So what? Miles Davis centennial observance, that's what — at the Jazz Kitchen Friday night

Derrick Gardner's sidelong glance

There is a cornucopia of legacy for capable admirers to contribute to a musical celebration of Miles Davis, so my report on the first set of a May 15 tribute is bound to be inadequate. Just over an hour of music the immortal trumpeter-bandleader (1926-1991) made famous offers the merest sampling of his noteworthy achievements.

Of course, how can you represent the lengthy discography, often gathered in multi-disc packages during the "electric phase" of his career, starting with the landmark "Bitches Brew"? Two sets might have given this account more balance, so it could be argued I should have stayed till the bar closed at the Jazz Kitchen and two trumpeters, two drummers, a saxophonist, a pianist, and a bassist had left the stage.

There were some puzzles in the often excellent set. The climax of the performance was announced as "John McLaughlin," a Davis original from the "Bitches Brew" era. But unless I have a freak kind of selective amnesia, what the band played after Derrick Gardner announced it sounded nothing like the "John McLaughlin" on "The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions" I listened to after I got home.

The rendition was well put-together, whatever it was. A high point for me was a blistering solo by the band's other trumpeter, John Raymond. With its peppering of staccato stabs, I was reminded of one of the more focused tracks on that "Bitches Brew" set, "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down." Toward the end, Davis plays a similarly articulated solo. How Raymond played Friday was not plagiarism, by any means; in a tribute to a jazz titan, it makes sense to pay some respect to the honoree's style while projecting yourself as well.

Similarly, to put the stamp of their own personalities on the Miles Davis sound, Gardner and Raymond each chose different kinds of mute for "If I Were a Bell," a pop standard that Davis played often when he mined the Great American Songbook in the 1950s. In the out-chorus, the two trumpeters overlapped their phrases and played trumpet tag for a bit. It added extra spice to the performance. 

Doubling the instruments was done in one other case, this time following a practice Davis sometimes used in his later years. With pianist Allee turning to electric keyboard after "Eighty One" (from the transitional "ESP" LP and featuring an attractive solo from saxophonist Tim Warfield), the voice of percussion got two players on the drum sets for that concluding turn toward the "Bitches Brew" era.  It was a rare treat to have arguably the two best Indianapolis jazz drummers, Kenny Phelps and Richard "Sleepy" Floyd, working simultaneously to cap the set. And bassist Brandon Meeks crowned his first-set participation, most of which was on acoustic bass, with an idiomatic, grooving solo on electric bass.

To backtrack just a little, I don't understand the aptness of the title Gardner announced, but titles were something Miles Davis was ambivalent and a little mysterious about.  Late in his career, his song titles were often hard to figure out, and there was a degree of mix-and-match about the recorded results. You have to remember the time in the studio when the bandleader said to his producer, who had asked what the piece they were about to record was called: "We'll play it first, then I'll tell you what it is."

[Photo by Mark Sheldon]