Marcus Miller
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Rob Adams Five stars
Marcus Miller was so close to Miles Davis in the jazz legend’s final years that he could legitimately claim to be keeper of the trumpeter’s flame. The bass guitar phenomenon doesn’t come across as so presumptuous but the underlying feeling of this first appearance in Scotland in fifteen years was of a musician doing unto others as Davis did to him, fostering younger talents and encouraging them to make strong personal statements.
Davis’s spirit was surely present as Miller, with former Davis band colleague, percussionist Mino Cinelu, fanned the nursery rhyme theme that became Davis’s late career anthem, Jean-Pierre into first a fabulous glow then a minor conflagration and reminded everyone that the oft-denigrated Tutu actually had plenty of character and an inherent spark.
With an otherwise young band including the superbly fiery saxophonist Alex Han and soulfully eloquent trumpeter Marquis Hill, Miller retraced his ancestors’ journey from Africa, as well as his own Davis history, through rhythm, with African highlife, Brazilian and Motown interludes, and a particularly uplifting, energised calypso that produced solo playing and ensemble understanding of the highest order.
Gorée, inspired by the slave island off Senegal, formed the set’s centre-piece, Brett Williams’ hauntingly atmospheric keyboard introduction opening out to feature Han on a lengthy soprano improvisation that was deeply moving not just in its musical shape and expression but also in its symbolism of emancipation. Towards the end, Mark Mondesir, drummer from trombonist Dennis Rollins’ marvellous Velocity Trio who opened the concert, joined Cinelu, Han and Hill in a vibrant percussion quartet as Miller, Williams, guitarist Adam Agati, and drummer Alex Bailey stirred and salted the groove with individual invention.
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