
Ture Larsen – Trombone
Flemming Madsen – Saxophone, Woodwind
Randall Martin – Reissue Design
Marilyn Mazur – Percussion
John McLaughlin – Guitar
Rosa Menkes – Reissue Design
Palle Mikkelborg – Composer, Flugelhorn, Producer, Trumpet
Vincent Nilsson – Trombone
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen – Bass
Rune Persson – Mastering
Darcy Proper – Mastering
Benny Rosenfeld – Flugelhorn, Trumpet
Seth Rothstein – Project Director
Bjarne Roup – Guitar
Bo Stief – Bass, Fretless Bass
Idrees Sulieman – Flugelhorn, Trumpet
Eva Thaysen – Vocals
Jesper Thilo – Saxophone, Woodwind
Lillian Thornquist – Harp
Ethan Weisgaard – Percussion
Vince Wilburn, Jr. – Drums (Electric), Electronic Drums
Axel Windfel – Bass, Trombone, Trombone (Bass), Tuba
Jens Winther – Flugelhorn, Trumpet
Recorded at Easy Sound Studios, Copenhagen, Denmark in 1984.
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