Everything’s Beautiful
Robert Glasper / Miles Davis
Sony Music CMG
Three-and-a-half stars
Commemorating the 90th birthday of Miles Davis – and Miles Ahead, a biopic of the iconic jazz trumpeter's life – we have the "new", Davis-inspired album Everything's Beautiful, a conceptually confused but captivating virtual duet with trendsetting pianist and producer Robert Glasper.
The late-1990s remix series Panthalassa has aged badly, and Glasper is the obvious choice to move Davis into the 21st century – he is a credible jazz innovator himself, with enough crossover success to reach a mainstream audience.
Rather than delivering the straight remixes he was initially asked to oversee, Glasper raided the Davis archive, sampling choice nuggets as jumping off points for a new series of compositions.
Naturally, he brings along a packed contacts book, calling in guest turns from a host of notables, including Erykah Badu and Stevie Wonder.
Despite drawing readily from Davis's dense, frenetic electric 1970s work, the mood here is one of chilled intensity – mellow, ethereal, R&B grooves not dissimilar in mood to Glasper's Grammy-winning breakout Black Radio.
Sourced from an In A Silent Way outtake, Ghetto Walkin' features Bilal crooning soulfully over hip-hop beats and a vamping Fender Rhodes.
In Violets, Phonte raps on a looped outtake of pianist Bill Evans fluffing the intro to the ballad Blue in Green, from the 1959 landmark album Kind of Blue.
The purest duet is Badu's star turn on Maiysha (So Long), a moody 1974 vamp recast as a longing, bossa-nova lilt, with Davis's wilting, wah-wah trumpet floating over the vocal.
It's a rare reference, with Davis's horn all but missing in action (as is Glasper's piano, featuring in just two solos). Instead of clean quotes, samples are subtle and inventive – opening invitation Talking S*** combines studio clips of Davis instructing his sidemen into one flowing monologue or manifesto.
Funk-rock jam I'm Leaving You is built around a clip of Davis intoning "wait a minute". Driven by a layer of guitar wails from 1980s collaborator John Scofield, it sounds most like something Davis himself might have recorded.
The LP's second-half moves into darker, jazzier territory. A straightish cover of modal masterpiece Milestones mixes wah guitar and block-rocking beats to alarming effect. Wonder turns up on haunting closer Right on Brotha, spiralling out the melody to Davis's Nefertiti on harmonica. Closest in sound to the source material is spooky 1970 instrumental Little Church, here dealt additional psychedelia and a wordless vocal. It is, of course, tempting to wonder what Davis would have made of it all – one likes to imagine an alternative universe where he and Glasper might even have collaborated.
But the truth is, outweighing even his restless spirit was Davis’s narcissism, suspicion and spite.
As it is, this virtual duo offers a fleeting glimpse of synthesis, which fails to truly grasp the genius of either man – and for that, only one of the pair can be blamed.
rgarratt@thenational.ae
Thank You for Banking with Us
Director: Laila Abbas
Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum
Rating: 4/5
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
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MWTC
Tickets start from Dh100 for adults and are now on sale at www.ticketmaster.ae and Virgin Megastores across the UAE. Three-day and travel packages are also available at 20 per cent discount.
Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
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Director: Christian Carion
Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
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APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)
Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits
Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
Storage: 128/256/512GB
Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4
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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Fasset%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2019%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Mohammad%20Raafi%20Hossain%2C%20Daniel%20Ahmed%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%242.45%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2086%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Pre-series%20B%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Investcorp%2C%20Liberty%20City%20Ventures%2C%20Fatima%20Gobi%20Ventures%2C%20Primal%20Capital%2C%20Wealthwell%20Ventures%2C%20FHS%20Capital%2C%20VN2%20Capital%2C%20local%20family%20offices%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
The Case For Trump
By Victor Davis Hanson
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Results
5pm: Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,200m, Winner: ES Rubban, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Ibrahim Aseel (trainer)
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FA Cup fifth round draw
Sheffield Wednesday v Manchester City
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Portsmouth v Arsenal
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Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Dubai works towards better air quality by 2021
Dubai is on a mission to record good air quality for 90 per cent of the year – up from 86 per cent annually today – by 2021.
The municipality plans to have seven mobile air-monitoring stations by 2020 to capture more accurate data in hourly and daily trends of pollution.
These will be on the Palm Jumeirah, Al Qusais, Muhaisnah, Rashidiyah, Al Wasl, Al Quoz and Dubai Investment Park.
“It will allow real-time responding for emergency cases,” said Khaldoon Al Daraji, first environment safety officer at the municipality.
“We’re in a good position except for the cases that are out of our hands, such as sandstorms.
“Sandstorms are our main concern because the UAE is just a receiver.
“The hotspots are Iran, Saudi Arabia and southern Iraq, but we’re working hard with the region to reduce the cycle of sandstorm generation.”
Mr Al Daraji said monitoring as it stood covered 47 per cent of Dubai.
There are 12 fixed stations in the emirate, but Dubai also receives information from monitors belonging to other entities.
“There are 25 stations in total,” Mr Al Daraji said.
“We added new technology and equipment used for the first time for the detection of heavy metals.
“A hundred parameters can be detected but we want to expand it to make sure that the data captured can allow a baseline study in some areas to ensure they are well positioned.”
