As Ron Carter plucked the opening melody of “So What” on the double bass at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday, Aug. 19, the crowd cheered in recognition of one of Miles Davis‘s signature tunes.
Pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Kenny Garrett and trumpeter Terence Blanchard answered Carter’s melody with the two-note response that inspired the song’s name, as drummer Vinnie Colaiuta kept a steady swing groove on the ride cymbal, snare and bass drum.
If you closed your eyes, you might remember the first time you ever heard this opening track to Davis’s 1959 album “Kind of Blue,” or maybe, if you were old enough and lucky enough, a time you heard Davis play it live himself.
The concert was titled Herbie Hancock Celebrates Miles Davis, and who better than Hancock, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s creative chair for jazz, to organize this celebration in honor of the centennial of Davis’s birth this year.
Hancock, 86, was a member of Davis’s Second Great Quintet in the ’60s, with Carter, 89, the other surviving member of that band. Blanchard, Garrett, and Colaiuta filled in for the late Davis, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams, respectively.
The quintet performance came between sets by a big band led by conductor Vince Mendoza that featured Blanchard playing music from Davis’s late ’50s albums “Miles Ahead” and “Porgy and Bess,” and the electric band that replaced Carter with bassist Marcus Miller and added keyboard player Julian Pollack to play songs from Davis’s jazz fusion years.
“So What” led into “Sorcerer,” the title track of Davis’s 1967 album, a tune written by Hancock and named after Hancock’s nickname for Davis. Its angular post-bop vibes featured Blanchard and Garrett skittering over the rhythm section’s cool feel.
A pair of songs featuring Hancock and Carter followed. “My Funny Valentine” was played as a duet, the other three musicians stepping offstage. Is it odd to play a trumpet-less song in tribute to Davis? Not if you listen to the live version on his 1965 live album, also titled “My Funny Valentine,” where you’ll hear Carter and Hancock doing the same three or four minutes of bass and piano before Davis comes back in.
Their take on “My Funny Valentine” was exquisite and had the audience as hushed and attentive as any I can remember ever being part of at the Bowl. It was followed by “Eighty-One,” which featured Blanchard soloing over Carter’s repeating bassline and Hancock’s piano accents.
Carter left as Miller and Pollack joined the band to explore the electronic and fusion era of Davis’s career from the late ’60s into the ’80s.
“Tutu,” the title track of the 1986 album, opened this third act, with Miller, who wrote the song, laying down an Afrobeat-inspired bassline as Blanchard and Garrett swapped solos.
“Miles started listening to James Brown,” Miller told the audience about Davis’s fusion period. “He was hearing Jimi Hendrix. He had a girlfriend who had knee-high boots and a big afro. He decided to use electronic instruments.”
“In a Silent Way” opened the next section, its dreamy soundscape including an echo effect on Blanchard’s trumpet solos with Garrett on soprano sax and Miller switching from bass to bass clarinet and back. It flowed straight into “Bitches Brew,” a signature Miles song from this period.
“Miles Davis loved a melody,” Miller said at the close of “Bitches Brew.” “He was hip, he was cool, he was progressive. But he loved a melody. And in the ’80s he was looking for a melody and he found this.”
“Time After Time,” Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 hit single and one of the great pop songs of the ’80s, followed; its opening melody shifted into a different feel than Lauper’s original before Blanchard’s clear trumpet restored it in his solos of the chorus.
The song also comes with a poignant footnote of sorts. Davis’s last live performance before his death at 65 on Sept. 28, 1991 came at the Hollywood Bowl on Aug. 25, 1991. In that show, Davis played “Time After Time” – the only song repeated in Wednesday’s tribute – with Kenny Garrett, his sax player on this final gig.
“Jean-Pierre,” a 1981 Davis composition that used the simplicity of a French nursery rhyme as the launching pad for melodic improvisations by most of the band, closed out the show.
It had opened with Blanchard fronting a jazz ensemble of about 20 players, including a rhythm section of Christian McBride and Joe LaBarbera on bass and drums, for an opening set.
With Blanchard perched on a stool to the left of conductor Vince Mendoza, the band focused on songs from two of Davis’s collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, 1957’s “Miles Ahead” and 1959’s “Porgy and Bess.”
“If you’re looking for Terence Blanchard tomorrow, he’s gonna be somewhere icing his lip,” Hancock joked later in the concert, but the clear, powerful tone he had at the start of the evening on songs such as “Springsville,” “New Rhumba,” “Miles Ahead” and “Porgy and Bess Suite” remained throughout all that followed.
He might still need an ice pack for his embouchure on Thursday. But for one night, Blanchard and all the other musicians on stage did what they had to in order to do right by Miles.