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Jason Miles

Some musicians are content to find one thing they like to do, and then to keep doing it for the rest of their career. Jason Miles is definitely not that kind of artist. Repetition is not a concept that even makes sense to him. Why stay stuck in one place when you can explore and experience something different? Moving determinedly forward has been Miles’ guiding philosophy since he began playing music professionally, more than four decades ago.



As a composer, keyboardist, producer and arranger, Grammy winner Miles has brought to every new project he’s undertaken a boundless sense of curiosity and adventure. No less than Roberta Flack said about him, “Jason Miles has raised the level of excellence for the musicians who have had the good fortune of working with him, myself included. He has enriched the lives of the millions of people who have listened to the music he plays, the recordings he produces and the countless musicians he mentors and inspires.”



From extensive collaborations with such giants as Miles Davis, Luther Vandross, Grover Washington Jr., David Sanborn and Marcus Miller, to his own critically acclaimed recordings including To Grover With Love: Live in Japan (2016), Kind of New (2015, with trumpeter Ingrid Jensen), Global Noize (2008), What’s Going On? Songs of Marvin Gaye (2006) and Miles to Miles (2005), New York native Miles has always been a restless seeker. He has shifted seamlessly between a multitude of genres, from R&B to pop to Brazilian music and even children’s music and country (producing Suzy Boguss’ Sweet Danger)—and, of course, several different strains of jazz, from Latin to fusion.

As an independent artist, Miles has contributed to recordings by Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Michael Brecker, The Crusaders, Ruben Blades, Freddy Cole, George Benson, Joe Sample, Herb Alpert, Vanessa Williams and many others. He has performed at top festivals and venues throughout the world, including the Monterey Jazz Festival, Jazz Aspen, Umbria Jazz, North Sea, Jacksonville Jazz Fest, Cape Town Jazz Festival, Rios Das Ostras Brazil, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Tokyo Blue Note, AMO.

Now, with his newest release, Blue Is Paris, Jason Miles is taking his craftsmanship someplace “kind of new” altogether. Each of the album’s nine tracks is a personalized interpretation of the title track, a new piece composed by Miles in response to recent world events. Miles plays keyboards, Reggie Washington and Adam Dorn share bass duties, Jay Rodrigues is on tenor saxophone and bass clarinet, Vinnie Zummo is the guitarist and Gene Lake plays drums. The artists arranging and leading the successive versions of “Blue Is Paris” are Russell Gunn, Rickey Kej, Theo Croker, Maya Azucena, Patches Stewart, Jeff Coffin, Jukka Eskola, Ricardo Silveira and Miles himself. The track titles correspond to the name of the featured artist.

“I was doing a press tour of various cities in Europe in 2015 to promote my Kind of New album and one of my stops was Paris, right after the terrorist attacks,” Miles recalls. “Then, when I was on the plane home, looking at the great photos of Paris, it just came in my head: ‘Blue Is Paris.’ It was just one of those things!” The idea took shape when Miles remembered a late-1950s album his father had once owned: a collection titled Lullaby of Birdland, with the title track performed 12 different ways by 12 arrangers. 

“It was a moment of inspiration that sent me on this path,” Miles says. He chose the musicians with whom he wanted to share the concept and “told them the bottom line is to write a great melody to and give me something meaningful. I called up some of my favorite players from around the world and all of them wanted to participate. So in the spirit of Miles Davis, and the next space for ‘Kind of New,’ I made Blue Is Paris, my impressions of an incredibly resilient city—with the spirit of adventure that Miles [Davis] implanted in me and encouraged in me. Mission accomplished! To do that with one song was amazing.”

For Jason Miles, the insatiable hunger to embrace and appreciate all genres of music goes back to childhood. He grew up—like so many of his generation— immersed in the pop hits of the day but, by the time he reached his teens, he started to “pay attention to more serious music”: Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery. “I was always musically curious and wasn’t scared to buy a record that I didn’t know but that looked interesting,” he says.

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49
Book Review

The Extraordinary Journey Of Jason Miles: A Musical Biography

Read "The Extraordinary Journey Of Jason Miles: A Musical Biography" reviewed by Kyle Simpler


The Extraordinary Journey of Jason Miles: A Musical Biography Jason Miles 311 Pages ISBN: # 978-1-955901-13-0 Book Writing Cube 2022 Some musicians are often better known for what they can do rather than what they can play. Take Les Paul for example. Although he was an excellent musician in his own right, he is sometimes recognized as much, or more, for his innovations in recording than his playing. Keyboardist Jason Miles would also ...

3
Album Review

Beverley Beirne: Dream Dancer

Read "Dream Dancer" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


Beverley Beirne may not be a familiar name to many American readers. Maybe she should be. While some jazz writers have labelled her a “rising star," the Yorkshire, UK, singer has been around for a decade. Her first recording was entitled, promisingly enough, Jazz Just Wants to Have Fun (Self Produced, 2018). Sometimes reading reviews of singers can put you in mind of studying observations from an oenophile journal: “She has notes of Ella embedded in a ...

5
Album Review

Jason Miles: Kind Of New 2: Blue Is Paris

Read "Kind Of New 2: Blue Is Paris" reviewed by Jeff Winbush


You can't fault the motivation behind keyboardist Jason Miles' sequel to Kind of New (Whaling City Sound, 2015). Miles wanted to respond to the 2015 Paris terror attack and Kind of New 2: Blue Is Paris is the result, but though the motivation is solid, the execution doesn't match it. With Kind of New, Miles was joined by Ingrid Jensenon trumpet in his well-received tribute to Miles Davis and the seminal Kind of Blue. Here, Miles decided to ...

Album Review

Jason Miles: Sly Reimagined

Read "Sly Reimagined" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff


Un pregio (ma non l'unico) di questo disco è far scoprire o rinnovare la passione per il funk psichedelico di Sly and the Family Stone, di cui è appeno uscito uno strepitoso box commemorativo di 5 dischi (Higher!) per i settant'anni del suo leader, Sylvester Stewart. Dispiace sapere che, da anni in situazioni economiche precarie, questi non riceverà i diritti d'autore, avendoli ceduti in passato all'ex manager Jerry Goldstein (convinto di essere stato frodato in questo, l'ha citato ...

5
Album Review

Global Noize: SLY Reimagined

Read "SLY Reimagined" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Keyboardist/Programmer/Conceptualist/Producer Jason Miles has a knack for birthing patchwork tribute albums that don't come off as such. The man behind Miles Davis' Tutu (Warner Bros., 1986) programming has also been the force behind well received album-length nods to Davis, Brazilian bigwig Ivan Lins, pop-jazz crossover saxophonist Grover Washington Jr., and Motown megastar Marvin Gaye. Now, he looks toward the edgier side of soul with this expansive, yet highly polished tribute to Sly And The Family Stone. While ...

254
Extended Analysis

Global Noize: A Prayer For The Planet

Read "Global Noize: A Prayer For The Planet" reviewed by Jeff Winbush


Global Noize A Prayer For The Planet Lightyear/EMI 2011 Global Noize isn't simply a rather unconventional band. It's also a high concept on a mission. Take a musician with plenty of experience making jazz and pop music (keyboardist Jason Miles), mix in a turntablist (DJ Logic, who knows his way around hip hop and funk after gigging with Vernon Reid, Don Byron and ?uestlove); add a vocalist from Bombay, India (Falguni Shah a.k.a. Falu) ...

189
Album Review

Jason Miles: Miles to Miles: In the Spirit of Miles Davis

Read "Miles to Miles: In the Spirit of Miles Davis" reviewed by Woodrow Wilkins


Mention Miles Davis and ears are sure to perk up--especially if you're talking about honoring the trumpet legend. And if you've got a good supporting cast, you can score--big time. That's what keyboardist/arranger/synthesizer programmer/producer Jason Miles has done with Miles to Miles: In the Spirit of Miles Davis. With such all-stars as Gerald Albright, Michael Brecker, Marc Antoine, Keiko Matsui and Nicholas Payton contributing, Jason Miles delivers a funky, groove-infested album that's sure to set many toes to ...

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4

Recording

Jazz Vocalist, Rebecca Angel, To Release "What We Had" On Timeless Grooves Records With Production By Grammy-Winner Jason Miles

Jazz Vocalist, Rebecca Angel, To Release "What We Had" On Timeless Grooves Records With Production By Grammy-Winner Jason Miles

Source: Presto Public Relations Inc.

Four quick “s” adjectives come to mind when you first hear Rebecca Angel, making for some nice descriptive alliteration: smooth, soulful, sensual and sultry. Listening to her soulfully produced and exquisitely arranged debut What We Had, we can top that off with sexy and unabashedly sentimental as well. The emerging NYC based singer makes every emotionally compelling track an invitation – to dream, to love, to reminisce wistfully about beautiful times gone by which infuse every waking thought of today. ...

3

Recording

Jason Miles Will Release "Kind Of New 2: Blue Is Paris" On May 12

Jason Miles Will Release "Kind Of New 2: Blue Is Paris" On May 12

Source: GoMedia PR

Follow Up to 2015's Kind of New Features Ten Arrangements of Producer/Keyboardist's New Composition Written in Reaction to 2015 Paris Terror Attacks Legendary producer, keyboardist and composer Jason Miles’ Kind of New 2: Blue is Paris, featuring ten interpretations of the titular piece which he composed after visiting Paris in the weeks immediately following the 2015 terror attacks, will be released on May 12 on Lightyear Entertainment, distributed worldwide through Caroline/Universal Music Group. The album’s inspiration can be tracked back ...

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Advocacy

Global Noize Donates Proceeds to Support Hurricane Sandy Victims

Global Noize Donates Proceeds to Support Hurricane Sandy Victims

Source: Michael Ricci

Global Noize the jazz/funk/world/groove band comprised of Jason Miles, DJ Logic, Falu, Jay Rodriguez and Amanda Ruzza are keeping the Global Spirit alive by donating all of the proceeds from their new song “Dreams" to benefit the families and business's devastated by super storm Sandy. Miles states, “There is so much pain, suffering and loss that has been put upon so many people impacted by Hurricane Sandy, and we wanted to do our part to help them. Global Noize will ...

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Recording

Global Noize Featuring Jason Miles, DJ Logic & Falu: "A Prayer For The Planet" Out August 23, 2011 Via Lightyear/EMI

Global Noize Featuring Jason Miles, DJ Logic & Falu: "A Prayer For The Planet" Out August 23, 2011 Via Lightyear/EMI

Source: Tijuana Gift Shop

"A vibe that's a freewheeling swirl of jazz, funk, electronica, world fusion and blues that's grounded at times, trippy and sensual most of the time, and—on the wings of the ethereal vocals of Falu—truly transcendent and spiritual." —Jonathan Widran, All Music Guide New York, NY—We are at what is clearly a line of demarcation in our society, where the only thing that can be said with much clarity is that things going forward will be very different than they have ...

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Performance / Tour

Jason Miles & Maximum Grooves Monday, August 23rd at Birdland

Jason Miles & Maximum Grooves Monday, August 23rd at Birdland

Source: All About Jazz

Monday-August 23-8PM-1 set Maximum Grooves featuring Jason Miles-keyboards Andy Snitzer-Tenor and soprano sax Sherrod Barnes-Guitar Jonathan Marans-bass Gene Lake-Drums Cassandra Reed-Guest Vocalist Birdland 315 West 44th Street 212-581-3080 “Maximum Grooves-brings back the best part of the 70's-The Groove Part"-Keyboard Magazine

“If There were more songs like the songs on Maximum Grooves being ...

147

Recording

Grammy-Award Winner Jason Miles is back with 'Coast to Coast'

Grammy-Award Winner Jason Miles is back with 'Coast to Coast'

Source: All About Jazz

Producer Jason Miles Assembles All-Star Cast For Coast To Coast

Star-studded Maximum Grooves includes Michael Brecker, Cassandra Reed, Derek Trucks, Herb Alpert

Producer/composer/keyboardist Jason Miles, who scored critical acclaim for his Grammy-winning A Love Affair: The Music Ivan Lins, has assembled an all-star team of musicians -- operating as a session supergroup called Maximum Grooves -- to explore the organic, improvisational potential of groove-based contemporary jazz in Coast To Coast.

The twelve tracks on Coast To Coast are built around ...

"The Quincy Jones of contemporary jazz." —Jonathan Widren, All Music

“Jason Miles has raised the level of excellence for the musicians who have had the good fortune of working with him, myself included. He has enriched the lives of the millions of people who have listened to the music he plays, the recordings he produces and the countless musicians he mentors and inspires. The work he did with my friends, Miles Davis and Marcus Miller have helped to define the modern face of jazz music." —Roberta Flack

Primary Instrument

Keyboards

Location

New York City

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Clinic/Workshop Information

I do clinics that teach everything from how to be a great producer to performance to the art of understanding the music business.have taught at Berklee, Manhattan School of Music, Ithaca College. 35 years of experience.

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Dream Dancer

33 Jazz
2021

buy

Kind Of New 2: Blue...

Lightyear Entertainment
2017

buy

Sly Reimagined

Zoho Roots
2013

buy

A Prayer For The...

Lightyear/EMI
2011

buy

Global Noize

Shanachie
2008

buy

Blue is Paris/Night Time

From: Kind Of New 2: Blue Is Paris
By Jason Miles

Dar'abesque

From: Global Noize
By Jason Miles

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