Columbia Records will
commemorate the 90th birthday of globally renowned music innovator Miles Davis
with the release of two very special new Miles Davis album projects:
MILES AHEAD - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack will be
available Friday, April 1. A cinematic exploration of the life and music of
Miles Davis, the movie feature "MILES AHEAD" marks the directorial
debut of Don Cheadle, who co-wrote the screenplay (with Steven Baigelman) and
stars as the legendary musician in the film.
EVERYTHING'S BEAUTIFUL, reimagined interpretations of Miles
Davis' music produced by Grammy Award winner Robert Glasper (who also served as
coproducer of the MILES AHEAD soundtrack) with musical guest artists including
Bilal, Illa J, Erykah Badu, Phonte, Hiatus Kaiyote, Laura Mvula, KING, Georgia
Ann Muldrow, John Scofield and Ledisi, and Stevie Wonder. A visionary
exploration of the music of Miles Davis, EVERYTHING'S BEAUTIFUL incorporates
Davis' original recordings into new collaborative soundscapes and will be
available Friday, May 27 (the day after Miles' 90th birthday). The Miles Davis
track featuring Bilal "Ghetto Walkin", from the upcoming release
MILES AHEAD - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack explores
the breadth and depth of Miles Davis' musical innovations, combining 11
highlights from the legendary trumpeter/composer/bandleader's Prestige and
Columbia Records catalogs with original new compositions written and performed
by Grammy Award-winning jazz/hip-hop artist Robert Glasper. Select new tracks
on the soundtrack album include guest appearances by Herbie Hancock, Wayne
Shorter, rapper Pharoahe Monch and more. Both the CD and LP packages for MILES
AHEAD - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack feature revelatory new liner notes
penned by Don Cheadle.
"We culled the library for every style Miles
touched…looking for cues to bridge key moments, bring others into focus. The
stuff a good score is supposed to do. Miles made it easier. His music is
multi-faceted and score friendly," wrote Cheadle in his notes.
For new and future fans, MILES AHEAD - Original Motion
Soundtrack provides an ideal introduction to the music of Miles Davis. For
seasoned aficionados of the influential 20th century musical pioneer, the album
and film provide fresh perspectives and new insights into Miles' transformative
musical and cultural genius.
MILES AHEAD - Original Motion Soundtrack features 11
essential tracks spanning 1956 to 1981, select dialogue from the film featuring
Cheadle in character, and five original compositions written, co-written,
produced or performed exclusively for MILES AHEAD by Robert Glasper. These
include "What's Wrong with That?" (a jam that closes the movie
imagining Cheadle as Miles playing in the present day with guest performers
Glasper, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Gary Clark, Jr. and Esperanza Spalding
and Antonio Sanchez) and "Gone 2015," an end-credits song featuring
guest verses from rapper Pharoahe Monch.
The 2016 SXSW Festival in Austin, TX will premiere the
long-awaited, critically acclaimed feature film "MILES AHEAD" on
Wednesday, March 16th at 8:00pm at The Paramount Theatre.
A special "MILES AHEAD" panel led by Don Cheadle,
with NPR's Felix Contreras onboard as Moderator, will discuss the making of the
film, along with the music, with intimate behind-the-scenes anecdotes provided
by Erin Davis (son of Miles) and Vince Wilburn, Jr. (nephew of Miles).
Additional panelists include Robert Glasper, who scored the film's soundtrack;
Oscar-winning supervising sound editor, re-recording mixer and sound designer
Skip Lievsay; and Keyon Harrold, a sought out
trumpeter/producer/arranger/songwriter who performs with GRAMMY-winning group
D'Angelo and The Vanguard, and is featured as the trumpet sound of Don Cheadle
playing Miles Davis. The panel will take place on Thursday, March 17 at 12:30pm
in ACC Room 18ABC, and will be open to Music, Film, Platinum and Gold badges,
as well as Showcasing Artist wristbands.
MILES AHEAD Film Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssfTNCTVT5U
EVERYTHING'S BEAUTIFUL is beautifully crafted collection
produced by Robert Glasper, blending a diverse group of master takes and
outtakes from across the incomparable Miles Davis Columbia catalog with an
impressive lineup of contemporary artists and musicians to create original
interpretations.
"I didn't want to do just a remix record," Glasper
noted when discussing the 11-song set. "My idea was to show how Miles
inspired people to make new art." Realizing that "Miles didn't have
one audience," Glasper recruited a legion of diverse guest artists to add
to the magic of the project including familiar collaborators like R&B
musicians Erykah Badu, Ledisi, Bilal and KING. They are joined by British soul
singer-songwriter Laura Mvula; hip-hop producer Rashad Smith; Grammy-nominated
Australian neo-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote, rapper/singer Phonte,
rapper/producer Illa J; jazz guitarist John Scofield, who was in Miles Davis'
band; and the legendary Stevie Wonder.
"I am living in the spirit of Miles when I am doing
what I'm doing because I am documenting my time period. I'm documenting what's
around me. I'm documenting who I am now, where music is now," notes
Glasper. "That's what this project is about. I wanted to do something where
we can take some of Miles' ideas, shake them up, and try to show the influence
of Miles and make new things. And that's the beauty of this whole album. The
whole project is based on Miles, but it is based on Miles' vision, it's based
on Miles' trumpet, it's based on Miles' voice, it's based on Miles'
composition, it's based on Miles' influence, it's based on Miles' swag."
Miles Davis is a rarity: a pioneering superstar who was
constantly voyaging into new directions and genres with an ever changing cast
of collaborators. Throughout his discography, sweeping change and innovation
could happen based on who was in the studio and what they brought to his
stunning musical vision. Few American artists have impacted popular music and
culture in as broad and long-lasting a way as he did.
By similar design, pianist/producer Robert Glasper has built
a career out of a vibrant fusion of R&B, jazz and hip-hop. As the leader of
the acoustic Robert Glasper Trio and the electronic Robert Glasper Experiment,
he's pushed the boundaries of each genre he works in to their breaking point.
This is the artist whose album, In My Element (2007), featured mashups of
Herbie Hancock and Radiohead and tributes to rapper/producer J Dilla. 2013's
acclaimed Black Radio featured collaborations with Erykah Badu, Ledisi, Lupe
Fiasco, Yasiin Bey and other artists. Black Radio was also capped by a
sprawling cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and won a
Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Most recently, Glasper scored for MILES
AHEAD, the Miles Davis film directed by and starring Don Cheadle.
EVERYTHING'S BEAUTIFUL is unlike any other in Davis'
discography. From the familiar (riffs and passages within the catalog) to the
obscure (samples of Miles' in-studio instructions spoken after false starts),
Glasper has built something unique but still unquestionably Miles. The cover
art was created by Francine Turk and integrates elements of Miles Davis'
artwork. With the cover, Turk creates a visual that is similar to the idea of
Robert Glasper taking fragments of Miles music and reinterpreting in a unique
and modern way.
Born Miles Dewey Davis III on May 26, 1926 in Alton,
Illinois, Miles grew up in East St. Louis, first learning trumpet at age 13.
Graduating high school, he moved to New York in 1944 to study at the Juilliard
School of Music, developing chops in technique and music theory before leaving
Juilliard to become a full-time player on the New York jazz circuit, cutting
his first records in 1945. One of the most revolutionary and influential
musicians and recording artists of the 20th century, Miles Davis was in the
vanguard of virtually every phase of the evolution of post-WWII American jazz,
from be-bop to cool jazz to hard-bop to modal to the radical rock-funk-fusion
which got him inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Miles Davis
died on September 28, 1991, leaving the world an extensive catalog of
unprecedented music that's forever timeless and groundbreaking. Trumpeter,
bandleader and composer Miles Davis fronted some of the most formidable and
adroit ensembles in musical history. Miles was the rarest of artists: an
uncompromising avant-garde visionary, and transformative cultural icon (with a
larger-than-life persona), who achieved both critical and commercial success.
In 2008, Davis's 1959 masterpiece, Kind of Blue, was certified 4x platinum,
solidifying its position as the top-selling jazz album of all-time. In December
2009, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution on Kind of
Blue's 50th anniversary "honoring the masterpiece and reaffirming jazz as
a national treasure."
Since 1960, the National Academy of Recording Arts and
Sciences (NARAS) has honored Miles Davis with eight Grammy Awards, a Grammy
Lifetime Achievement Award, and three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.
Over the past twenty years, Miles and his music have been
commemorated on a variety of critically-acclaimed box sets released through
Columbia/Legacy, many of them winning Grammy Awards, charting in the Top 4 of
the Billboard Jazz Album charts, and earning Jazz Reissue of the Year and other
accolades in Down Beat magazine's Critics and Readers polls, among other
accolades.
In September 2011, Columbia/Legacy launched the Miles Davis
Bootleg Series with the release of Live In Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol.
1. Miles Davis At Newport 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4 won JazzTimes'
Readers Poll for 2015 Best Historical/Vault/Reissue, the fourth time that a box
set in the critically-acclaimed, best-selling Bootleg Series topped the
JazzTimes Readers Poll in this category. The set won the 2016 NAACP Image Award
in the Outstanding Jazz Album category.
Each of the first three releases in the Bootleg
Series--Miles Davis Quintet – Live In Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1,
Miles Davis Quintet – Live In Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2, and Miles
At The Fillmore – Miles Davis 1970: The Bootleg Series Vol. 3--took home Best
Historical/Vault/Reissue from JazzTimes readers.
Miles Davis At Newport 1955-1975 was honored as the
Reissues/Archive Album of the Year by the 2015 Jazzwise Albums of the Year
Critics Poll. In previous years, the Miles Davis Bootleg Series Vol. 2 and Vol.
3 have won in this category.
MILES AHEAD -
ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK
1.Miles Ahead
2.Dialogue: "It takes a long time…" (*)
3.So What
4.Taylor Made - Taylor Eigisti
5.Dialogue: "Listen, you talk too goddam much…"
(*)
6.Solea (excerpt)
7.Seven Steps To Heaven (edit)
8.Dialogue: "If you gonna tell a story…"(*)
9.Nefertiti (edit)
10.Frelon Brun
11.Dialogue: "Sometimes you have these
thoughts…"(*)
12.Duran (take 6) (edit)
13.Dialogue: "You own my music…"(*)
14.Go Ahead John (part two C)
15.Black Satin (edit)
16.Dialogue: "Be musical about this shit…"(*)
17.Prelude #II
18.Dialogue: "Y'all listening to them…?(*)
19.Junior's Jam – Robert Glasper, Keyon Harrold, Marcus
Strickland
20.Francessence – Robert Glasper, Keyon Harrold, Elena
Pinderhughes
21.Back Seat Betty (excerpt)
22.Dialogue: "I don't like the word jazz…" (*)
23.What's Wrong With That?
- Don Cheadle, Robert Glasper, Gary Clark, Jr., Herbie Hancock, Keyon
Harrold, Antonio Sanchez, Esperanza Spaulding, Wayne Shorter
24.Gone 2015 – Robert Glasper, Keyon Harrold, Pharoahe Monch
(*) from the soundtrack of the film, Don Cheadle as Miles
Davis
All other tracks performed by Miles Davis, except where
noted
Soundtrack album produced by
Don Cheadle, Steve Berkowitz, Ed Gerrard & Robert
Glasper
Soundtrack Executive Producers:
Don Cheadle, Erin Davis, Darryl Porter &, Vince Wilburn
EVERYTHING'S BEAUTIFUL
1."Talking Shit"
2."Ghetto Walkin" featuring Bilal
3."They Can't Hold Me Down" featuring Illa J
4."Maiysha (So Long)" featuring Erykah Badu
5."Violets" featuring Phonte
6."Little Church" featuring Hiatus Kaiyote
7."Silence Is The Way" featuring Laura Mvula
8."Song For Selim" featuring KING
9."Milestones" featuring Georgia Ann Muldrow
10."I'm Leaving You" featuring John Scofield and
Ledisi
11."Right On Brotha" featuring Stevie Wonder
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