MusicMakers
Marcus Miller, Revealed
The Fusion Jazz Artist and Producer Opens Up on His Latest CD
The bass guitar isn't Marcus Miller's only instrument. He often plays bass clarinet to create dark contrasts.
(Tom Estey Publicity & Promotion)
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Friday, April 4, 2008; Page WE07
Miles Davis, Luther Vandross, David Sanborn, Jay-Z, Paul Simon, Eric Clapton. . . . It's awfully tempting to drop one name after another when interviewing bassist, composer and producer Marcus Miller, just to see where the next anecdote will lead.
Even now, recollections of Miller's alliance with the notoriously aloof Davis in the '80s, first as a member of the trumpeter's band, later as a composer, arranger and producer, flow freely. Their collaborations led to Miller producing Davis's acclaimed 1986 release, "Tutu."
"It was way intimidating at first with Miles, but for me, once you start playing the notes, I'm okay," says Miller, calling from his home in Los Angeles. "The music tells you what to do, and you don't have to worry."
That's the air of musical confidence that fusion jazz artist Miller, 48, brings to the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis on Monday and the Birchmere in Alexandria on Wednesday and Thursday.
"Marcus," Miller's new CD, emphasizes R&B and pop along with signature jazz-funk. It includes covers of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" and the Deniece Williams hit "Free," featuring British songstress Corinne Bailey Rae. Keb' Mo' and Lalah Hathaway are among other guests. Of his nine solo albums, this is his most accessible -- and, according to Miller, his most revealing. "When I first started making records, everybody warned me that people aren't ready for everything you do -- dole it out slowly," he explains. "This time I felt I'd really open it up and show people what I'm all about."
Some of what he's all about includes R&B grooves and romantic ballads of the sort he worked with Vandross on. Miller later produced and co-wrote numerous Vandross hits, including the 1991 Grammy-winning "Power of Love/Love Power."
"I'm really just trying to carry on an old jazz tradition of going into the pop world and taking material from there and showing people the possibilities," Miller says. "I remember hearing Sonny Rollins playing a song called 'I'm an Old Cowhand.' Everybody thought he was crazy until they heard him play it. And Miles did the same thing."
The trick, Miller says, is that "pop songs now don't have as much melody and harmony, so a lot of jazz musicians don't know what they can do with an R&B tune. But for me, since I play bass, I can pull things out in a different way."
Miller also plays bass clarinet, often to create dark-hued, mood-shifting contrasts. Though he played B-flat clarinet in high school ("you'd see me walking with that long Fender Jazz Bass case in my right hand and this little tiny clarinet case in my left hand," he says), Miller didn't pick up bass clarinet until years later.
"My wife finally put one under my Christmas tree one year. I squawked on that thing. It was a really noisy, really ugly-sounding Christmas morning." There's a good reason why few jazz musicians favor the instrument, Miller says. "It's hard as hell to play; you have to have a conversation with it."
Although Miller likes the out-front role of being a performer, being a producer requires different skills. The key to his success with such diverse artists involves letting their personalities come through. "I really got into each of their heads."
"For Luther, we paid attention to every note because he was detail-oriented, but it had to be soulful at the same time. David was into the urgency of the music, making it jump out at you." As for Davis, Miller says that "he just wanted to make me do something that people never heard before."
Sometimes, though, the collaborations had unintended consequences. When Sanborn and Miller experimented with drum machines in the early '80s, little did they know that a legion of pop-jazz instrumentalists would follow suit with increasingly predictable results.
"That was kind of disappointing," Miller says. "David used to say they got the suds but they missed the beer, meaning they didn't have the strong R&B underpinning."
Miller says that working on his solo albums is particularly rewarding because he ultimately sees the payoff on tour. "At the very end when you're on stage playing and the audience already knows the song and they've been anticipating it -- there's that connection. Everything else, writing and arranging, it's all just part of the path" to get there, he says.
Marcus Miller Appearing Monday at Rams Head Tavern, 33 West St., Annapolis. Shows start at 6 and 9. Also appearing Wednesday and Thursday at the Birchmere, 3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria. Shows start at 7:30. Tickets: At Rams Head Tavern: $35; available at the box office, 410-268-4545 or http:/
