When Miles Davis came to the Glasgow Jazz Festival

The Glasgow Jazz Festival had begun in 1987 and very quickly established itself on the international festival circuit, hosting the biggest and most venerable names in the music. By 1990 the amount of investment from private and public sectors in cultural activity in Glasgow was unprecedented in any British city outside London but, when it came to the jazz festival, many of the public funding bodies and corporate sponsors were unsure what they were investing in.

The biggest artist on our 1990 bill was Miles Davis, but his was the only main large-scale concert that failed to attract sponsorship other than from the 1990 European Capital of Culture budget, though, in fact, as a stand-alone concert, it did better than break even on ticket sales alone. Miles's reputation went before him. He could be, particularly to brand-sensitive PR departments, unreliable to say the least.

But jazz depends and thrives on unreliability. It should be unpredictable, but it cuts across class and cultural barriers. It wasn't until people began to transcribe the solos of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane that it was thought worthy of recognition by academics in Europe and the US, although by the late 1950s and early 1960s, jazz had moved from clubs to concert halls and festivals.

In 1990 there was still very little jazz on the menus of the music colleges and schools in Britain. However, even then the process in Scotland had started. The recently formed Strathclyde Youth Jazz Orchestra and good work by saxophonist Bobby Wishart and other single-minded music teachers was beginning to show that jazz excellence was desirable and achievable in music education.

Now we have a fully-fledged jazz department at the Royal Scottish Conservatoire under Professor Tommy Smith, who also directs the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, one of the finest jazz orchestras in Europe. Back in 1990 these achievements were a long way off and Scotland's many world-class jazz musicians - Jim Mullen, Bobby Wellins, Jimmy Deuchar and Joe Temperley, for example - had to leave Scotland for London or cross the Atlantic.

For the city's year as European City of Culture, the Glasgow Jazz Festival team had put together a big programme, headed by Miles Davis. Since the mid-1960s his health had been fragile but, by 1990, his playing was back to being very strong - his assured, if usually muted, tone had returned. However, the European tour was still a gruelling one for any band, let alone one with a very fragile 63-year-old main performer - a series of one- and two-night stop-overs with no real breaks. Miles's contract was adamant: no photo opportunities and no press interviews - his points of arrival and departure were not to be released to press or public.

He arrived in Glasgow the day before the concert on a drizzly, gusty afternoon. I waited in the lobby of a hotel on the Clyde to greet the party. The then Lord Provost, Susan Baird, had lent us her limo so that the great man's ride into town would be as smooth as possible. While I was waiting, two guys, one with a camera, appeared in the lobby. The photographer, whom I got to know well afterwards, was Marc Marnie. "Do you know when he's due to arrive?" he asked me.

"Sorry guys - no press" I said, wondering where they had picked up the info we had so carefully kept secret, in line with a very heavy contract demand. We exchanged words and eventually they were persuaded to retreat outside. A big burly piper had by then shown up in full regalia and planted himself by the river wall. "Just waiting for the big man," he told me. This was not how I had envisaged greeting and shaking the hand of my musical hero.

Eventually, the car pulled up, the Provost's driver in uniform and peaked hat. Beside him in the front passenger seat was Miles in huge sunglasses. The guys I had banished from the premises were back in a flash. The big piper steadied himself by the car before blasting out Scotland The Brave as Miles opened the door and extricated himself from the front seat. This was definitely not part of my plan.

Miles was also in costume - all leather and flashy, but a small limping figure; I thought the wind might blow him over. He crept over to the piper and stood, nodding slowly. As the short burst of piping ended, Miles turned and we shook hands. "Hi, I'm Jim Smith the festival director - thanks for coming". His hands were small and he was a good head shorter than me. He leant in and said, in his inimitable ghostly whisper: "You want a picture?" I had to hope that the guys I had only minutes before tried to have removed would comply. So I have it - the picture of Miles, the piper and me. "Thanks guys - great job," I murmured sheepishly.

The next night, looking out from the side of the stage, I could see in the front row John McLaughlin, who was here in his own right to perform his guitar concerto with the RSNO, and George Russell, composer-in-residence at that year's Glasgow Jazz Festival. Both of them had collaborated with Miles Davis in the 1950s and 1960s.

The concert itself was a blast. It was a great show, with great sound, and there was plenty of it. Miles took his shades off and looked into the audience. He soloed and jammed head to head with his much-younger band mates. He held up signs with the name of the previous soloist and prowled around whispering in the ears of his band members. There was no encore. After around 90 minutes Miles simply walked off stage during his version of Michael Jackson's Human Nature with big generous wave to the crowd.

The next day there was a review in The Herald by David Belcher. It was a good, honest and positive review, and I remember feeling relieved and glad that the reviewer was not a "jazz specialist", the Herald's own excellent Rob Adams excepted, of course. The specialists had been dissing Miles Davis since 1959. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s and on into his fusion adventures with Marcus Miller in the 1980s, they had been queuing to dismiss him as washed up. As he aged and made new records and formed new bands, the older critics - and many of the younger ones too, whatever their colour - were still pining for the late 1950s and early 1960s, and couldn't forgive him for abandoning them and abandoning "jazz".

He himself disliked the word, just as Duke Ellington had dismissed it almost a generation earlier. The very idea of categorising music was anathema to most of the big names considered "jazz players". Miles Davis had moved on, and a new younger generation appreciated him and his bands for the music he was making now. He was surviving. The review by Belcher, who usually wrote for The Herald on pop and rock, talked about the experience of the concert, not history - and without prejudice.

In September of the next year, 1991, I attended a European Jazz Festival directors' meeting in Paris. On the final day of the meeting, some of us went to hear the Tommy Smith Quartet at a club in Paris. That same afternoon we spent some time with the veteran promoter and jazz pianist, George Wein. His company was responsible for Miles Davis tours of Europe and the States. Quite a few of the festivals in Europe wanted to book Miles for the following summer and I was eager to make progress in negotiation with Wein. Given the success of the 1990 concert, I knew we would easily attract an audience of 2000 plus.

But Miles was in hospital. According to George Wein there was nothing new in Miles being in hospital. He was sick, but he was only 65 years old. He had been written off many, many times but Miles always bounced back. Sadly, not this time. The owner of the Paris club came to our table and told us there had just been a report that Miles Davis had died of pneumonia that day in New York. The band on stage were told and launched into his classic tune, So What.

The next morning, I took a cab to Charles De Gaulle airport to fly back to Glasgow. The taxi driver asked what I had been doing in Paris. I started to tell him in my O-Level French about Glasgow and the European jazz festivals meeting. He interrupted me: "Ah, Miles Davis est mort, ce matin, il est mort. Tragique!"

I knew immediately that there was a driver in Glasgow thinking exactly the same thing.

Jim Smith was Festival Director for Glasgow International Jazz Festival Ltd from November 1989 until August 1993. He currently lives and works in Wiltshire.