Centenaries of jazz titans Miles Davis and John Coltrane celebrated in Montreal

Both born in 1926, Miles Davis and John Coltrane paved the road to jazz, wrote its language, embodied it, then and to this day; The Montreal International Jazz Festival (FIJM), which begins June 25, will pay tribute to these two giants by presenting several concerts devoted to their respective works. Conversations around the titans with composer and saxophonist Christine Jensen, who will pay tribute to Trane with her sextet, as well as with the last great collaborator of Miles, the bassist, composer and director Marcus Miller, who presents at the Maison symphonique We Want Miles !, opening concert of the 46^e édition du festival.

We want Miles!

The project was born from a concert at the Blue Note club in New York; the experience of reuniting the old album companions We Want Miles (1982) – the result of a tour the previous year in the United States and Japan that producer Teo Macero was keen to record, “not knowing if Miles was going to return to retirement” – was so happy that the tour was born stopping on June 25 in Montreal “in this very important year for Miles”, summarizes Marcus Miller over the phone.

The bassist had just turned 22 when the 1981 tour began. Saxophonist Bill Evans, who will be on stage in Montreal with Mino Cinelu (percussion) and Mike Stern (guitar), original members of this tour, had recommended a young group of musicians to accompany Miles Davis, who was returning to the stage, although still bothered by health problems, which worsened during the stay in Japan.

“We rehearsed at his house on the Upper West Side for a week or two, but he didn’t give us clear direction. We were just playing. Then his manager told us that our first concert was the following week. OK… We had to figure out what we were going to play on stage – in Boston the first time, then back in New York, at Lincoln Center,” recalls Miller, who, in addition to his career as a funk-R&B musician and producer, assisted Davis in composing and producing his albums Tutu (1986) et Power (1989).

What initially surprised Marcus Miller when meeting Miles Davis was “that he was a real human being: this legend came into the studio like a normal person.” “I say that because after being around him for years, I saw that he was a normal person, and that inspired me, as if I told myself that even I was also capable of doing extraordinary things — maybe not as much as Miles, but still “He was simply responding to his emotions, to his musical tastes, and not by imagining that he was going to accomplish something great,” he continues.

In 1959, the year the classics were published Porgy and Bess et Kind of Blue“he was already the biggest jazz star on the planet. In 1961, he had already completely transformed himself with his quintet, in which John Coltrane played. “Miles wasn’t afraid to follow his impulses – musically, it was great, in his personal life, probably a little less so. I learned that from him: follow my instinct, trust my first idea”, says the bassist.

The legacy of Miles Davis, believes Marcus Miller, is rooted in his era, musical as well as social: “He created in the middle of the 20th^e century, belonging to a very special generation” to which Coltrane also belonged, “a generation that first experienced freedom, as African-Americans. And these musicians were determined to be recognized as artists and not as entertainers. As much as Miles admired Louis Armstrong and these other musicians of the first half of the century, he hated seeing them smile on stage, because smiling was what was expected of “black” performers.

“From the 1950s,” continues Miller, “jazz musicians on stage no longer smiled. And what reinforced this desire for recognition was that these musicians began to be recognized elsewhere, in France, for example, where they were invited to play and where they were treated like artists, with respect. [L]has music [de Davis] still expressed the same joy that older African-American musicians expressed, but it was done seriously. This combination between intellectual music and music soulful was particular to the work of Miles, as well as to that of Coltrane.

« Carte blanche » à Coltrane

“I rarely do this kind of tribute concert; I prefer to learn about the legacy that these greats have left us, and to understand how it has contributed to my own evolution as a musician,” says Christine Jensen, composer, saxophonist, band leaderprofessor at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester (New York State) and illustrious member of the Montreal jazz scene who, with his sextet, will present the concert Modes of Coltrane the 1^is July.

The first album that marked the musician was Kind of Blue (1959) by Davis; within his sextet, his friend John Coltrane. “I remember the moment I put the vinyl on the record player and heard the unique and personal sound of Coltrane, something I couldn’t explain to myself at the age of 12. Even though I don’t play the tenor saxophone – rather the alto – it made me understand to what extent I was influenced by what we called his sheets of sound “, a term used at the time by an American critic to describe the playing, fast, full of notes and arpeggios, of the ace improviser, as well as his “vertical” conception of harmonic progressions.

According to M^me Jensen, Coltrane’s art, his style of composition as much as his way of improvising, forms a single “artistic vision which propelled us towards modal music”, notably with his Classic Quartet from 1962, with McCoy Tyner on piano, Elvin Jones on drums and Jimmy Garrison on bass. “They were at the peak of what jazz could offer, the exploration, the improvisation, a universally transparent sound, and that’s why we rightly celebrate it today. John Coltrane was an essential voice of jazz, and embodied the evolution of this music, which evolution took place in a short period of time. He left behind an enormous quantity of recordings in barely fifteen years, until his death in 1967, at the age of 40.

Christine Jensen is still refining the program for the tribute to Coltrane which she will present in the company of her luxury ensemble, expert improvisers: André Leroux on tenor saxophone (“he is definitely a student of Coltrane!”), François Bourassa on piano, Lex French on trumpet, Rémi-Jean LeBlanc on bass and Jim Doxas on drums “who will give us impressions of Elvin Jones”. “I want this sextet to have the sound of a large ensemble to highlight Coltrane’s melodies, but which also allows us to explore improvisation on different levels,†adds M.^me Jensen.

The Montreal International Jazz Festival takes place from June 25 to July 4.