Marcus Miller / Neon Villages Town Hall, Birmingham, 28/10/2015.

Marcus Miller is best known as a virtuoso electric bass player, the natural heir of Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke. He’s also famous for his collaborations with Miles Davis back in the 1980s on albums such as “Tutu” and “Amandla” when he pretty much became Davis’ ‘right hand man’. Miller also worked with jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter, keyboard player Herbie Hancock and soul vocalist Luther Vandross plus many others as well as becoming known as a ‘go to’ session musician and record producer.

Miller has appeared on some 350 albums across a variety of genres from rock to rap including around twenty as a leader. His latest release is “Afrodeezia” (Blue Note Records), an album that tells the story of the African diaspora through music and the way in which the sounds and rhythms of West Africa migrated and mutated along the Slave Route to Brazil, the Caribbean, the American South and the industrialised cities of the North such as Chicago, New York and Detroit.
As Miller puts it; “ I wanted to go back to the original source of the rhythms that make up our musical heritage of jazz, soul, rhythm and blues – to follow these elements like footprints from their beginnings in Africa to different ports along the slave route”. 

The “Afrodeezia” album is a direct result of Miller’s involvement as a spokesman for Unesco’s Slave Route Project and features him collaborating with musicians from different locations along the North Atlantic Slave Route including Morocco, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Brazil, Trinidad and New Orleans. I haven’t heard the album yet but on the evidence of tonight’s performance I’d very much like to do so.

Tonight’s show in Birmingham was the last of an eight date UK tour promoted by Serious, following which Miller heads to mainland Europe. Obviously it wasn’t possible for Miller to bring the full international cast of the album out on tour but he had assembled a crack six piece band featuring Alex Han (alto & soprano saxes), Marquis Hill (trumpet), Brett Williams (keyboards), Adam Agati (guitar), Alex Bailey (drum kit) and Mino Cinelu (percussion), the last named having played in the Miles Davis band alongside Miller. However for an old prog rocker like me he’ll forever be associated with the the edition of Gong led by drummer Pierre Moerlen that featured no fewer than three drummer/percussionists.

I’d been a little bit concerned about what the sound quality would be like this evening. I’d been warned that the Miller band could be loud and on my last visit to the Town Hall for a disappointing show by the saxophonist Kenny Garrett (yet another former Miles alumnus) the sound was little short of terrible. Fortunately things were much better this evening, from my seat in the circle the balance was generally good and the volume far from excessive, some of the finer detail of Cinelu’s percussive contributions was lost but overall this was a very minor quibble, so well done to whoever was manning the mixing desk.

The bulk of tonight’s show was sourced from “Afrodeezia” beginning with the lively album opener “Hylife”, a tune that stemmed from Miller’s collaborations with musicians from Senegal and Mali. Miller, sharply dressed in a white T shirt and his trademark hat, introduced the tune on his five string electric bass deploying a slap thumb technique. The song deployed a catchy wordless vocal hook that was sung by Miller and Cinelu, the combination of bass and vocals momentarily reminding me of Cameroonian bassist and singer Richard Bona. But Miller is primarily an instrumentalist and vocals played only a small part in tonight’s performance. Besides the leader there were introductory solos here from Hill on trumpet, Williams on keyboards and Han on alto, the latter squeezing in a quote from Cole Porter’s “Love For Sale”.

The second track from the album, the evocative “B’s River” began with Miller playing the melody on gimbri, the box shaped bass lute found in parts of Morocco and Mali. This was a piece with a strong narrative arc that incorporated further solos from Hill on trumpet and Miller back on his usual electric bass before an extensive percussion feature from Cinelu whose extensive set up featured drums from several different parts of the world including the tabla and the cajon but it was his dazzling performance on the humble triangle that elicited the biggest audience reaction. Agati’s slow burning guitar solo eventually paved the way for Miller to close out the piece by returning to the gimbri.

The articulate and personable Miller described the Slave Route as being the “Voyage of my Ancestors”. By-passing the album’s running order the story now took us direct to Detroit and, inevitably, Motown. “What’s the coolest bass line on a Motown record?” Miller postulated as he started the riff to “My Girl” before abandoning it just as quickly. Instead he gave the award to the Temptations’ “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” and he and his band proceeded to play a compelling instrumental version of the song with Miller sketching the melody on the bass as Agati provided classic wah wah rhythm guitar with horns and keyboards also helping to provide a suitably atmospheric backdrop. The other featured soloist here was trumpeter Hill, a a musician who impressed throughout.

Miller dipped into his illustrious past for “Jean-Pierre”, a tune from the 1981 Miles Davis album “The Man With The Horn”. Davis’ almost child-like tune was the vehicle first for the languid funk of Miller’s bass intro, then the scorching alto solo from Han followed the fiery dialogue between Miller and drummer Bailey, the latter a galvanising presence all evening. Finally Agati weighed in with some searing lead guitar on a piece that clearly delighted the large, but not capacity, crowd.

Arguably the focal point of the set was “Goree” , a piece sourced from Miller’s previous album “Renaissance” (2012) but one which was also inspired by the story of the slave trade. Above a backwash of keyboard samples and effects Miller narrated the story of a slave house on an island off the coast of modern day Senegal that housed captive Africans in appalling conditions as they waited for transportation on the slave ships. When the time came for them to depart they stepped through “the door of no return” and onward to the waiting vessels. But as Miller had stressed in his introduction to the piece he didn’t want to just concentrate on the anger and resentment he felt on first hearing this story, he also wanted to celebrate the positives that had grown out of the diaspora, not least the music that people of all ethnicities have come to know and love. Miller, a talented multi-instrumentalist began this tune on bass clarinet, his sombre tones engaged in a dialogue with Han’s lilting soprano before the saxophonist took over for an incendiary solo that adequately depicted all that rage and resentment, yet somehow also became a celebration as Miller moved back to electric bass and joined forces in rhythm with Bailey and Cinelu.

Miller was born in Brooklyn but his grandparents had moved to New York from Trinidad and Miller paid homage to his Caribbean heritage on “Son Of Macbeth”, a kind of 21st century calypso featuring a dazzling solo from Williams in which his chiming keyboards replicated the sound of steel pans. Further solos came from Agati and Hill with the trumpeter also entering into an enthralling dialogue with Han’s alto.

The inevitable and well deserved encore was a melange of hits associated with Miller including Davis’ “Tutu”. Between the energetic bouts of 80s style funk fuelled by Miller’s bass there was a moment of reflection with Hill’s lovely muted trumpet solo evoking memories of Miles himself.  Later Agati’s blistering blues guitar solo reminded us once more of the Slave Route and the migration of the blues from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago. 

This had been an excellent show from Miller that thoroughly deserved the standing ovation that it received. The standard of musicianship was superb, ( I sense that I haven’t mentioned Bailey often enough, his drumming was terrific throughout) and the programme well balanced with a thought provoking concept informing its construction. Miller presided over the proceedings with wit, charm and intelligence and this was pretty much the full package.

I’ll admit to not being that familiar with Miller’s oeuvre before this show, I’d pretty much dismissed him as a funk artist, a genre of music that I don’t really listen to very often these days, but funk was only one of many ingredients in a performance that lived up to its ‘Slave Route’ precept and incorporated a commendably high jazz content. The style of presentation with its rock style dynamics reminded of a Pat Metheny Group show, a comment that should be construed as high praise in this context. This was a performance that is likely to inspire me to take a look at the new “Afrodeezia” album as well as making further investigations into Miller’s back catalogue. Well done to Marcus and his excellent band.

Earlier the Town Hall crowd had been well entertained by Neon Villages, the new project led by Birmingham based pianist, keyboard player and composer David Austin Grey.  Austin Grey is a highly talented musician and composer who is involved with many other projects including Greyish Quartet and the band Hansu Tori who released the excellent album “An Improvised Escape” in 2014.

Like Miller Austin Grey is a musician who takes a flexible approach towards musical categorisation. The music of Neon Villages incorporates jazz and soul influences and is song based with the band fronted by vocalist Aisling Iris Stephenson and also featuring the fretless bass guitar of Wayne Matthews plus Euan Palmer at the drums. The band have recently released their debut EP which Austin Grey informed us was now available via Bandcamp.

Most of tonight’s songs were sourced from the EP beginning with “Sapphire - Blue Sun” which featured Stephenson’s soul vocals alongside instrumental solos from Austin Grey on keys (he played a Nord keyboard plus an additional synthesiser throughout) and Matthews on bass. Although all the material was essentially song based there was still plenty of room for the instrumentalists to stretch out and improvise during their solos.

Neon Villages is a democratic band with other group members becoming involved in the writing process.  Stephenson’s song “Something” featured her powerful, soulful vocals and was followed by Matthews’ “Celtic Folk Funk” which appropriately incorporated a variety of musical styles and featured Stephenson’s wordless vocalising.

Austin Grey’s tune “A Place Where Love Will Follow” placed the emphasis on his own keyboards with its droning synthesiser intro and later electric piano solo.

Their short support set finished with a re-harmonised arrangement of the jazz standard “When I Fall In Love” which saw the band taking liberties with the time signature and vocal phrasing but without ever sacrificing anything of Stephenson’s innate soulfulness. Along the way the singer enjoyed a scat vocal feature that compared well with the instrumental solos by Austin Grey and Matthews. Towards the end of the tune she even had the audience clapping along to an improvised vocal section that name-checked her band mates plus Marcus Miller.

This short set by Neon Villages was very well received by a supportive home town crowd and this was clearly a very important gig for the band with Austin Grey thanking Jazzlines, Town Hall/Symphony Hall, the Serious organisation and even Marcus Miller himself for allowing them to open this show for a such a prestigious artist at such a major venue. Neon Villages acquitted themselves well. It will be interesting to see how they progress from here.