Album: Decoy

I can remember the very moment that I was introduced to Decoy by Miles Davis. It’s also the exact same moment that I was introduced to Pat Metheny.

One stuck, I am still trying with the other.

My guitar teacher, Irish jazz guitar hero Mike Nielsen, gave me a tape and told me to listen to some Miles. I can also thank Mike for introducing me to Chet Baker. He introduced me to some of the best music I’ve ever heard, Django, and more.

Anyway, we finished the lesson and I hit the road on my bike, guitar on back and the tape in my Sony Walkman. Still, in my opinion, the greatest and most influential consumer device ever invented. (I have a Horace Panter painting to pay homage to it – pic below!)

A song called What It Is played. It has the greatest opening bass line I have ever heard. To this day I still have not replicated the feeling of hearing this bass line for the first time. Not even Flea on Give It Away could replicate it – and he too, like Miles, was massively influenced by Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. Between this bass lines and Miles’ cocaine fusion fuelled manic horn playing I was in a whole new world of 80s Miles. I think 80s Miles is one of the most edgy music experiences that there is. At this stage of his career he knew Jazz, as it had been, was disappearing and synth and rock etc were completing their take over. He wanted to keep Jazz in people’s ears, so much so that he also released a title called You’re Under Arrest, an absolute beautiful horror of an album that also contains cover versions of Michael Jackson’s Human Nature and Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper. Even Sting gets in on the act. And as for the cover art. Yeeeeikes.

In the beginning of the end, my tape got eaten and I forgot about Decoy until 20 years later when I was humming the bass line, I have always hummed this bass. So, I spent hours on Spotify listening to various Miles in the 80s songs (hard work) to try and find the bass line. I could picture the tape, picture the writing Miles, and Pat Metheny but had no idea the name of the album, as it was a copy there was no inlay card or anything so, being pre-internet, I never knew the name of the songs or the albums. Technology has given us so much access to music now it’s overwhelming but, thanks to it, I found the song and the album and was reunited with my teenage lust. Then I went to A1 Records in the East Village and found a copy of it on vinyl. And now I like to listen to it on Saturday mornings, alone, and loud. The playing is incredible.

It’s not for everyone but that doesn’t mean it’s not fucking amazing and that the cover shot of Miles is…well, as bad to the bone as only Miles could be.

Track Listing

If you want to know more about Miles, his book, Miles, is incredible. Also the film Miles Ahead with Don Cheadle is well worth a watch.