Jason Miles "BLACK MAGIC" - CD release on March 6th, 2020 on Ropeadope Records

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With his newest release "Black Magic", Jason Miles is exploring the possibilities of the small electric ensemble, with Philip Dizack on trumpet, Jay Rodriguez on sax & bass clarinet, Reggie Washington on bass and Gene Lake on drums.

Producer and keyboardist Jason Miles has led a spirited lifetime in jazz circles. He served as an integral member of recordings by Miles Davis - significantly as a synthesizer programmer for such key latter-day albums as 1986's "Tutu", 1989's "Amandla" and "Music from Siesta". Miles Davis called him a "genius" for his intuitive keyboard flair. He had no idea how these instruments worked and Jason was a master at playing them. Miles Davis amplified Jason's life and career.
For Jason, the insatiable hunger to embrace and appreciate all genres of music goes back to his childhood. He grew up like so many of his generation immersed in the pop hits of the day. But by the time he reached his teens, he started to "pay attention to more serious music" like Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wes Montgomery. "I was always musically curious and wasn't scared to buy a record that I didn't know, but looked interesting, " he says.

Jason has always been a restless seeker, from extensive collaborations with such giants as Miles Davis, Luther Vandross, Grover Washington Jr., David Sanborn, Marcus Miller, Michael Brecker, The Crusaders, Ruben Blades, Freddy Cole, Joe Sample, Herb Alpert, Vanessa Williams, to his own critically acclaimed recordings - including To Grover With Love: Live in Japan (2016), Kind of New (2015 with trumpeter Ingrid Jensen), Global Noize (2008), What's Going On? Songs of Marvin Gaye (2006) and Miles to Miles (2005). He has shifted seamlessly between a multitude of genres, from R&B to pop to Brazilian music and from children's music to country and of course several different strains of jazz, from Latin to fusion. He has performed at top festivals and venues throughout the world.
Jason Miles also added his touch to recordings by some of the biggest names in the business: Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Chaka Khan and dozens more.

Jason says:

"In February 2019, I was working on new music when I saw that Herbie Hancock was performing at the Bergen PAC in New Jersey. Herbie immediately raised the level of creativity to that level of rarefied creative air. Stunning! After the show, I went backstage to say hi to Herbie, give him a couple of my CDs and absorb some words of wisdom. When I came home, I realized the music that I had was really good but just not good enough after what I'd just heard."

"I spent the next week in my studio determined to reach deep down inside to write some new music and it was a success. I got Philip, Jay, Reggie and Gene to participate in two new studio tracks and called my friends Steve Wolf and Jimmy Bralower (two of the best drum programmers in the world) to give me a couple of new grooves that I could perform two solo pieces on. A couple of weeks later everything was done with 6 new studio tracks and 4 live tracks from NuBlu. After tweaking the mixes with Bralower at his studio and giving the project to Mike Fosenkemper at Turtletone studios to master, the musical vision was complete".

"My entire career as a keyboard player/synthesizer programmer has evolved with a certain kind of magic so I decided to call the album BLACK MAGIC".

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