Miles from India: CD & Concert
By Team JamBase Mar 31, 2008 • 12:19 pm PDT
Trans-Continental Reinterpretations of Miles Davis
Live Debut at Town Hall in New York City May 9 and Reprised for SFJAZZ in San Francisco May 31
Features Miles Davis Alumni and Renowned Indian Classical & Jazz Musicians
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May 9 – Town Hall, 123 W, 43rd St. New York, NY
8 p.m. – Tickets: $40-$45
May 31 – SF Jazz Festival, The Palace of the Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA
8 p.m. – $25/$30/$36/premium $56 – Box Office: 415-567-6642
“I am VERY excited and look forward to meeting in person the Indian musicians I had the pleasure of recording with on tape.” RON CARTER
“The Miles…From India project is a testament to how far, wide and everlasting, the Miles Davis influence reaches. In the span of 50 years, the music of Kind Of Blue and Bitches Brew still inspires new exploration.” LENNY WHITE
“It’s wonderful to be involved with this project. For me personally, it was amazing to be able to play the music of Miles Davis with legendary Miles alumni that I have been listening to all my life while simultaneously engaging my Indian-American identity.” RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA
In a startlingly original recreation of music associated with jazz legend Miles Davis, co-producers Bob Belden and Louiz Banks have recast familiar themes from such landmark recordings as Bitches Brew, In A Silent Way, and Kind of Blue with an East Meets West sensibility on Miles from India. An incredibly ambitious project involving two dozen musicians from two separate continents recording in studios around the world, Miles from India is a cross-cultural summit meeting that puts a provocative pan-global spin on such Miles classics as “All Blues,” “Spanish Key,” “So What,” “It’s About That Time” and “Jean Pierre.”
“Although previous mixtures of Indian music and jazz had been done, it took Miles to put the stamp of approval on it as he did with other stylistic movements so many times in his career. In a sense, this recording is long overdue and completes the equation of “what if.” DAVE LIEBMAN
“It was a pleasure to be involved with the project. It is another fresh approach to music that was fresh in its own original time and has now been updated to be fresh once again.” NDUGU CHANCLER
Sitar and tablas, ghatam and khanjira, mridangam and Carnatic violin blend seamlessly with muted trumpet and saxophones, screaming electric guitar and grooving electric bass lines, piano, upright bass and drums on this profound fusion of Indian classical and American jazz. Recorded in Mumbai and Madras, India and New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the music on Miles from India was performed by classical and jazz musicians from India with the addition of musicians who have recorded or performed with Miles Davis over the span of five decades. The 2-CD set is scheduled for an April 15 release on the New York-based Times Square Records.
The Miles alumni included on the sessions are saxophonists Dave Liebman (1972-74) and Gary Bartz (1970-71), guitarists Mike Stern (1981-84), Pete Cosey (1973-76) and John McLaughlin (1969-72), bassists Ron Carter (1963-69), Michael Henderson (1970-76), Marcus Miller (1981-1984), Benny Rietveld (1987-91), keyboardists Chick Corea (1968-72), Adam Holzman (1985-87) and Robert Irving III (1980-88), drummers Jimmy Cobb (1968-63), Leon ‘Ndugu’ Chancler (1971), Lenny White (1969) and Vince Wilburn (1981, 1984-1987) and tabla player Badal Roy (1972-3). The Indian contingent is represented by keyboardist Louiz Banks, drummer Gino Banks, American-born alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, sitarist Ravi Chari, Vikku Vinayakram (a charter member of Shakti) on ghatam, V. Selvaganesh (a member of Shakti and Remember Shakti) on khanjira, U. Shrinivas (from Remember Shakti) on electric mandolin, Brij Narain on sarod, Dilshad Khan on sarangi, Sridhar Parthasarathy on mridangam, Ranjit Barot on drums, Taufiq Qureshi and A. Sivamani on percussion, Kala Ramnath on Carnatic violin, Rakesh Chaurasia on flute and Shankar Mahadevan & Sikkil Gurucharan on Indian classical vocals.
