11. Miles DavisJack Johnson
I think Davis was quoted as saying that he wanted to put together an unbelievable rock band. Conceivably he could have kept on making beautiful straight jazz records but I love the fact that he was pushing things and wanted to explore. Even if that gave birth to a slew of really horrible music. He’s been an inspiring figure from very early on, I remember I kind of wanted to be him when I was about 15. I asked my parents to buy me a trumpet and they sniggered at me and wouldn’t get me one because they had other priorities but, yeah, I did fall in love with his earlier music in my early teens with albums like Kind Of Blue and Sketches Of Spain. That’s sort of my favourite era; I really love Bitches Brew, it’s an amazing record, as is On The Corner.
But the reason I chose Jack Johnson is it’s got a special place for me, that record. I actually don’t know it as well as Bitches Brew, but I had the opportunity to play Jack Johnson from start to finish. That album was commissioned as a soundtrack for a documentary on Jack Johnson and that film had never been shown in the UK, and it was screened at the Barbican and I was invited to be part of the band. It was one of those situations where the score is performed live to the film. That was the time when I got to play with Jack DeJohnette, the drummer who played on the album. He’s one of my favourite musicians of all time. So that was a really special experience for me because it was about meeting an artist who’d been a part of my development and an inspiration in my formative years. I’m also fascinated by how those records were made, because Teo Macero would basically make all these edits to construct the tunes from different takes. It’s just amazing to me, thinking in a pre-digital age, to achieve such holistic impressions through an editing process like that. Just what kind of vision that must have taken. I can just imagine going through all those takes and going, "Yep, that’s brilliant, that’s brilliant, that’s brilliant… shit. What are we going to do, just stack these on top of each other?" I bet you all the recording they did had serious vibe.
