Marcus Miller: Electric Miles Davis | JAZZ NIGHT IN AMERICA

Miles Davis famously once said, "I have to change; it's like a curse." And, that’s exactly what he did throughout his entire career.

In 1969, the trumpet icon may have pulled off his greatest reinvention yet: he went “electric.” He turned the jazz world upside down. It was the beginning of what is commonly referred to as the Electric Miles period – groundbreaking, raw, controversial, and now, classic.

“He had been evolving all along,” electric bassist (and Davis collaborator) Marcus Miller says about his idol. “In the same way that America's evolution from the 1930s to the early ‘60s was absolutely an evolution. It was a revolution from the ‘60s to the ‘70s. And Miles's music was the same.”

In 2019, we commemorated the 50th anniversary of Miles going electric. Miller organized a retrospective concert recorded at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Throughout the entire evening, Miller opened a window into Davis’ entire electric period -- beginning with In A Silent Way in 1969, to his most notorious recordings of the late ’80s which brought drum machines, sampling technology and hip-hop into jazz.

Miller’s two sold-out, awe-inspiring concerts in the Rose Theater reinforced the conviction that this outrageous, infectious music can still speak to us today.

“When you create music,” Miller says, “your primary responsibility is to reflect the times that you live in.” -- SARAH GELEDI

0:00 - Conversation between Marcus Miller and Christian McBride
15:29 - Bitches Brew (Miles Davis)
25:44 - Spanish Key (Miles Davis)
31:47 - Black Satin (Miles Davis)
39:54 - Tutu (Marcus Miller)

Hear the radio episode: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/15/751422...

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