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Marcus Miller: America's AmBASSadoor
Getting phone calls from South Africans thanking me for writing "Tutu" and hearing how much support and encouragement that song gave them when they were fighting against apartheid is a very special feeling.
—Marcus Miller
Marcus Miller
bassb.1959
He is perhaps best known as a musician in connection with
Miles Davis
trumpet1926 - 1991
David Sanborn
saxophone1945 - 2024
Herbie Hancock
pianob.1940
The same passion and enthusiasm he has for music is found in his concerns for humanity, communication, and education. The following is a recent dialogue that illuminates Miller's passion. It was a joyous conversation that touched on the past, the present, family, history, our world, and, of course, music.
All About Jazz: Just last night you were performing at the Hollywood Bowl with Herbie Hancock and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. I believe that it was a one-hundredth-anniversary celebration for the LA Philharmonic.
Marcus Miller: Exactly, the one-hundredth-anniversary of the LA Philharmonic. They had a few different artists performing with the orchestra. Katy Perry,
John Williams
clarinetb.1928
AAJ: Yes I have. It's a special venue.
MM: Very cool, very nice. Then we are headed to Kuwait tomorrow to do two gigs with Herbie. Every once in a while Herbie will ask me to play a few gigs, and I love to do it. It's nice sometimes to just be the bassist and not have to worry about the whole leadership thing.
AAJ: I can understand that. The Kuwait shows will be more of a traditional quintet?
MM: Yes, that's right: guitarist
Lionel Loueke
guitarb.1973
Terrace Martin
saxophoneAAJ: Do you find it somewhere between challenging and interesting to merge the set-in-stone arrangements of an orchestra with the improvisation and inventiveness of jazz?
MM: The secret is with the conductor. If you can have a relationship with him, and he understands how improvisation works, it really comes down to as simple as when we get to the letter D, have the orchestra stop playing, and we will let you know when it is time to start playing and resume with letter D on the charts. So we can open up a window, is what I call it, to improvise and do our thing. And then we give them a cue they can come back in with the orchestrated set arrangements. So, it's really having a series of windows and opportunities to let the band improvise before the orchestra continues. It's really the same as with a big band. Big bands play arrangements but there is always an area for a solo. Sometimes the big band will come in with a little lift underneath the guy's solo. But yeah with an orchestra that is the first thing you have to figure out. It doesn't take long because when you are at your first rehearsal you will have your first train wreck. You take a break and figure out how to resolve the issue. It's not as difficult as before because a lot of the orchestra members now have a familiarity with jazz. Before, there were some pretty tall walls between the two disciplines. Now you have guys coming over and saying that they really like what you did with this or that.
AAJ: I've had the pleasure of seeing and hearing you play live several times. That includes at least three dynamic shows well into the past with
David Sanborn
saxophone1945 - 2024
Hiram Bullock
guitar, electric1955 - 2008
Omar Hakim
drumsb.1959
MM: Yes, well, I'll answer the second part first. Omar and I met in high school. We went to La Guardia school at the time. La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts was split into two campuses. One was for musicians and dancers, and the other for musicians and artists. Omar and I both went to the one for musicians and artists. Our campus was uptown in Harlem. Since then they have consolidated the two and they are at Lincoln Center. Omar was an amazing drummer even back in high school. None of us could believe how good he was, and I basically just attached to him. He introduced me to a whole set of talented musicians that really helped my development.
AAJ: That would be back when you all were playing in your basements?
MM: Yeah man, we had a group called Harlem River Drive that was pretty cool. We both did a lot of playing and developing together. Then I was playing with
Mike Mainieri
vibraphoneb.1938
AAJ: Yes, plays the vibes.
MM: Yes, and he was getting ready to go to Japan and play with a guitarist named
Kazumi Watanabe
guitarb.1953
Weather Report
band / ensemble / orchestra
Duke Ellington
piano1899 - 1974
AAJ: I know that your father was a pianist. What I didn't know until recently is that you are related to the great
Wynton Kelly
piano1931 - 1971
MM: My dad's dad, my grandfather, was a minister in the church that Marcus Garvey started called the African Orthodox Episcopal Church. He was also a pianist from a Trinidadian heritage. So he played church music and he played calypso. My dad played the pipe organ. That was his weekend gig. During the week he drove the F train in New York. On the weekends, he played church services, weddings, and that sort of thing. He was incredible on the pipe organ with the bass pedals, the drawbars, and just pulling out the stops. His cousin was Wynton Kelly. As they grew up, their job was to alternate Sundays in my grandfather's church. My dad would play one Sunday and Wynton the next. Wynton had such a remarkable ear that he would play the whole church service by ear. He would just memorize the whole thing. Eventually Wynton started missing his Sundays because he started getting gigs when he was about fourteen years old. He was working pretty steady with the
Dizzy Gillespie
trumpet1917 - 1993
Dinah Washington
vocals1924 - 1963
Wes Montgomery
guitar1923 - 1968
AAJ: Yes, I can understand that. It was just the norm for you.
MM: Exactly. We all got together on the weekends and sang and played for each other. My first big performance was on the clarinet before the family. And it was a big deal. So, it was just a part of our life. You realize how beautiful it was in retrospect. And then for me, when I was about ten years old, I started hearing groups like the Jackson Five. Kids my age, that were already professionals, and I said I would love to do that, I love music anyways. But I didn't know it could be so cool!
AAJ: Who were the bass players that you listened to at an early age that inspired you?
MM: Well, first I thought that Jermaine Jackson, Michael's brother, was the baddest fourteen-year-old bassist on the face of the planet because of all those bass lines.
AAJ: I suppose until you realized it wasn't really him.
MM: Yeah it wasn't really him. But I still give Jermaine a lot of credit because playing live it was him, and he had to do those steps and sing his part. But it was
James Jamerson
bass, electric1938 - 1983
Wilton Felder
saxophone, tenor1940 - 2015
AAJ: Yes, my first thought is of him playing sax with The Crusaders.
MM: Right, and he was also a great bassist, and he would do sessions for Motown. What I've heard is that Wilton is playing on some of those Jackson Five sessions. The Motown bass sound was really the thing in the late sixties into the early seventies. So I started playing bass with that influence. Then, all the funk bands like " data-original-title="" title="">Kool & The Gang, and Mandrill, and the Issac Hayes bass lines, and about a million others came along. It was the golden era of bass lines in soul music. That's what drew me to it. Then we heard
Larry Graham
bass, electricAAJ: Graham Central Station.
MM: Yes exactly, Graham Central Station. That sound was dynamic. The Motown sound was smooth, rhythmic, and kind of bubbly. Graham's stuff was just so percussive, and for a young musician, I was, oh man, I got to get some of that. Everyone in my neighborhood was really into that. After that,
Stanley Clarke
bassb.1951
Jaco Pastorius
bass, electric1951 - 1987
Anthony Jackson
bass, electric
Paul Jackson
guitar1947 - 2021
AAJ: I'm sure it would. But at least you had that concept in your head at an early age.
MM:
Lenny White
drumsb.1949
AAJ: That moment that it hits you that this is me, my sound, I'm not covering someone else's groove.
MM: That's exactly it, man. That is just what I'm saying. You find something inside yourself that you can bring forward. It's a real honest way to make music. Once I had a little thing going I just kept trying to develop it.
AAJ: You have a spirited new record out. What was the concept and approach going into Laid Black?
MM: Well, I did a record before Laid Black called Afrodeezia.
AAJ: Outstanding record.
MM: Thank you. I had just been named as a spokesperson for UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization). They have an initiative called the Slave Route Project. It is about bringing awareness to the history of slavery and how it has affected the world. I decided to make an album that reflected that story. On Afrodeezia, I was jamming with cats from West Africa, North Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean. I was real happy with the way it turned out. So, I figured for this next album I wanted to bring it back home. I wanted to use some urban contemporary sounds and see how I could manipulate them into what I do on Laid Black. It's kind of the continuation of the story. That was the history and here we are now. You hear some trap influences, some funk, some rap, but it's all through my filters. I'm very happy with it, and it's doing very well. When we play live in America, some of the African things from Afrodeezia, I would have to stop and educate people. So, I would do more talking and explaining that this is what we are doing, and this what this is all about. On Laid Black, not so much of that is necessary. Everybody understands it. Though we are not playing just from Laid Black. It's a combination of the old and the new, so it's all very cool.
AAJ: It is very cool that you are able to take today's sounds that represent this time in our history, integrate them with your signature jazz and funk sound, and move it forward.
MM: I think it is important to do that. You know in terms of hip-hop, for example, I have been incorporating that into my music since about 1995. But that genre has evolved a lot since then. So it's important to revisit all of that and show people how that can work in an improvisational framework. It's cool. It's a nice challenge.
AAJ: You've been involved with many jazz cruises over the past several years. I see that there are a couple that will launch in the near future. What's the skinny on those?
MM: Yeah man, well we have the Smooth Jazz Cruise. Which is exactly what it sounds like. It has become ridiculously popular.
Wayman Tisdale
bass, electric1964 - 2009
AAJ: NBA basketball player that became a musician.
MM: Exactly, he was the host of the Smooth Jazz Cruise. He just had this incredible personality and was more like an R&B instrumental musician. He was great at that, and was just perfect as the host. Unfortunately, Wayman passed away about ten years ago now. Can't believe it's been that long. Anyways, Michael Lazaroff, the director of the cruise, said that he would love for me to step in, even though smooth jazz is a limited part of my musical vocabulary. He wanted my ability to communicate with people. So, I did. The people that are digging the smooth jazz are like my aunts and uncles. So, it's nice to go out and hang with them in January and maybe open them up to some other things.
AAJ: Try to stretch and widen people's ears a bit.
MM: There you go. Maybe go a bit beyond the smooth jazz a bit. But then Michael wanted to get into something else also and the idea for the Blue Note Cruise came along. It's more progressive, you know, they used to call it contemporary jazz. To be honest with you, the biggest problem with all of this is just finding labels that match. The question people ask is, "What's the difference between smooth jazz and contemporary jazz?" What you end up doing is simply naming the artists. For the Blue Note Cruise we are talking about
Pat Metheny
guitarb.1954
Chick Corea
piano1941 - 2021
Robert Glasper
pianob.1978
Wynton Marsalis
trumpetb.1961
AAJ: Music that has more depth to it.
MM: Yes, that's more involved musically. Michael has said something interesting. That is, that in the whole world of jazz, that you have ten percent straight ahead jazz on the left and ten percent smooth jazz on the right. That other eighty percent is contemporary jazz, which can be inclusive, progressive, and traditional at the same time. It's a very big middle, the whole gamut in between. When we play around the world, there are so many artists that people want to hear ranging from
Cecile McLorin Salvant
vocalsb.1989
AAJ: And when does that set sail?
MM: January 26th, 2019. January 26th through February 2nd.
AAJ: The Blue Note at Sea Cruise is on my bucket list.
MM: That's awesome because you know something you would really appreciate are the collaborative projects that come out of these cruises. It's cool for the audience because they get to be in the midst of these artists that they really love. But it is also very cool for the musicians to be on a cruise chilling out in the presence of each other, rather than just running into each other at the airport or in a hotel lobby. To be able to spend some time talking and realizing what you have in common. Then, the next thing you know, someone is sitting in with your band or vice versa. The audience gets to see some very special moments on a cruise that you wouldn't normally see. Everybody just gets real comfortable with each other.
AAJ: Somehow with everything else going on you manage to do not one, but two weekly radio shows. What can you tell us about those?
MM: One is here in the States. It's called Miller Time, and is on Sirius XM. It comes on at 6pm on the east coast, 3pm out here in the west. Mark Ruffin is the producer for Real Jazz on Sirius XM. He had the idea for this show. I'm always running my mouth about music and connecting with people so he told me that I should do a show. But they are segmented in such a strict manner as in Watercolors on one channel and Real Jazz on another, etc., and I am more of a 360-degree musician. Mark just said, okay then, just go ahead and do that. I'll give you a few hours on Sundays and you do want you want. It's great because I have free rein. My thing is to really get into it for people who love jazz, but also for people who are interested. My one knock on jazz is that the people who love jazz also love the fact that it's an inside thing. It's like joining the Lakers and asking Kobe Bryant how do I get my shot. And he would be like, I'm not telling you, you got to figure that out on your own. So, it really doesn't work to tell someone who says they don't understand jazz to go figure it out on their own. So, I try to break it down in the same way
Kenny Washington
drumsb.1958
Betty Carter
vocals1929 - 1998
AAJ: That's quite a high school.
MM: Exactly. He gave me my first education in jazz. Kenny was so into it, and so enthusiastic about it, that you couldn't help but to get drawn in. For me, that's how I feel about doing Miller Time. I'll stop the record in the middle of a song while we are on the air and say, "Wait a minute. I don't think you heard what he just played. Let me back that up and play it for you again." And I will explain it, and talk about the relationships between the musicians. Another thing I like to do is to show people the connection between the pop world and jazz. For example, say this is 1952, and the biggest Broadway play at the time has someone like " data-original-title="" title="">Ethel Merman singing on the original Broadway soundtrack. Now let me show you what Miles Davis did with this tune. Or, here's a song that Julie Andrews sang, "My Favorite Things." Let me show you what
John Coltrane
saxophone1926 - 1967
AAJ: Earlier you mentioned your involvement with UNESCO. How would you define your role as an Artist for Peace?
MM: Throughout your life there are going to be different reasons why you play music. The first thing really is just to experience that feeling of being able to make a sound with a musical instrument. To have that sound fill a hall or a room is just an incredible thing. Maybe the next thing is that intoxicating effect you can have on other people with the sounds you are able to make. As a teenager there is the social acceptance, hanging out with your friends, and just being in the band. It's just a cool thing. For me as you grow it is really the effect on others that you have inspired around the world that makes a difference. Getting a couple of phone calls from South Africans thanking me for writing "Tutu" and hearing how much support and encouragement that song gave them when they were fighting against apartheid is a very special feeling. If I am in the autograph line after having done a concert and someone introduces you to their eight-year old son, Marcus, it really hits you that this is way bigger than just putting some tunes on a cd. It makes you take things a bit more seriously. Not so much though that you don't keep in mind that what you are doing is bringing people joy and is a release from whatever it is that they are dealing with in life. It does make you realize that the music can be used as a tool. Herbie Hancock was named an Artist for Peace for UNESCO eight years ago. He introduced me to everyone. A couple of years later they asked me to do that as well. They got me involved with the Slave Route Project, that we talked about earlier. It's about how it affected world history socially, culturally, and musically. We talked about how that led to the creation of the Afrodeezia record. But it also gives me a platform to after a gig, go by a school in Russia, or Brazil, or Africa and hang out with the kids. I have an opportunity to present a face of America that maybe they haven't been exposed to yet. So later maybe you are an eighteen-year old Russian kid and somebody is saying this or that about America the kid can say that when he was eight years old that an American came to his school and that he was very cool and we had a great time. So music can be a tool to just create communication. Sometimes I think they should send us out there first, before the ambassadors, and let us create some good vibes before you come in and talk about what you need to talk about.
AAJ: That has to be a real special feeling to be able to do that.
MM: It's a thrill for sure and not so much with words. Words are probably our most incredible invention as human beings. But there is a limit to what words can do. Music sometimes can fill that gap. You can play music that everyone can relate to emotionally, particularly with instrumental music. Everyone is moving together and feeling the rhythms. It sounds like a cliché but music is the universal language. The young musicians in my band see it and feel it when we are on stage. It's a very real connection. We were in Kazakhstan just a few months ago and they knew every song. They were so excited and knew every detail to the music. It's hard really to even put it into words the connection you are making at that time.
AAJ: How did film scoring enter the picture?
MM: In the late eighties Reginald Hudlin reached out to me. He was fresh out of film school. His senior thesis for film school was a movie short. A new movie house called New Line Cinema had committed to making it in to a full-length feature film. I had done Siesta with Miles, but that was a cd. They used the music in the movie, but it wasn't written as a score. I had never done that before and was hesitant. But Reginald said that he loved what I had done with some other artists and that he really wanted me to do it. So he sent me the film on a video cassette. Then it came down to figuring it out with a hit and miss process. So I wrote what I thought was some pretty cool stuff for some different scenes and Reginald came over to the studio to check it out. He told me that what I had written for one scene in particular was incredible but that there was just one problem. He couldn't hear what any of the actors were saying! I had written music that was stepping on everyone's lines. So that was my first lesson in film scoring. So I figured it out and started getting more calls for film scoring. Next I did the score for a movie that did pretty well called House Party and then went on to do Eddie Murphy's Boomerang. I really got into it and it just keeps going. The most recent project was a movie about Thurgood Marshall that came out a few months ago. It's called Marshall and stars Chadwick Boseman. It's kind of like my day gig. I do films when I am not on the road.
AAJ: Your first and for a time primary instrument was the clarinet. In what ways has that proven to be advantageous to your musical career?
MM: The first advantage of playing the clarinet was when I started playing sessions on the bass. After reading clarinet music like Stravinsky and Charles Ives the bass lines weren't difficult to read. Some of those clarinet parts can get really intricate. So it really helped me as a studio musician when I was sitting down in front of new charts every day. It also helped me in terms of having a melodic sense in terms of composition. Also with my dad being a pianist I have been taking piano lessons since I was five years old. In terms of arranging and composing it is really all about the piano. With the bass you only have one line. With the clarinet you have the melodic line. But with the piano you have bass, harmony, rhythm, and melody. You have all the elements right there.
AAJ: How did it come about that you started playing the bass clarinet?
MM: I was twenty-four, maybe twenty-five years old and I hadn't played the clarinet in some time. I had stopped playing when I left college because I was focusing on the bass. I mentioned to my wife that every time I saw treble clef music sheet music that I could feel my fingers moving to the clarinet fingerings. That this thing is still inside of me, and it's a shame to not use it for anything. But I wasn't so sure about the clarinet working within the music I was doing then. I was writing music for Miles and David Sanborn at that time. Then I thought maybe a bass clarinet would work. I had heard that they were hard to play but thought maybe I would get one someday. It was really just idle talk at the time. Well, that Christmas under the tree, my wife got together with my mom and they had located a bass clarinet from my old junior high school. It was under the tree.
AAJ: Man, how sweet is that.
MM: It was awesome. Well the sound I was making out of it wasn't so awesome to start with. It took a while to figure that thing out. So I was in the studio and Miles and I were working on something. Now, as you certainly know, Miles solos were like mini compositions in themselves. There was this one thing that he played that was so beautifully constructed, even though he improvised it, that I got the bass clarinet out and I doubled it. I played his solo two octaves below him. He heard it and he flipped out. Miles said that I had really found something there. That was a lot of encouragement right there coming from Miles Davis. So I started using it slowly, not trying to be too adventurous. Not trying to be
Eric Dolphy
woodwinds1928 - 1964
AAJ: We all do. I just have to ask about Miles Davis from a historical perspective. It had to have been mind blowing to get a call from Miles when you were only about twenty years old.
MM: It was mind blowing for sure. I was only twenty-one years old at the time. And there was an added element to this. Miles had been in retirement for like five years. He had just disappeared and nobody knew where he was or even if he was still alive. Then somebody says that Miles was at the club last night. He was standing right next to me and I didn't even see him. I was focused on playing. It was very mysterious. In fact just a couple of months ago someone sent me a photograph of Miles standing right next to me that night. Somehow I just didn't see him. Anyways, Miles decides to make his comeback and the first person he calls is
Dave Liebman
saxophoneb.1946
Bill Evans
piano1929 - 1980
Al Foster
drums1944 - 2025
Barry Finnerty
guitar, electricb.1951
Sammy Figueroa
percussion
Bob James
pianob.1939
Tags
SoCal Jazz
Marcus Miller
Jim Worsley
United States
David Sanborn
Luther Vandross
Herbie Hancock
Hollywood Bowl
Katy Perry
John Williams
Lionel Loueke
Trevor Lawrence Jr.
Terrace Martin
Hiram Bullock
Omar Hakim
Lincoln Center
Mike Mainier
Kazumi Watanabe
Weather Report
duke ellington
Stevie Wonder
Wynton Kelly
Dizzy Gillespie
Dinah Washington
Wes Montgomery
Jackson Five
Jermaine Jackson
James Jamerson
Wilton Felder
The Crusaders
Kool & The Gang
Mandrill
Issac Hayes
Larry Graham
Graham Central Station
Stanley Clarke
Jaco Pastorius
Anthony Jackson
Paul Jackson
Lenny White
Wayman Tisdale
pat metheny
Chick Corea
Robert Glaspar
wynton marsalis
Cecile McLorin Salvant
Kenny Washington
Betty Carter
Bill Charlap
Ethel Merman
Julie Andrews
John Coltrane
Eric Dolphy
Dave Liebman
Bill Evans
Al Foster
Barry Finnerty
Sammy Figueroa
Bob James
Mike Stern
Paul Chambers
Tony Williams
Sean Jones
Wayne Shorter
Elvin Jones
Freddie Hubbard
Sonny Rollins
Jean Luc Ponty
Joe Sample
randy brecker
Koko Taylor
Donald Fagen
Slim Gaillard
Bootsy Collins
Jeff Healey
Hank Ballard
Catalina Jazz Club
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Marcus Miller Concerts
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Stockholm Concert HallStockholm, Sweden
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Cosmopolite SceneOslo, Norway
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De OosterpoortGroningen, Netherlands
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PaardDen Haag, Netherlands
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Ancienne BelgiqueBruxelles, Belgium
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Cavatina HallBielsko-Bia?a, Poland
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Expo-arénaBratislava V, Slovakia
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