Florida Welcomes the Miles Davis Electric Band for Two Shows This Weekend
The Miles Davis legacy is alive in well — in music, in the movies, in documentaries, and on stage now, thanks to Vincent Wilburn, Jr., and the amazing collective Miles Davis Electric Band. Since its inception in 2010, this group of musicians has performed the music of Davis’s electric period — from 1969 on — for jazz and fusion fans around the globe.
Wilburn, nephew of late jazz icon Miles Davis, oversees Miles Davis Properties, LLC, along with Erin Davis (son of Miles), Cheryl Davis (daughter of Miles), and general manager Darryl Porter. He has played drums with, recorded with, and produced with Uncle Miles, as he lovingly calls him. He co-produced albums such as AURA, Decoy, and You’re Under Arrest. He also co-produced Miles From India featuring Badal Roy and has toured internationally with the Miles From India ensemble.
The core band of the Miles Davis Electric Band, which involves a rotating cast of musical greats, includes Vincent Wilburn, Jr., drums; John Beasley, keyboards; Robert Irving III, keyboards; Mino Cinulu, drums, percussion; Munyungo Jackson, percussion, production; Darryl Jones, bass; Badal Roy, tabla, percussion; Blackbyrd McKnight, guitar; Antoine Roney, tenor, soprano saxophones; and DJ Logic, turntables.
All of these gentlemen have their own bands and side projects, but Wilburn has a powerful “bench” from which to draw. The group that will play The Capitol Theater in Clearwater this Friday (November 17th) and the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall on Saturday will be:
Vince Wilburn, Jr., drums; David Gilmore, guitar; Dwayne Mono Neon Thomas, Jr., bass; Munyungo Jackson, percussion; Robert Irving III, keyboards; Etienne Charles, trumpet; Antoine Roney, bass clarinet / tenor sax / soprano sax; and Debashish Chaudhuri, tabla.
Miles Davis Electric Band
11/17 The Capitol Theater | Clearwater FL
11/18 Ponte Vedra Music Hall | Ponte Vedra FL
Wilburn was kind enough to do a phone interview Tuesday for MusicFestNews and for WMNF radio in Tampa, where I host the Sunday evening program The Colors of Jazz. Here is our conversation, and included is the audio as well.
SH: We’re speaking with Vince Wiburn, the drummer for the Miles Davis Electric Band. So, Vince, tell us how Florida was lucky enough to get these three shows this weekend.
VW: Well, we, I played Florida once with Uncle Miles in the ’80s.
SH: I was there!
VW: OK!
SH: Ruth Eckerd Hall in ’86, I think.
VW: Right, right. We have an agent, Michael Morris with Paradigm Agency, and the gigs came up through Michael. Unfortunately, we can’t do Ft. Lauderdale (scheduled for Thursday), but the other two are on the books.
SH: So this band had its genesis for about four or five years, I take it.
VW: Since 2010, actually.
SH: And how long has this group of ten musicians been together?
VW: Well, it has interchangeable parts…
SH: I’m sure; it has to.
VW: Some guys are on tour with other artists or on their own. When Darryl Jones is out with the Rolling Stones, Dwayne Mono Neon Thomas, Jr., plays bass. If Munyungo is out with Stevie Wonder, then we have someone to replace Munyungo, but this core of nine or ten guys, we’ve been working together for a while. And the trumpet chair floats.
SH: I was going to ask about that, because that is the one name that was missing from the list.
VW: For this Florida run, it will be Etienne Charles.
SH: WOW! OK!
VW: We were in Japan with Christian Scott, we were in Honolulu with Keyon Harrold, who played on the Miles Ahead soundtrack. We’ve had Sean Jones, we’ve had Wallace Roney, we’ve had Nicholas Payton, to name a few.
SH: That’s steep company!
VW: The best in the business.
SH: Absolutely. 100%. And it would appear from the list I see that seven of you played with Miles or recorded with Miles, and the only three who didn’t play with Miles were Blackbyrd (McKnight), Antoine Roney, and DJ Logic.
VW: Actually, Blackbyrd did play with Miles, and DJ did not, and Antoine did not. His brother played with Miles on the Montreal box set, with Quincy Jones.
SH: This is extremely exciting. What range of material are you attempting to honor with this project. [Great. I just insulted him!] A little of everything.
VW: (Laughing… at me) The electric period. Attempt… attempt. We’re going to share with the Florida audiences the electric period from Bitches Brew to “Jean Pierre,” We Want Miles, and all in between. And it’s our interpretation of the music. We’re not Ron (Carter), Tony (Williams), Herbie (Hancock), Jack deJohnette, Wayne (Shorter). We interpret the music of that period.
SH: It’s exciting to see both Robert Irving III and John Beasley on this project.
VW: Let’s go over the personnel, first of all. What do you have?
SH: I have what was on the website, but obviously as we talk about it, it’s interchanging parts.
VW: On bass will be Dwayne Mono Neon Thomas, Jr., on keyboards, Robert Irving III, on trumpet Etienne Charles, on tabla Debashish Chaudhuri, on guitar David Gilmore, on drums Vince Wilburn, on percussion Munyungo Jackson, on bass clarinet, tenor and soprano Antoine Roney. I think that covers everybody.
SH: Bass clarinet. That will be lovely.
VW: How many guys was that, eight or nine? Yes.
SH: And are you doing Australia in the spring?
VW: We just did the Byron Bay Jazz Festival. Awesome. We’re just coming from Toronto, and we did Calgary, and Columbus, Ohio, which was great. Columbus Jazz Fest.
SH: I was excited seeing Badal Roy on the project. The next week, John McLaughlin and Jimmy Herring are in town, and (I) was playing a tune from My Goal’s Beyond, and there was Badal Roy.
VW: Badal Roy is one of the core members, but he is not going to be on the Florida run. So that’s where the replacement — Debashish Chaudhuri comes in. He is a disciple of Badal.
SH: It’s amazing and wonderful that there are such interchangeable parts and that it works so well.
VW: If fits. They get the music, and that’s the important thing. And we gel.
SH: And it keeps the music fresh as well. It keeps the music fresh for you.
VW: You take bass Thomas. He was Prince’s last bass player, by the way. I don’t even think he was born then. He’s the baby of the group. Etienne is a professor at Michigan State University, and he’s from Trinidad. He adds another kind of thing to it. Everybody’s a gumbo. This is a jazz fusion gumbo.
SH: Yes, it is. Tell us a little bit about the Miles Davis Properties group that you help manage with Erin and Cheryl.
VW: Miles Davis Properties consists of Erin Davis, my cousin, Miles’ daughter Cheryl Davis, my cousin, and Mr. Darryl Porter, who is sitting here with a stopwatch… no, I’m just kidding. And what is it, Darryl, all Miles’ likenesses, music… [Daryl takes the phone!]
DP: Miles Davis Properties, LLC, is the holding company that controls all the intellectual property from Miles plus his artifacts and artwork, including name and likeness rights and anything else having to do with the licensing of Miles Davis.
SH: Absolutely.
VW: That’s Darryl.
SH: Yes. That makes perfectly good sense, and I’m glad that somebody is taking care of that.
VW: Daryl is family to us. We grew up together, by the way, in Chicago.
SH: When you look at fusion music and how it’s progressed and expanded into so many different areas, and I thinking because I go to see a lot of jam bands, and they depend entirely on everything that came out of In a Silent Way and then Bitches Brew and then beyond. That was the wellspring from which everything else grew.
VW: Is that question or a statement?
SH: No, just a statement.
VW: Definitely. I look at groups like Snarky Puppy, who opened up for us in Australia…
SH: (laughing) See, I can’t even imagine that. My head just exploded.
VW: I just did a gig last weekend in Chicago with Bobby Sparks from Snarky Puppy, playing with Darryl Jones and me. It’s another project we’re doing. The thing about the kids nowadays, they study the music before us, what we’re trying to explore, and they put their spin on it. Like Thundercat and Kamasi Washington. Kamasi used to play in my band here in L.A., a local band. It’s in good hands.
SH: It is in wonderful hands.
VW: Christian Scott is another trumpeter who plays with us. His band is amazing.
SH: It’s so nice to see that music pop up in so many places. There is an outstanding band from Florida (Come Back Alice) who play Allman Brothers-type stuff, and they also play originals, and I was thinking about the personnel in the band, I said, “I wish they’d do a jazz song,” and within 15 seconds at the show I saw they busted out a 15-minutes of “Hang Up Your Hangups.”
VW: (Laughing)
SH: I saw Umphrey’s McGee several years ago at the Wanee Festival, and they’re having a great show, when all of a sudden I look around, and nobody is figuring out that they’re playing “It’s About That Time” (from In a Silent Way).
VW: It’s universal. Yeah, man! I’m tight with Dwayne Betts, that’s Dickie Betts ‘ son. I’m trying to get him to come on the road with us. That’d be kinda cool. But, no, man, everybody loves Miles. Still!
SH: Yes. We love mIles. I was particularly excited when the first album that came out digitally in ’81. Cannot think of the name.
VW: The Man with the Horn.
SH: That just stood me on my ear. I’d been listening for a long time, but that was remarkable, “Back Seat Betty.”
VW: I played on that record, too. That was the core band when Uncle Miles decided to come back from retirement.
SH: There was a note about a song from ’79 that led Miles to want to get back into it — somewhere on your page.
VW: People say that I was the pivotal guy to get him to play again, but I don’t want to take that credit. When he was ready to play, he was ready to play. I would encourage him any way I could, during the time I spent with him back then. He was his own man. When he was ready, he came back on the scene. He never left the scene; he just took a breather.
SH: Any comments about the movie, the recent movie that you were executive producer (on)?
VW: Don Cheadle was amazing.
SH: Astounding.
VW: I’m glad we won a Grammy for the movie. both Darryl and I were executive producers along with Erin and Cheryl, and I commend Don.
SH: I just thought it was a remarkable, remarkable movie.
VW: I wanted an Oscar, but we’ll take the Grammy. Humbly, a Grammy.
SH: Well, thank you so much. Is there anything else you like to talk about the Florida tour? We’re certainly looking forward to seeing you here on Friday.
VW: I just want to say that we’re happy to be playing in Florida and we can’t wait to come down and share this music with you and the fans and all the music lovers in Florida. Stick around afterwards because we’ll probably do a meet-and-greet; we love to see the music lovers who love this music. We always do meet-and-greets in all of our cities, to meet you face to face. Because sometimes when you’re on stage and then you back to your hotel, you don’t get a chance to mingle with the audience, and we love to do that.
SH: And this is a great small theater that has been revamped, so I think that it is going to do your music justice.
VW: Well, we can’t wait.
SH: Vince Wilburn, thank you very, very much, and we look forward to seeing you on Friday.