Although he died 10 years ago, the spirit of legendary jazz musician Miles Davis will fill Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium tonight.
“We’re not just trying to play Miles as he wrote it back then,” said Ambrose Akinmusire.
“We’re trying to capture the spirit of him too, and I think if Miles were in the audience, he wouldn’t want us just playing what he wrote.”
Akinmusire and his quartet will present The Miles Davis Experience: 1949-1959 tonight as part of the Performing Arts Series. The show expenses were roughly
$12,000, said Andrew Holzaepfel, associate director of OU’s Campus Involvement Center.
The Miles Davis Experience will tell of the “challenges and optimism in post-war America, civil rights struggle, historical milestones and the creative cauldron of new music that Miles pioneered and nurtured” through musical performance, iconic images and spoken word narrative, according to a press release.
Davis is often considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, but Akinmusire does not view Davis’s music as his main
contribution.
“It’s not that Miles Davis is more important than any other jazz artist so much as you can learn what an artist should be from him,” Akinmusire said.
“He reinvented himself every eight or 10 years, and you need to do that, to critically look at yourself and analyze it. That’s what he gave to
us.”
Akinmusire said the evening will also include a Q-and-A portion during which students will be able to ask Akinmusire, his quintet and beat poet-style narrator and actor Donald Lacy questions.
“I really hated it when I was younger and these artists would come in and just assume we knew stuff,” he said. “I want to offer myself up as a source of information for young
students.”
Although the music, poetry and images will be from the ’50s, Akinmusire said the show is suited for a younger
crowd.
“I just want people to come with open minds to relax and enjoy the music,” he said.
“Hopefully they will learn something and be challenged in the time they’re there.”
nb360409@ohiou.edu
