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The Miles Legacy
Shantanu Datta
For Hancock and Shorter, jazz is about thinking out of the box MILES DAVIS, the man with the horn, it is said, had an incredible ear for talent. So one time when a greenhorn playing at a night club reverentially stood beside him and mustered the courage to ask how he liked his playing, the all-time guru of jazz drew him close and whispered in that rasping voice of his: do you talk like that to your girlfriend? We will never know if that poor sod got it or not. But for those who know him well enough to decipher his talk, like for instance Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, it was the master's way of communicating a feeling. Jazz was that to him and to those who played with him. And if you got it you were with him. So on a windy night in Mumbai by the bay, when Hancock worked his dexterous fingers to knock down a few chords on the grand piano, and Shorter matched them with soundscapes on his saxophone, there was awe. Two men, masters both, making music that opened up visions of a walk in heaven with jazz for accompaniment. Both were handpicked by Miles and have played with him in many of his stellar albums: ESP, Nefertiti, Sorcerer, In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. If all of these and more from Miles' oeuvre went on to change the world of jazz music forever, it is because the musicians who played in them had only one calling: to think out of the box. And ever since, Shorter and Hancock have been the foremost exponents of that Miles Legacy. A legacy that talks of moving forward. "The result is that the palette of choices for me is a large one," explains Hancock. "And I have constantly tried to encourage others to look at a large palette instead of the one that has been given to you."
That's why he is among the few jazz musicians who have managed artistic as well as commercial success. Possibilities, Hancock's collaborative effort featuring a number of pop and rock artistes (John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Paul Simon, Sting and Santana), is the latest example of this trait. "The whole idea was to really collaborate. Not just do over-dubs," reveals Hancock. "Choose what songs to do and how to do them. That way we would both be able to work outside the box." So was Weather Report, the '70s jazz-rock outfit that brought in a zing in our college lives like no woman could. Electric, esoteric yet firmly grounded in the slapping bass of Jaco Pastorius (Remember Barbary Coast?), this was a band to which we loved to listen. And everytime we heard a song again, we would discover a nuance we had missed the last time. "Joe Zawinul was leaving Canonball (Aderly) and I was leaving Miles," reminisces Shorter, who the Rolling Stone describes as "the most self-effacing great musician of the past 20 years." A few phone calls, a couple of rehearsals later, the report was ready. Boy, heavy weather it was. And long after disbanding it, Shorter did an album called the Phantom Navigator with four keyboards and a battery of drum machine to expand and extend the electronic boundaries set up by his previous outfit. "I wanted to get certain harmonic experiences that you don't get to hear everyday on record - even though I knew this record would not be marketed all over the world. I knew we would at least get these documented." Shorter's harmonic mosaic is as interesting as is his take on what are the kinds of sounds that need to be saved for posterity. "Beethoven's Neapolitan sixth chord!" What? "The one I heard on the hotel TV set every time a message flashes on the screen. My wife asked me too. And I said I'll tell when the music comes on again." You can't get farther out and away from the box than this.
Shantanu Datta
For Hancock and Shorter, jazz is about thinking out of the box MILES DAVIS, the man with the horn, it is said, had an incredible ear for talent. So one time when a greenhorn playing at a night club reverentially stood beside him and mustered the courage to ask how he liked his playing, the all-time guru of jazz drew him close and whispered in that rasping voice of his: do you talk like that to your girlfriend? We will never know if that poor sod got it or not. But for those who know him well enough to decipher his talk, like for instance Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, it was the master's way of communicating a feeling. Jazz was that to him and to those who played with him. And if you got it you were with him. So on a windy night in Mumbai by the bay, when Hancock worked his dexterous fingers to knock down a few chords on the grand piano, and Shorter matched them with soundscapes on his saxophone, there was awe. Two men, masters both, making music that opened up visions of a walk in heaven with jazz for accompaniment. Both were handpicked by Miles and have played with him in many of his stellar albums: ESP, Nefertiti, Sorcerer, In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew. If all of these and more from Miles' oeuvre went on to change the world of jazz music forever, it is because the musicians who played in them had only one calling: to think out of the box. And ever since, Shorter and Hancock have been the foremost exponents of that Miles Legacy. A legacy that talks of moving forward. "The result is that the palette of choices for me is a large one," explains Hancock. "And I have constantly tried to encourage others to look at a large palette instead of the one that has been given to you."
At the recent Mumbai and New Delhi concerts, there was the other obvious Miles Legacy at play.Young, talented musicians of the Thelonious Monk Institue of Jazz accompanying the maestros, who also double up as their teachers as artistes-in-residence. So if you happen to have enjoyed the drummer, the sax player and the Bob Marley look-alike double bassist as most of us did, don't be surprised if you find their names on album sleeves next year. For that's what talent spotting is all about. And in the end, jazz demands oodles of it
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