Black Music Month 2011: Bassist/Producer Marcus Miller Remembers Miles Davis

from the JazzVideo Guy:

Bret Primack's 1998 interview with Marcus Miler. After a 30-year association with Columbia Records -- which had begun with 'Round About Midnight' way back in 1956 -- MILES DAVIS decided to sever ties with his old company and jump ship to Warner Bros. That was in 1986 and although a large amount of money helped facilitate his move, the iconic jazz trumpeter was in search of fresh musical inspiration. He found it in an unlikely source -- MARCUS MILLER, a 25-year-old Big Apple bass player who had first played with the 'Dark Magus' on his 1981 comeback album, The Man With The Horn. As Davis discovered, Miller was much more than a mere bassist -- he was a gifted multi-instrumentalist who could write, arrange and produce (he also had a parallel career in the R&B world as Luther Vandross's collaborator). Miller came up with Tutu, which with its reliance on synthesizers, drum machines and inclusion of pop elements and funky bass lines horrified many jazz critics. But it was an influential album and took Miles' music to a new generation of listeners.