Amandla

Garrett joined Miles DavisMiles Davisマイルス・デイヴィス's last working band in 1987 and remained until Miles died in 1991. AmandlaAmandlaMiles Davis · 1989 (1989) is a key document from that period. After Miles, Garrett built a distinctive solo career, including deeply personal tributes to John Coltrane.

Charnett Moffett's 1987 debut Net Man, recorded at age 20, turned out to be a family affair — his father Charles Moffett and brother Cody Moffett both played on it — with veteran drummer Al Foster also sitting in.

Kenny Garrett spent five and a half years in Miles Davis's band, and says he never once received a spoken instruction. Whatever phrase Miles played, Garrett played back — a call-and-response built entirely from what happened on stage, never from words.

Don Alias was brought into the 1969 sessions as a percussionist. On "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" he turned out to be the only player in the room who could lay down the New Orleans beat he had brought in, so he ended up behind the drum kit himself. The most recognizable groove on Bitches Brew (1970) is played by the man filed under percussion.

Amandla (1989) carries Miles Davis's name, but Marcus Miller wrote most of it, produced it, and overdubbed keyboards and bass clarinet alongside his own bass. The man who had been the band's bassist a few years earlier was now designing the sound itself.

Charnett Moffett released his debut as a leader, Net Man, in 1987 — but two years earlier, at just seventeen, he'd already played on Black Codes, a landmark modern-jazz record. His own debut turned into a family session, joined by his father Charles Moffett, his brother Cody Moffett, and percussionist Mino Cinelu.

Paulinho Da Costa played percussion on Thriller, the best-selling pop album of all time — and the same player also turns up on Miles Davis's 1989 fusion album Amandla. One musician's hands span the era's biggest pop record and a serious late-period Miles session.