''M²'' is a studio album by

Jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...

musician

Marcus Miller William Henry Marcus Miller Jr. (born June 14, 1959) is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He has worked with trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonists Wayne Shorter and David Sa ...

, released in 2001 on Telarc Records. This album won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

Critical reception

Sonia Murray of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, in a B review declared, "on occasion, the past bandmate of

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...

Steely Dan Steely Dan is an American rock band formed in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 1971 by Walter Becker (guitars, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals). Originally having a traditional band lineup, Becker and Fagen cho ...

Donald Fagen Donald Jay Fagen (born January 10, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who is the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the rock band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker ...

George Benson George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American jazz fusion guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist. A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the ...

and others steps out front and graces us with a solo project. And his first such effort in seven years -- even in its funk tendencies -- evokes the kind of ease and beauty that makes the word "grace" appropriate." Rob Theakston of

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

in a 4/5 star review commented, "Marcus Miller continues to display his multi-instrument virtuosity with M², and while the order of the day is still smooth jazz, there's more of a soulful R&B edge than the majority of his previous work. It also features an all-star cast that includes

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of ...

, Branford Marsalis,

Raphael Saadiq Raphael Saadiq (; born Charles Ray Wiggins; May 14, 1966) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He rose to prominence as a vocalist and bassist for the R&B band Tony! Toni! Toné!, which he formed with h ...

, Paul Jackson, Jr., and Lenny White among others."

Track listing

All tracks composed by Marcus Miller except where noted. # "Power" – 4:37 # "Lonnie's Lament" (

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...

) – 5:39 # "Boomerang" – 5:49 # "Nikki's Groove" – 3:28 # " Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" (

Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz Double bass, upright bassist, composer, bandleader, pianist, and author. A major proponent of collective Musical improvisation, improvisation, he is considered one of ...

) – 3:34 # "Ozell (Interlude 1)" – 0:48 # " Burning Down the House" (

David Byrne David Byrne (; born May 14, 1952) is an American musician, writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He was a founding member, principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American New wave music, new wave band Talking Heads. Byrne has ...

, Jerry Harrison,

Chris Frantz Charton Christopher Frantz (born May 8, 1951) is an American musician and record producer. He is the drummer for both Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, both of which he co-founded with wife and Talking Heads bassist, Tina Weymouth. In 2002, Frant ...

Tina Weymouth Martina Michèle Weymouth ( ; born November 22, 1950) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and a founding member and bassist of the new wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club, which she co-founded with her husband, ...

) – 6:54 # "It's Me Again" – 6:05 # "Cousin John" – 4:42 # "Ozell (Interlude 2)" – 0:39 # "3 Deuces" – 5:51 # "Red Baron" (

Billy Cobham William Emanuel Cobham Jr. (born May 16, 1944) is a Panamanian–American jazz drummer who came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with trumpeter Miles Davis and then with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He was inducted into the '' Mode ...

) – 6:38 # "Ozell (Interlude 3)" – 1:01 # "Your Amazing Grace" – 7:43 # "Boomerang Reprise" – 1:54

Personnel

–

Wurlitzer electric piano The Wurlitzer electronic piano is an electric piano manufactured and marketed by Wurlitzer from 1954 to 1983. Sound is generated by striking a metal reed with a hammer, which induces an electric current in a pickup. It is conceptually similar to ...

(1), synthesizers (1–8, 10–15),

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...

(1, 4), bass guitars (1, 8, 12, 14), drum programming (1–6, 10, 13, 14), scratches (1, 6, 10, 12, 13),

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

(2, 11), guitars (2, 11), bass guitar (2–4, 7, 9, 11, 15), tenor saxophone (2, 6, 10, 12–14),

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common Soprano clarinet, soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays no ...

(2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13–15), lead vocals (3),

acoustic bass The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than, a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar an ...

(3), vocals (4),

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

(4, 7–9, 12), synth bass (4, 15), alto saxophone (4),

fretless bass A fretless bass is an electric bass guitar whose neck lacks frets and thus is smooth like traditional string instruments, and like the neck of an acoustic double bass. While the fretless bass is played in all styles of music, it is most common in ...

es (5), B♭ clarinet (5, 9), fretless bass (6, 10, 13), rhythm guitar (7),

Roland TR-808 The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 808, is a drum machine manufactured by Roland Corporation between 1980 and 1983. It was one of the first drum machines to allow users to program rhythms instead of using preset patterns. ...

(7), backing vocals (8),

clavinet The Clavinet is an electric clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds with rubber pads, each matching one of the keys and respond ...

(9), ambient synthesizer (9), talking synth bass (9), electric guitar (10, 13), radio (11), guitar effects (12), percussion programming (12, 14, 15),

vibraphone The vibraphone (also called the vibraharp) is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using Percussion mallet, mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone ...

(12), acoustic guitar (13), soprano saxophone (14) * Bernard Wright – Fender Rhodes (1, 7), organ (4) *

– acoustic piano (3), acoustic piano solo (5) * Paul Jackson, Jr. – acoustic guitar (3, 8), guitars (4),

dobro Dobro () is an American brand of resonator guitars owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar. The Dobro was originally a gui ...

(9) *

Hiram Bullock Hiram Law Bullock (September 11, 1955 – July 25, 2008) was an American guitarist known mainly for playing in jazz funk and jazz fusion, but he also worked as a session musician in a variety of genres. Biography Bullock was born in Osaka, Ja ...

– lead guitar (7), guitars (12, 15) * Leroy Taylor – synth bass (2, 7, 12), Fender Rhodes (15) * Lenny White – brush fills (2) * Poogie Bell – drums (7, 9, 11, 12, 15) *

Vinnie Colaiuta Vincent Peter Colaiuta (born February 5, 1956) is an American drummer known for his technical mastery who has worked as a session musician in many genres. He was inducted into the ''Modern Drummer'' Hall of Fame in 1996 and the ''Classic Drumme ...

– drums (8) * David Isaac – water effects (1), hi-string note (1), tom overdubs (7),

cowbell A cowbell (or cow bell) is a bell (instrument), bell worn around the neck of free-roaming livestock so herders can keep track of an animal via the sound of the bell when the animal is grazing out of view in hilly landscapes or vast plains. ...

(7),

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimension ...

(7), percussion programming (11) * Mino Cinelu – percussion (6, 8–10, 13) * Kenny Garrett – alto saxophone (2, 12), alto sax solo (7, 15) * Branford Marsalis – soprano sax solo (2, 8) * Hubert Laws –

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

solo (2), flute (9) *

Wayne Shorter Wayne Shorter (August 25, 1933 – March 2, 2023) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader. Shorter came to mainstream prominence in 1959 upon joining Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, for whom he eventually became the primary comp ...

– soprano saxophone (9), soprano sax solo (13) * James Carter – tenor sax solo (11) *

Maceo Parker Maceo Parker (; born February 14, 1943) is an American funk and soul jazz saxophonist, best known for his work with James Brown in the 1960s, Parliament-Funkadelic in the 1970s and Prince in the 2000s. Parker was a prominent soloist on many of ...

– alto sax solo (12) * Fred Wesley – trombone (7), trombone solo (12) * Michael "Patches" Stewart – trumpet (2, 3, 7) * Larry Corbett – cello (1–3, 7, 9, 13, 14) * Matt Funes – viola (1, 3, 7, 9, 12, 14) * Joel Derouin – violin (1, 3, 12, 14) *

– lead vocals (3) * Nikki Miller – vocals (4) *

Djavan Djavan Caetano Viana (; born 27 January 1949) is a Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest singers in Brazilian history. Early life and career Djavan was born in Maceió, Brazil to a whit ...

– scat vocals (8) *

Chaka Khan Yvette Marie Stevens (born March 23, 1953), better known by her stage name Chaka Khan ( ), is an American singer. Known as the " Queen of Funk", her career has spanned more than five decades beginning in the early 1970s as the lead vocalist of ...

– vocals (14)

Production

* Harold Goode – executive producer * Harry Martin – executive producer * Marcus Miller – executive producer, producer, recording * David Isaac – co-producer, recording, mixing (3, 11, 14, 15) * Khaliq-O-Vision – recording, mixing (3, 11, 14), vocal recording (15), assistant engineer * Ray Bardani – mixing (1, 2, 4–10, 12, 13) * Paul Mitchell – recording * Malcolm Pollack – recording * Enrico DePaoli – vocal recording (8) * David Hampton – piano recording (3, 5) * Danny Romero – vocal recording (3) * Michelle Forbes – assistant engineer * Richard Furch – assistant engineer * Takamasa Honda – assistant engineer * Alexandre Reis – assistant engineer * Charles Harrison – string copyist, string transcription * Bibi Green – production coordination * Jack Frisch – art direction, design * Kumiko Higo – photography * Jack Leitenberg – management * David Passick – management

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:M2 2001 albums Marcus Miller albums Albums produced by Marcus Miller Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album