History is a rather subjective thing.
Sure, we might recognise that there is a vast array of dates and names, battles and buildings out there, but really, our personal histories tend to shape our outlook on broader history. Many trailblazers are somehow lost as everyday culture grinds ever on, but some remain, finding themselves reinvigorated as the years go by and new generations start carrying the torch.
Miles Davis passed away in 1991, but the jazz legend – who ranks up there with Coltrane, Gillespie and Holiday – is still finding fans across the world, due in no small part to the Miles Electric Band. Davis’ nephew Vince Wilburn, Jr. and long-time Davis collaborator Robert Irving reminisce about the man and the myth.
“It’s like a reunion every time we get together,” says the Chicago-based Irving. “We don’t get to see each other otherwise, now everyone is all over the place, on different coasts. We’ve lived and breathed the music so much, we know it so well, it’s just a matter of getting together and deciding what direction we want to go. And as the musical director, I want to make sure everyone gets the chance to have musical expression. And it just works out. It’s like a family.”
For some, that sense of family runs even deeper. Irving, a keyboardist, has a creative partnership with Davis that stretches back to 1980, and includes his cowriting and arrangement of The Man With The Horn, the first album Davis recorded following a six-year retirement. For Wilburn, however, having Davis an an uncle makes that connection all the more potent.
“I’ve known Bobby [Irving] and Darryl Jones since 1977,” Wilburn recalls from his home in Los Angeles. Throughout our call, various jazz recordings are a constant companion in the background. “Bobby and I used to have a funk band together called AL7, and we used to rehearse in my mom’s basement. Miles would call and have my mom put the phone down so he could hear us rehearse, and then critique us after! ‘Bobby, try this, Vince, try that.’ He’d get all the cats to try different things before the next rehearsal. And then he’d call the next day, and the next day. One day he said, ‘Do you guys want to make a record?’ And that record was Man With The Horn, and he flew us out to New York.
“Oh man, he had an uncanny ear!” the drummer continues, laughing. “He would tell us to try things, and we would look at each other like, ‘Really? He wants us to play that?’ He just had this knack, and it always worked. Whatever it was. He was sensitive, he cared about music. He cared about his family, had a great sense of humour. But it was always about the music. That was first and foremost. He sacrificed marriages, family. I mean, he cared about his family.” Wilburn pauses. “You always got the sense it was the music first, though. This man was the first to wake in the morning and the last to sleep at night, and it was all music.”
The Miles Electric Band is a showcase of the man himself, yes, but it is far from a tribute band. It is better to think of Miles Davis as the spring that launches this ten-piece of extraordinary musicians across fresh directions. Their intention is to bring his music to new audiences – to pass a torch some of them have been gratefully carrying for over 20 years now – but more than that, they want to entertain.
“You just don’t know the impact that music has, and specifically, the music of Miles,” Irving says. “We’re creating spontaneously, creating from a space of freedom. So of course, why wouldn’t that be interpreted that way when it’s heard? I think it was 1988 I was in Australia with Miles. I had kids that were just born at that time, and now their generation are going back and listening to Miles and what we were doing in those times, taking bits and pieces and incorporating it into what they do. In the same sense, everywhere we travel there are young people doing the same. Young people are doing music from Decoy, which is very complex. So it was new jazz to me back in 1998, but for this generation, it’s a new discovery all over again.”
“Somebody said once they couldn’t book us because we’re a Miles tribute band, but that’s not it,” Wilburn says. “I mean, I love my uncle, I love the Chief – that’s what we call him – but we’re just interpreting some cool-ass music that he blessed us with. We’re just so excited to present the music, we can play anywhere. It’s the beauty of coming together to play, and to see where we can take it, inform it and shape it, put another spin on it. That’s the beautiful challenge that we have. To have our own interpretation, and have people understand that we’re not playing the original recording. But we’re giving our heart and soul into music we love. It’s a heavy thing.”
The band’s genesis came back in 2011, after Wilburn was invited to perform at the Miles Davis Festival in Chicago – a celebration that lasted a staggering four months. From there, the Miles Electric Band have won followers and accolades in droves, introducing dyed-in-the-wool fans (“the Jazz Police, we call them”, Wilburn chuckles) and fresh faces alike to the evolving legacy of one of the most accomplished musicians of the 20th century. Next year, they’ll visit Australia for the first time, performing at Bluesfest.
“You want to keep it interesting for the audience, and for us, too,” Irving says. “And because we’ve done this so many times, it becomes easier and easier because we’ve found a routine. With the Miles Davis Band, it was a very extensive tour schedule. At that time, it was a different kind of job. Miles would record all of the concerts, every night, and after every one I’d have to sit with him and listen to the entire concert. 90 minutes, two hours. He would review the spontaneous creativity that happened during the performance, and if there was something interesting and new that transpired, he’d add it to the repertoire. So there’d be these pieces like that, and the music would start growing and expanding. And with his back to the audience the next night, Miles would cue that little thing.
“You know, people are kind of shocked when I talk about how personable Miles was, how caring. How much he loved kids, how funny he was! With that raspy Godfather voice, he would sing ‘Drive’ by The Cars.” Irving laughs at the memory. “Miles also painted of course, and he encouraged me to paint. One day we were sitting at his place overlooking Central Park at the Essex House Hotel after he and Cicely [Tyson] had broken up. He’d been painting for a number of years. He started sketching and then evolved to oil paints. He had about five canvases going at once. And he said, ‘Bobby, you should try this. It’s therapeutic. In fact, music is a painting that you can hear. And a painting is music that you can see.’ I thought that was very profound.”
Bluesfest 2017 takes place Thursday April 13 – Monday April 17, at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm; and Miles Electric Band alsoappear at the Enmore Theatre on Thursday April 13.
