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DARING TO BE DIFFERENT - JASON MILES TALKS ABOUT 'BLUE IS PARIS'

Written by Charles WaringFriday, 02 June 2017 11:01 - Last Updated Monday, 05 June 2017 20:53

"There's an art to making an album and it's a craft that is totally lost," opines JASON MILES,who laments the fact that we are living in the age of the digital download. The 65-year-old native New Yorker grew up in an age when the LP format was king and came through the ranks in the Big Applesession scene in the '70s and '80s, rising from keyboard programmer to record producer. "I am a real producer," he states. "I spent 15 years in the New York studios as an apprentice doing synthesiser work for LutherVandross and Marcus Miller but I was also learning in that period also about being a producerand what it really takes and how you make an album. So I learned the craft and one of mystrong points is that I learned is how to make everybody sound like they're in the same room,even though they're not. That's something that I've learnt and all my records feel like that. Theyfeel like we're all playing together. That's very important to me to give it a kind of sense."

Miles is intensely loquacious and brimming with energy - "keep asking questions because I canriff forever," he tells me - and is amusician who has worn many different guises in his long career. They range from producer,recording artist and composer to arranger, synthesiser programmer and session musician. Helearned his craft from the some of the biggest and best names in the business, including ajaw-droppingly talented Holy Trinity comprising the great Miles Davis, the late Tommy LiPumaand super-soulful singer Luther Vandross. They've all passed on, of course, but they left anindelible mark on Miles and undoubtedly helped to make him the man and musician he is today.

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The Big Apple-based musician has appeared on countless albums over the years and workedwith the finest talents from worlds of jazz and R&B music. As well as appearing on albums byLuther and Miles Davis - he worked on the iconic trumpeter's late-'80s albums, 'Tutu' and'Amandla' - he's worked with Diana Ross, Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, David Sanborn, AlJarreau, Anita Baker, George Benson, Grover Washington Jr, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan,and Michael Jackson. It's a impressive CV, charting Miles' rise from pioneering synthesiserprogrammer to go-to, in-demand record producer. As a producer, Miles is famed for puttingtogether critically-acclaimed tribute albums (namely 'Miles To Miles,' 'Celebrating The MusicOf Weather Report,' 'ToGrover, With Love,'and 'A Love Affair: The Music Of Ivan Lins') and more recently, helmed a track on Maysa Leak's new Shanachie album, 'Love Is A Battlefield.'

He's also released a steady stream of albums under his own name over the years and his latestproject is 'Kind Of New 2 - Blue Is Paris,' a unique album that offers ten different instrumentalconfigurations of a song that the keyboardist/producer wrote in the aftermath of the Paristerrorist attack in November 2015. It features notable guest appearances from trumpeters TheoCroker, Michael 'Patches' Stewart, Jukka Escola, saxophonist Jeff Coffin, guitarist RicardoSilveira and singer, Maya Azucena.

In a detailed interview with SJF's Charles Waring, JASON MILES talks at length about 'Blue IsParis' and also recalls other aspects of his career, including his work with the legendary MilesDavis...

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Tell us about your new project, 'Kind Of New 2: Blue Is Paris' I made this album 'Kind Of New,' in 2015, which got incredible press all over the world. I usedthis trumpet player on it, Ingrid Jensen, and it was a combination of live and studio recordingsbased on Miles Davis's 'The Cellar Door Sessions.' That was a legendary week in 1970 whereMiles's band - Jack DeJohnette, Airto, Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett on electric piano, and MichaelHenderson - was recorded. The tapes got lost but then Sony found them and released a boxset. When I first heard it I thought holy mackerel, Keith Jarrett is so freaking funky - Miles toldme that Keith was his favourite keyboard player from his '70s bands - but it was a different kindof funk, like in 3-D. So I thought, you know what? Here's a premise: the small electric ensemblehas been disappearing. In the '70s we had The Crusaders, Weather Report, Return To Forever,and Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters, which were all small electric ensembles, and that's whereI come from. I thought it was time to bring it back, this broad concept that's got interaction, so Icame up with the idea for 'Kind Of New' and I asked Ingrid to be on the record and wrote thesedifferent tunes and did some live gigs as well to get that Cellar Door kind of a vibe on it. I cameover to Europe to do press for it right after the terrorist attack in Paris. A friend drove me aroundthere and I was amazed that people were just going and doing their thing like nothing hadhappened. They weren't going to stop going to sit in cafes. It's built into the culture. They wereso resilient and when I was on the train going to Brussels to do some more press all of asudden I started thinking, I've got to write something about that, about Paris. It's so sad. And Icame up with 'Blue Is Paris.' Instead of producing an album of different tracks, you feature just one song but offer analbum's worth of different variations and interpretations. What inspired that? When I came back from Europe I wrote the tune 'Blue Is Paris,' and put together the rhythmtrack. First, I called up (trumpeter) Russell Gunn, who was interested, and played on it. I toldhim that was really freaking good, man, but you know what? I could take this thing to otherplaces, I really could, because on the track there was some other stuff happening and I'mhearing other melodies. That's when I said forget about this one trumpet player thing. So Istarted thinking about an album that my father got me, 'Lullaby of Birdland,' by George Shearingon RCA Victor, which came out in 1955. I still have it. It was twelve versions of the tune done bytwelve different arrangers. I thought: it worked for that, so why can't it work for something likethis? It had Shorty Rogers, Zoot Sims, Quincy Jones, Barbara Carroll, Charlie Barnett, JoeNewman, and Pete Jolly, who all did versions of it. It was all recorded in different places. Sothat's how the vibe came. After that, I called up (trumpeter) Theo Croker, and he came back with something totallydifferent and I thought, okay, man, this shit could work. And that's when I got two more hornplayers, 'Patches' Stuart and Jukka Escola. I really love Jukka's album. I went to him because Ithought it would be interesting because nobody knows who he is really and he's from Finlandand he's really freaking good. And Patches is a long-time friend. We've done stuff together.Then I thought, let's break it up, and I went to Jeff Coffin on sax and (guitarist) Ricardo Silveirain Brazil, who's a 40-year friend and let's give it a try, see what happens and see what the storyis. So I started to put it together and got some great feedback and then I did the last track, thevocal version with Maya Azucena. I thought let's see what she can come up with on the vocalangle and she was great. Then I thought, let me go far away from what they're doing and do aremix of it, just totally different, just me. And that's how I came up with the vibe. I feel verystrongly about it. Why limit yourself to one thing? How did you come across Theo Croker? I've got to be very honest and said I need some young trumpet player. I just wanted to look atsomething different. Jay Rodriguez recommended a couple of different cats, and Theo was oneof them and I listened to his album ('Escape Velocity,' released in 2016) and I really, really likedit. I met him and he was a really great guy, and very much into playing for real as far as joiningan ensemble and playing with people. That's what I liked about him. He's really creative and really good.

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You recently produced a Luther Vandross song, 'Because It's Really Love,' for Maysa'snew album, 'Love Is A Battlefield.' Maysa asked me to do that song for her. I said to her, "you do realise, number one, that that's aLuther ballad, and you also realise that that song took us two-and-a-half weeks in the studio todo, because Luther was so meticulous. So it's got to be meticulously perfect for a Luther balladto work with somebody else." She said, "let's it do it, let's go," so I put together that tune andknew I could do it because I watched Luther and Marcus Miller put together those tunes. I dideight albums with Luther and watched all those albums going down. For each of those albums,we were in the studio for three freaking months. Those albums were really crafted. Some ofthem, like the ones I worked on, 'Give Me The Reason,' 'Any Love,' 'Power Of Love' and 'HereAnd Now,' took us two weeks to do just one song. Did it feel like you were serving an apprenticeship with masters like Miles and Luther? I was a synthesiser cat and I didn't feel like I was serving an apprenticeship - I felt like theyshould be serving an apprenticeship with me because they had no idea how I did it. Miles couldwalk in the studio and say to a sax player or somebody, "man, you've got to do that solo again,it's too ahead of the beat" but he couldn't walk up to me and say that because he had no ideahow I did what I did. All he knew was that he sat there and the music started popping out of thespeakers and he'd never heard it before, because this was very new territory back then. You first came to the wider public's attention playing on Miles Davis' 'Tutu' and'Amandla' albums where you were credited as a synthesiser programmer. How did youget into that? It had really started with walking by this auditorium at my college in the fall of 1973 and seeing aguy sitting on stage with this little tiny keyboard and it ended up being Bob Moog and his miniMoog. So he let me play it and I was like oh my God, oh yeah, this is amazing, listen to thisthing! And then I was influenced by people like Herbie (Hancock) and Joe Zawinul. I got to befriends with some of these cats. Zawinul was a friend of mine for years. I had been friends withhim since 1974. He was coming up with sounds that were very innovative, but he was comingup with the sounds for Whether Report, not for anybody else. I came up with sounds myselfwhen I got a Prophet 5 synth in 1979, when I made my very first album ('Cozmopolitan' in1979). I was thinking about the different sounds and how I was going to do this and all thedifferent possibilities. I knew how to get the sounds because I understood synthesis at thatpoint. And so what happened was that a keyboard player named Kenny Kirkland, who was oneof the great piano players of all time in New York he had a record date with this Japanese cat,and he said they want me to do synthesis. I was like, so? Come on, Kenny, man, you can do it.He said, are you kidding me? I have no idea how to do that stuff. You're going to come andbring your Prophet and I'll pay you $500. This was like 1980. I said wow, I'll come for 500 bucksman. After that record, people started knowing that I knew what was going on with this stuff andI got very, very deep into synthesisers. And your name started to get around? There were two people that were really responsible for being very hip to me and one was(saxophonist) Michael Brecker, who told everybody about me. We started doing some musictogether and he started telling producers, "you should use Jason Miles." Then one night he hadcalled me up and (saxophonist) Bob Mintzer's band was playing at a club. It was the summer of1984 and Mike was leaving him the next day to go and do festivals in Europe. What happenedwas, he said come down, man, everybody's going to be at this club. I lived 50 miles out of thecity and it was a nice June night and my wife was in Indiana visiting her family so I said fine. I'mcoming, man. So I leave the dog, jump in the car, and everybody's hanging at the club. Michaelsees me, gives me a big hug and then I see this drummer, Lenny White. And the next thing Iknow, Lenny White, who played with Miles and Return To Forever. He walks over to me andsays, hey man, who's your favourite producer? I said to him, that's easy, Trevor Horn. He said,we are definitely going to work together, because I could see that he loved all the orchestra hitsand all that shit, and I could do all that kind of stuff. We just kept in touch and then Lenny toldMarcus Miller about me. I had known Marcus from him doing my first album with me in 1979and then following Marcus and seeing what was going on. I was part of the New York scene.Marcus was jumping up as a producer and Lenny told him that he should be using me on thisnew project and we started working together and that lasted 10 years. Through Marcus I metMiles, Luther and David Sanborn. I had known a whole bunch of those people but they hadnever brought me in until Michael started recommending me. The 1980s, when you started to get noticed, was a time when technology was coming tothe fore in music. People could relate to the music but they didn't know how to relate to the production and thesounds and everything, because I was coming from a whole other kind of place. And that placewas in the spirit of Art of Noise, Trevor Horn, Grace Jones's 'Slave To The Rhythm' andMalcolm McLaren's 'Buffalo Gals.' I listened to all that stuff. I was into jazz really heavily but Icame from Brooklyn, New York, where music was very hybrid in the '60s. There was all thismusic happening and it just wasn't jazz, it was everything: rock, R&B, soul, funk, and jazz. Ilistened to everything back then. And pop radio was very different too. Did you see yourself as a synthesist rather than a pianist or keyboardist? At first I played organ and I wasn't known as a pure piano player. I played electric keyboards. Inever represent myself as saying 'oh yeah, I can play acoustic piano.' That's not how Irepresent myself on gigs. I don't want to be judged with McCoy Tyner and Herbie (Hancock)andguys like that on acoustic, because my strength was writing music around my sounds though Iget my musicality from Bill Evans, Herbie, and Chick Corea.

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How did you feel when Marcus Miller offered you the chance to work on the 'Tutu'session with Miles Davis? Marcus and I had been working together for over a year when that happened. What happenedwas that we had done David Sanborn's 'Chicago Song' and the Jamaica Boys with Lenny Whiteand Marcus. We were forming a little conglomerate and Marcus was getting more calls becauseof his writing and now his production thing was really going up. He was bringing a freshapproach and he was bringing me with him. That made a difference, 'cos I know people wereasking, "are you bringing Jason Miles, Marcus?" People would ask him that because we hadstarted to get a lethal reputation. One day, Tommy LiPuma called Marcus, just out of the blue,and said "have you got anything for Miles Davis?" Tommy had signed Miles to Warner Bros andMiles had started cutting tracks for a new album but Tommy just did not like where the directionwas going. He just hated the music. First, he went to George Duke, and he came up with thisone tune ('Backyard Ritual') and Tommy was like, "okay, we've got something here." So then hecalls Marcus up. Then Marcus called me up on a Friday, and said: "hey man, are you doinganything tomorrow? Tommy LiPuma signed Miles from Columbia and he's on Warner Brothersnow. I've got some tracks and I want to send some demos over. Are you up for it?" I said hell,yeah and took my Emulator (a sampling keyboard) and we put together 'Tutu.' I used sometrumpet samples. They were actually Miles samples that I'd lifted off 'Sketches of Spain,' so Icould do some demos. I said to Marcus, check this out, and he says, "man, that's a goodtrumpet." I said yeah, that's Miles. So we started laughing and that's what he used on thedemos for 'Tutu.' Marcus played it to Miles. He asked, "who's that on trumpet on that?" Marcusgoes, "that's you - Jason Miles sampled you. " He said, "I thought it was Nat Adderley." All of asudden, Marcus gets back to me, told me Warner's loved it and that the record is happening.And that was the start of Tutu. It was an interesting thing because it was all new territory.Nobody knew what we were doing. Miles just went with the vibe. Every time we did something,he loved it more and more...but some of the jazz police weren't thrilled. What about your beginnings. What drew you to music in the first place? I was sitting behind the drummer at a wedding when I was six years old and loved it, watchingthe band. I just wanted to play the drums and the guy let me sit in. After that I wanted to playmusic so my parents got me in accordion (laughs). I just started growing from there. Then Istarted hearing more and more music when I was younger. My father bought a hi-fi and helistened to all this different music. Jerry Lewis and Jackie Gleason, and then he bought GeorgeShearing and Terry Gibbs. So I started hearing a lot more music and then, all of a sudden, morestuff started happening in a more creative way with music. And then when The Beatles came in,when I was 12 years old, I was still playing but I wanted to take it in another direction. I startedstudying jazz at 15 with a guy called Rector Bailey in Brooklyn, who really taught me a lot aboutthe changes and a lot of different things. So that's how I got into it, very early on.

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You mentioned Miles but which other musicians had the biggest influence on you, doyou think? I would say CTI era Bob James. I would also say Zawinul (pictured above) and Weather Report.Chick Corea, of course, but I wasn't into the next incarnation of Return To Forever with AlDiMeola. I was into the Airto/Flora Purim shit when they did 'Return to Forever' and then 'LightAs a Feather.' That was what I was into. I also loved The Crusaders and Steely Dan back thenand West Coast California jazz. So all that stuff had an influence on me but Weather Reportwas a very big influence. What Zawinul did with the synthesisers and the groove and the worldmusic had a great effect on me. But also, Brazilian music. I got heavily involved in Brazilianmusic in 1974, because I met (drummer/percussionist) Dom Um Romao from Weather Report.He became a friend and he turned me onto all this Brazilian shit. I was just a magnet for music.We went to all the clubs. You know another group that had a big influence on me? Stuff.(Keyboardist) Richard Tee had a huge influence on me with his playing. Are there any other projects in the pipeline after 'Blue Is Paris'? I have this other band called Global Noize and we're making an album called 'Plugged Into TheUniverse.' It's dedicated to (P-Funk keyboardist) Bernie Worrell, because of how much I learnedabout funk and him. I call it a crafted 21st-century electric record. It's like 21st-century jazz-vibefunk and it's not based around any one premise of live musicians or anything; it's based aroundall the tools that I have to create music with. It's got live playing on it and synthetic playing on itbut Global Noize feels like an electronic band playing live. My thing is still based off of melodyand creative changes, groove, and sound. I like to say that my music is what I call creativecommerciality. That's what I strive for; to bring the most people in and to go and to give themsomething that isn't stupid for them. That makes them think that they can still hold on to. That'smy challenge.

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You've also started branching out into management. Absolutely. I started a small management company because I'm helping one of the greatestguitar players to ever live right now and we're getting his album out. His name's Reggie Young.Everybody knows his playing but don't know who he is. He played on Dusty Springfield's 'SonOf A Preacher Man,' Dobie Gray's 'Drift Away,' Neil Diamond's 'Sweet Caroline,' Elvis Presley's'You're Always On My Mind,' 'In The Ghetto' and 'Suspicious Minds.' He's a guitarist on all thoseAmerican Sound Studios recordings. Reggie is a dear friend and he made his first album at 80years old and he had no idea what to do. So I became his de factomanager to give him his victory lap and got him two record deals - in the UK he's with AceRecords. It will be out at the end of June. I'm also looking after Hazelrigg Brothers. They're brilliant. One plays bass and the other plays piano and they have their friend ondrums. They're a beautiful trio. Very ECM. Then I have a young singer, Rebecca Angel, who just graduated college and I knew her when she was 15. We're making an album togetherwith great Brazilian musicians. I'm trying to make her the new Flora Purim. Nobody's done thatslot. She can't compete with the jazz singers or someone like Maysa, but they can't competewith her vibe on contemporary Brazilian jazz. I've also worked with a jazz singer from the UK, Beverley Beirne. I made it in the UK with a trio of young, exceptional, amazing musicians. We have a recordcalled 'Jazz Just Wants To Have Fun.' It's all jazz versions of her favourite songs from the '80sof bands like Kajagoogoo, the Specials, Bananarama and ABC. It's a brilliant young band withSam Watts on piano. I couldn't even sit at the same piano as him, he's so freaking good. Ididn't play one note on the album but they said to me, "We couldn't have an album unless you were in the studio because you know how to run arecording session." And that's true - there is an art to running a recording session and I knowhow to run them.

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You've been in the music business now for 45 years. Besides talent, what do you need inorder to survive and achieve longevity? I think the ability to morph and the ability to grow into something else. You have to be able tochange. I'm in the fourth incarnation in my career. My first was coming back to New York andtrying to get my shit together, turning into a studio synthesist, and getting to that place. And thengoing from that to become a full-time producer. At first, nobody wanted to hire me as aproducer, because everybody knew me as someone who programmed synthesisers. So I had toprove myself as a producer and I had to develop projects, like 'A Love Affair: The Music of IvanLins,' and 'Celebrating The Music of Weather Report,' and 'To Grover, With Love.' These areprojects I developed. Then I had to morph into presenting myself in a live experience. So I'vemorphed into this thing on a constant basis but taken all my experience with me from all of theyears and paid attention to a new thing. And also I've grown up with the technology, so I have agrip on all of it and know what's happening. Am I the best or best at it? No. But I know enoughand I know what I need to do to create great records and use the tools that are out there.

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What's been the highlight so far of your career, because you've so many amazingmoments of different musicians, haven't you? In terms of playing live, I think Carnegie Hall with Ivan Lins was a highlight when we performedthe whole of the 'Love Affair' album there. I was in South Africa two years ago and played theCape Town jazz Festival and we blew the place away. There were 12,000 people were loving it.It was beautiful. I played the Hollywood bowl last summer for the first time because it took meso long to get into their. It's so hard to get in these kind of shows. We opened up for GeorgeBenson and George was off the hook with the 'To Grover, With Love' show. He loved it. Andthose are some of the highlights. Also, working at Air studios in Montserrat and working withLuther. All these different things are on a very A-level as far as being memorable. Even going toNashville and working with (country singer) Suzi Bogguss and helping her rebuild her career.But then, there's Miles Davis and Miles Davis has got to be the pinnacle of your validation as anartist and creator, because so many great people came through Miles for real. And one thing Ican say is that I was part of a very historic record, 'Tutu.' Meeting Miles and having him as myfriend five-and-a-half years and having him come up to my house, talking all the time, and melearning from him, is why I'm here. JASON MILES' NEW ALBUM 'BLUE IS PARIS' IS OUT NOW FOR MORE INFO GO TO: http://www.jasonmilesmusic.com/

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http://www.jasonmilesmusic.com/

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