Trying an old favourite

[ankh156]

Just had a month at home - resolutely on STAYcation. It was nice. Lots of time for reflection, bits of complicated tidying, sleeep, instrument practise, film watching, book reading, joking smoints, ... and it's coming to an end. I'm quite looking forward to getting back to work. Plans for music business are taking longer than predicted, and I have at least 2 ears to do before I'm eligible for retirement. I must carry on with shorter and longer term projects and keep a smile on my dial.

In the last 2 days I've been doing piano practise, and in the course of it I listened to an old Miles Davis album from '86. I discovered that it's been remastered and there's a whole concert of live bonus tracks from the Nice Jazz Festival, during which Miles presents the album. Then I noticed that Robben Ford was in the band, and not having enough of Miles with Robben in the band I decided to buy a pucker download. Listening to it I rediscovered 'Portia', a slow mysterious ballad written by Marcus Miller. I set about trying to figure out the chords, which are polytonal, as Miles usually preferred. There's a phrygian feel to the improvisations which puts me in mind of Miles' work in the 50s with Gil Evans.

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Miles acquired a taste for the flamenco mode when he was married to Frances and she was dancing in a flamenco-styled show. He spoke to his friend Gil who promptly went home and worked on a large wind-group arrangement of Rodrigez Concierto de Aranjuez. When Marcus Miller was working on the "Tutu" album for Miles he knew that a spanish feel was something Miles would be comfortable with. Portia is a slow ponderous moody piece with a slight feeling of heavy dub reggae about it, some sparkling transition and figure chords, and a heavy vamp on A and G minor which gives the possibility of phrygian improvisations for the trumpet and saxophone (Kenny Garrett). I think I have the chords mostly understood now and will work on them until I can harmonize them easily and naturally (this may take some time). They sound nice played on guitar too.

Here's Portia from the album :

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I like everything about this track. Miles is great chops, and Kenny Garrett is the perfect foil to Miles' arid explorations. The keys (Adam Holzman and Bobby Irving) construct the harmonic colours perfectly and play in close formation. As for Marcus' bass and arranging, he may have produced one of the Later Miles greatest album tracks. This song was a great favourite in concert too, where many different bands give their take on it, never losing the dark and moody aura in which the Prince of Darkness makes his Harmon mute sing like a muezzin.

[PS : just remembered how to link an 'embedded video'. Duh !]

[PPS : Reading George Cole's book 'Last Miles', it seems the saxo isn't Kenny Garrett, it's Marcus Miller who was told to 'get in there and fucking play it' by Miles. I knew he can play bass clarinet, but he can do soprano sax too, as well as bass, guitar, and sing. Clever bugger !]