Doo-Bop

Doo-Bop is the final studio album by American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. It was recorded with hip hop producer Easy Mo Bee and released posthumously on June 30, 1992, by Warner Bros. Records. The album was received unfavorably by most critics, although it won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance the following year.

Doo-Bop
Studio album by Miles Davis
Released	June 30, 1992
Recorded	January 19 – February 1991
Studio	Unique Recording Studios, New York City
Genre	Acid jazz, jazz rap[1]
Length	40:02
Label	Warner Bros.
Producer	Easy Mo Bee
Miles Davis chronology
Dingo (1991) Doo-Bop (1992) Miles! Miles! Miles! (1992)

Background

The project stemmed from Davis sitting in his New York City apartment in the summer with the windows open, listening to the sound of the streets. He wanted to record an album of music that captured these sounds. In early 1991, Davis called up his friend Russell Simmons and asked him to find some young producers who could help create this kind of music, leading to Davis's collaboration with Easy Mo Bee.

At the time of Davis's death in 1991, only six pieces for the album had been completed.^[2] Easy Mo Bee was asked by Warner Bros. to take some of the unreleased trumpet performances (stemming from the unreleased 1985 album Rubberband, which was later released as an album in 2019), and build tracks that Davis "would have loved" around the recordings. The album's posthumous tracks (as stated in the liner notes) are "High Speed Chase" and "Fantasy". A reprise of the song "Mystery" rounded out the album's nine-track length.^[3]

Release and reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
DownBeat	[4]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[5]
Entertainment Weekly	B−[6]
Los Angeles Times	[7]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings	[8]
Q	[9]
(The New) Rolling Stone Album Guide	[10]

The title is a play on words on the two musical genres doo-wop and bebop. Doo-Bop was released by Warner Bros. Records on June 30, 1992.^[11] By May 1993, it had sold approximately 300,000 copies worldwide.^[4] The album received negative reviews from most critics.^[12] Greg Tate called it an "inconsequential" jazz-rap record from Davis,^[13] while Billboard found the R&B-based album to not be "quite cut as deeply" as his 1970s funk recordings.^[14] In Entertainment Weekly, Greg Sandow wrote that Davis's solos were performed with "impeccable logic and wistful finesse" but accompanied by hackneyed guest raps and unadventurous hip hop beats, which reduced Doo-Bop to "elegant aural wallpaper".^[6] Los Angeles Times critic Don Snowden believed the album "succeeded only in fits and starts" because of Davis's first time working with hip hop tracks, "the rigidity" of which Snowden felt often reduced his "muted-laced-with-echo trumpet to just another instrumental color in the mix".^[7] Richard Williams from The Independent viewed the tracks as a regression from the ambient-inflected Tutu (1986) album as they inspired trumpet improvisations from Davis which displayed "a rhythmic banality that was never remotely discernible in Miles's pre-electric playing".^[15]

In a positive review, Q called Doo-Bop "a collector's piece ... as hip, sexy, open and complex as the best of his work since he elected to turn to FM airplay music in the 1980s".^[9] Musician considered it a pleasant hip hop album and an accessible introduction to Davis's music for "younger ears weaned on modern beats".^[16] In DownBeat, Robin Tolleson wrote that Davis sounded less timid than on previous few records as "his phrasing and concept adapt sharply from tune to tune".^[4] Doo-Bop won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance.^[17]

Track listing

• All tracks written by Miles Davis/Easy Mo Bee, except where indicated:

Side One

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Mystery"		3:56
2.	"The Doo-Bop Song"		5:02
3.	"Chocolate Chip"	Davis, Easy Mo Bee, Donald Hepburn	4:41
4.	"High Speed Chase"	Davis, Easy Mo Bee, Larry Mizell	4:40

Side Two

No.	Title	Length
5.	"Blow"	5:07
6.	"Sonya"	5:32
7.	"Fantasy"	4:38
8.	"Duke Booty"	4:56
9.	"Mystery (Reprise)"	1:26

Personnel

Credits are adapted from The Last Miles (2007) by George Cole.^[18]
Musicians

• Miles Davis – trumpet
• Deron Johnson – keyboards
• J.R – performer
• A.B. Money – performer

Production

• Easy Mo Bee – producer
• Matt Pierson – associate producer
• Gordon Meltzer – associate executive producer

• Daniel Beroff – engineer
• Reginald Dozier – engineer
• Zane Giles – engineer
• Randy Hall – engineer
• John McGlain – engineer
• Bruce Moore – engineer
• Arthur Steuer – engineer
• Kirk Yano – engineer
• D'Anthony Johnson – engineer, mixing
• Eric Lynch – engineer, mixing
• Ted Jensen – mastering

• Rodney Lucas – technical Services
• Faith Newman – production services
• Linda Burke – production services
• Robin Lynch – art direction
• Annie Leibovitz – photography
• Michael Benabib – photography

Charts

Chart (1992)[19]	Peak position
American Albums Chart	190
American Jazz Albums Chart	1
American R&B Albums Chart	28

Certifications and sales

Region	Certification	Certified units/sales
Germany (BVMI)[20]	Gold	10,000^
United States	—	276,000[21]
Summaries
Worldwide	—	300,000[4]
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

1. Aldrich, Steve. "Doo-Bop". AllMusic. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
2. Miles Davis Community at Sony Music Entertainment.
3. AllMusic review
4. Alkyer, Frank; Enright, Ed; Koransky, Jason, eds. (2007). The Miles Davis Reader. Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 160, 310–11. ISBN 978-1-4234-3076-6.
5. Larkin, Colin (2011). "Miles Davis". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0857125958.
6. Sandow, Greg (August 21, 1992). "Doo-Bop". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
7. Snowden, Don (July 26, 1992). "Miles Davis Leaves a Hip-Hop Finale". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
8. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 352. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
9. Q: 70. September 1992.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
10. Considine, J. D. (2004). "Miles Davis". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). (The New) Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon & Schuster. pp. 215, 219. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
11. Britt, Bruce (June 18, 1992). "Miles Davis's 'Hip-bop' Disc Due June 30". Los Angeles Daily News. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
12. Freeman, Phil (October 29, 2014). "Miles Davis Albums From Worst To Best". Stereogum. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
13. Tate, Greg (2012). "Tutu and Farewell 1986-1991". Miles Davis: The Complete Illustrated History. MBI Publishing Company. p. 200. ISBN 9781610586825. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
14. Newman, Melinda; Morris, Chris; Morris, Edward, eds. (July 18, 1992). "Album Reviews". Billboard. p. 48. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
15. Williams, Richard (July 25, 1992). "Jazz: Miles Davis- Doo-Bop". The Independent. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
16. "June 1992". Musician: 96.
17. "THE 35TH ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS : Winners in Other Grammy Categories". Los Angeles Times. February 25, 1993. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
18. George Cole (2007). The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis, 1980-1991. University of Michigan Press. pp. 313–314, 509. ISBN 978-0472032600.
19. "Doo-Bop: Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved May 22, 2016.
20. "Gold-/Platin-Datenbank (Miles Davis; 'Doo Bop')" (in German). Bundesverband Musikindustrie.
21. Cwik, Greg (September 25, 2015). "Understanding Miles Davis, in 9 Parts". Vulture. Retrieved June 15, 2020.

Further reading

• Cole, George (n.d.). "Interview: Easy Mo Bee: The Doo-Bop Remix Project". TheLastMiles.com.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
• Moon, Tom (March 14, 1993). "Mixing Hip-hop & Jazz Rappers Are Improvising. And Jazz Artists Are Picking Up The Beat. Is It A Fad Or The Future?". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on September 22, 2015.

External links

• Doo-Bop at Discogs (list of releases)