Interviews
Marcus
Miller
[The 2002 Grammy Award-Winning M2 - Best Contemporary
Jazz Album]
ABOUT
MARCUS MILLER
Born
in Brooklyn in 1959 and raised in Jamaica, New York, Marcus Miller
came from a musical family. He was influenced early on by his father,
a church organist and choir director, as well as his musical extended
family (which included the extraordinary Wynton Kelly, jazz pianist
for Miles Davis during the late fifties and early sixties!). He displayed
an early affinity for all types of music. By the age of thirteen he
was already proficient on the clarinet, piano, and bass guitar and
had begun composing music. The bass guitar, however, was his love
and by the age of fifteen, he was working regularly in New York City
with various bands. Soon thereafter, he was playing bass and writing
music for flutist Bobbi Humphrey and keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith.
Miller
spent the next few years as a top call New York studio musician, working
with Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, Grover Washington Jr., Bob James
and David Sanborn, among others. He has appeared as a bassist on over
400 records including recordings by Joe Sample, McCoy Tyner, Bill
Withers, Elton John, Bryan Ferry, Jay Z, and LL Cool J.
In
1981, he joined his boyhood idol Miles Davis and spent two years on
the road with the fabled jazzman. "He didn't settle for anything
mediocre," Miller recalls. "And this helped me develop my
style. I learned from him that you have to be honest about who you
are and what you do. If you follow that, you won't have problems."
Miller
subsequently turned his attention to producing, his first major production
being David Sanborn's Voyeur, which earned Sanborn a Grammy and turned
out to be the beginning of a career-long partnership with the alto
saxman. Miller later produced various other top selling albums for
Sanborn, including Close Up, Upfront, and 2000 Grammy winner Inside.
For
more than twenty years, Miller has also enjoyed a musical relationship
with R&B legend, Luther Vandross . "We met in '79 in Roberta
Flack's band and instantly connected because we were both so serious
about music," Miller recalls. Over the years, Miller has contributed
countless hits to Vandross's repertoire both as a producer and writer.
Those songs include "Till My Baby Comes Home," "It's
Over Now," "Any Love," "I'm Only Human" and
"The Power of Love," which won Miller the 1991 Grammy for
R&B Song of the Year.
In
1986, Miller collaborated again with Miles Davis, producing the landmark
Tutu album, the first of Davis three albums he would produce. He's
also produced Al Jarreau, the Crusaders, Chaka Khan, and Wayne Shorter,
among others.
After
spending many years as a producer and session musician, Miller focused
on his solo career in late 1993 with the release of The Sun Don't
Lie. 1995's Tales found Miller re-imagining the landscape of Black
music and its evolution over the past three decades. He released a
live album, Live and More in 1997 and in 2001, M2.
For
the past several years, Miller has also turned his attention to film
scoring, composing for House Party (Martin Lawrence), Boomerang (Eddie
Murphy), Siesta (Ellen Barkin), Ladies Man (Tim Meadows), and The
Brothers (Morris Chestnut and D.L. Hughley). He wrote and produced
the old school hit, "Da Butt" for Spike Lee's School Daze
soundtrack. Miller further surprised people by composing and performing
the score to E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan. "I loved getting
the opportunity to use jazz to tell a story to kids. Children have
much more sophisticated ears than people give them credit for. You
really don't have to play down to them. Just keep the music real."
"I
like to keep things balanced, combining R&B, jazz, funk and movie
stuff to help reflect what's happening in our world. I just try to
keep challenging myself to continue to grow and get better."
Marcus
has recently scored the upcoming film "Serving Sara" (starring
Matthew Perry) and produced the group Take 6 as well as the new Kenny
Garrett album.
Marcus'
first release of the new millennium, M2 ("M-squared") recently
won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album! He's currently
on tour in support of M2.
Mike
Visceglia: Congratulations on the Grammy award for M2! Can you
talk about the CD? Was there a predetermined concept? Who plays on
it?
Marcus
Miller : With M2, I was just trying to present music the way I
hear it. I hear so many connections in music, different styles matching
up with one another. So, with M2, you get an album that has songs
like "Good-bye Pork Pie Hat" and "Burning Down the
House" together. You get musicians like, Rafael Saadiq and Herbie
Hancock together. Not just thrown together either. I see that a lot,
where producers just throw musicians together and hope they find a
common ground. I wanted to put together a scene where all the different
elements sound really natural, like they belong together.
Mike
Visceglia: As a musician you've become known for much more than
a great bass player. You;re a multi-instrumentalist, composer and
a producer. Was this something you always aspired toward? How did
this evolution take place?
Marcus
Miller: I
just always wanted to develop whatever talents I have. That means
as a musician, which requires technique and imagination or as a producer
which requires being able to communicate. I can look at something
and just know I can do it. So, if I feel like that, I just go for
it.
MV:
Is there anything about growing up in New York that specifically helped
to nuture your musical skills?
MM:
I became good at a lot of different styles because, in NY, you had
to. I did Latin, reggae, African, funk, jazz, classical, whatever.
If you grow up in other places, you become good at the local styles.
But NY is a big mix so I got a really broad base.
MV:
Most Fender bassists, like myself, have searched out that magical
pre-CBS bass. What brought you to your 70's Jazz bass and what makes
it such a great match for your sound and style?
MM:
I just bought what they were making at the time. I got my first jazz
in '77 and that was it. It was my bass and I just tried to make the
best music on it I could. I realized later that the sound of that
bass determined a lot of my musical choices (you're only gonna play
what sounds good on your instrument!). I got a maple neck 'cause the
light color looked cooler than the regular brown colored necks. I
found out later that maple has a harder sound. So a lot of my playing
came out of having that harder sound available to me.
MV:
You've had a long relationship with David Sanborn. How did you two
meet and how did you get to be his producer?
MM:
I met Dave when his producers called me to play on his "Hideaway"
album. They needed bass for the piece, "Carly's Song" and
heard that I was a new kid on the scene. I came in, braces and all,
and played for them (I remember Rick Marotta was the drummer. He couldn't
figure out where the "synth drum" sound was coming from.
He finally realized it was me doing high slides. He was pissed cause
I didn't tell him. Just let him figure it out on his own. He gave
me the finger! That's when I found out Rick is crazy. We became really
good friends!).
Later
on, I auditioned for the house band at "Saturday Night Live"
and got the job. Sanborn was in that band, too. He asked me to do
some gigs with him during the week, when we weren't working on the
show. We'd go on the road and open for Al Jarreau. We had a good time.
Buddy Williams was in the band. He was the drummer on the Saturday
Night Live show, too. Anyway, I gave Dave a tape of some songs I was
writing. I was dreaming about maybe making my own album one day. Dave
called me and said he wanted to record the tunes on my tape. "Which
ones?", I asked. He said, "All of them!" So I went
in the studio and recorded them for Sanborn. That became the "Voyeur"
album. I wrote a lot for Dave after that. Eventually I started producing
because I was writing a lot of songs and I was in the band, too. Nobody
else was that familiar with Dave's music.
MV:
As a recognized master of slap bass, do you find yourself drawing
on that technique as much as you may have in the past?
MM: I use a lot of different techniques on the bass, especially
in the studio. But I will definitely step out there and thump it up
live.
MV:
Everyone who has worked with Miles Davis seems to have a moment or
a story that changed the way they thought about some aspect of music.
Is there any specific reflection that you have that was that influential
in your musical growth?
MM: There are a lot of them. I was really impressed by the
way he reached. He wasn't afraid of his imagination - that some idea
might be too 'out there'. I've tried to do the same thing. Wayne Shorter
is good at that, too.
MV:
What current projects are you working on?
MM: I just finished producing the unbelievable group, Take
6. The album should be out in a couple of months. I scored a movie
called "Serving Sara" which stars Matthew Perry. And I'm
on tour now with my group. We were in Japan for three weeks, now we're
in Germany, starting the European leg.
[Tour poster on right, from MarcusMiller.com]
MV:
Do you have a favorite Marcus Miller recording? If so, why?
MM:
Luther Vandross' "The Night I Fell in Love". Good soul bass.
Bryan Ferry's "Boys and Girls". Nice sound. Dave Sanborn
and Bob James "Double Vision". Bill Schnee, the engineer
gets a beautiful rhythm section sound. Miles Davis "Tutu".
I wasn't sure what that was going to be. It turned out sweet. I also
like my last few albums. I feel pretty well focused on them.
MV:
Do you have any observations about the state of the music business
and any advice to aspiring professional bassists?
MM: I think things come and go but people are always gonna
get excited about great musicians. I think it's important to use your
cultural influences in your music, too. That's what's gonna set you
apart from everybody else!
Thank
you to Marcus for the interview.
For
more information:
For
more information on Marcus, please visit the following websites:
Marcus
Miller's Grammy Award-winning M2
[buy
it now from Amazon.com!]
The
Official Marcus Miller Website - www.marcusmiller.com
3
Deuces Records - http://3deucesrecords.com/
The Marcus Miller Page in Sweden - http://www.aic.se/basslob/miller/
Marcus Miller's (former) Home Page at PRA
Records.
Be
sure to stop by MarcusMiller.com
for the latest tour dates!
