Miles Davis-Siesta

                                                Siesta

1986 had been a very memorable years for me. Making TuTu, going to Air Studios in Montserrat with Luther. Making interesting music with Lenny White,Marcus,Tommy LiPuma and others. I was always apprehensive thinking that my current gig could always be my last one.

I was always working to perfect my craft. I watched TuTu become a great success and saw Luther get his wish to cross over to the pop charts with “Stop To Love” from the Give  Me the Reason album. I still through it all never felt successful.I always felt there was much more ahead and I wanted to get there.

Right after New Years 1987 a got a call from Marcus telling me that he was asked to do some music for a film that Miles was going to be playing on. It was called Siesta and it took place in Spain and it was a crazy story that they wanted music that would be like Sketches of Spain.

Marcus had to write a few tracks that Miles would be playing on. Since it wasn’t a great budget we would do strings and orchestrations using keyboards. We were totally capable of doing that and I started to think about what I would need to pull this together. I spent a few days at home programming some interesting pads and orchestral kind of sounds. Then I got the call that we would be going to Sigma Sound in NYC for a week to pull this together. No demos,just go in look at the movie and do the music to the film. A director named Mary Lambert had directed the movie. She had previously done the movie Pet Cemetery… what a change this would be This came through a manager in NYC named Gary Kurfurst. Gary had managed The Talking Heads and other major acts. One of the other points was that they money was just OK cause it was an indie film but still decent..Not however on the Luther or Tommy level.

Still to be back in the studio with Miles Davis and Marcus was very cool and another feather in my cap

Well, New York City in January is freaking cold no doubt about it. This was no different than any other January, but the good news is we were inside all day. The first day I heard what Marcus was putting together We had a tracks called  Lost in Madrid,..Theme from Siesta that Miles would play on. It started out as well with  John Scofield on acoustic Guitar and Omar Hakim on Drums. As the session started developing, I started to realizing this was not going to be just using orchestra sounds.. this was going to be some serious contemporary music using very interesting pads and timbers as well as sound effects and an eeriness that would reflect the theme of the movie that I had no idea what it was until I started watching it and realized how actually surrealistic of a movie this was going to be. All you have to do is listen to how the the first track starts . Serious affects that are all entwining with each other . A complicated maneuver to figure out how to bring the music in after this . This was absolutely going to be a major challenge. The other thing you have to realize is that there wasn’t a lot of time to spend to get bogged down in the studio because of the budget.. I think we got off to a great start and as usual the communication between Marcus and me was spot on. There was no lag time. Trying to figure things out. We were moving ahead with these cues. It was really nice to see Omar and John in the studio and hang for a bit. We had a very capable engineer John Convertino that we got through Sigma. 

Sigma Sound was one of those legendary studios, but the one in Philadelphia was really the legendary one was so many hits were done during the 70s and before. Patti LaBelle, Grover Washington Jr. The Spinners, The Ojays all of the big acts recorded there. Thom Bell, Gamble and Huff we’re based out of .. one of those musical temples of recording.There was no doubt about it that the sessions were going to be long every day. There was a lot of work to do and different ways of trying the music to make it work with this very eerie kind of movie that was slowly unfolding in front of me. I was staying at my usual spot at the Excelsior hotel across the street from the museum of natural history. at $50 a night the price was right and I could just jump on the #1 train on Broadway in the morning and make it to the studio. These were easily going to be 14 hour days and require patience and trial and error. Mary Lambert the director was in LA so we had to get the music overnighted to her for her approval.

Even though I wasn’t getting paid top dollar the money was still good. My synthesizer rig had been constantly growing. my sound libraries as well and I was well stocked to handle anything. The second day of the session I was walking over to the subway on Columbus Avenue and passed by a great clothing store named Henry Lehr. I looked in the window for a second and they had some really hip clothes.. there I saw this shirt that was just screaming that I should come inside and check it out. so I went inside and I checked it out and the woman in there whose name I do forget but he was very nice and ended up knowing her for a number of years told me that shirt was in my size. I tried it on and it was happening.. it was by a very hip company called Go Silk. It was also $150 which I really wasn’t used to spending on a shirt.. I called up Kathy and since I had a pretty fat check in my pocket  she said buy it. 

Why am mentioning this now is because the shirt definitely comes up in the scenario in the next few days. 

We are working away and basically concentrating on the two tracks Lost in Madrid and Siesta that we started the day before because that’s basically what they contracted Marcus to do.  He was going to do the songs with Miles and that was it. We’re putting together all kinds of interesting textures, and all kinds of interesting moods on the songs kind of an extension of what we were doing on TuTu with a distinct Spanish flair. The one thing that was great was having the Emulator 2 with all of the samples and ability to sample. The Linn 9000 sequencer/Drum Machine. after much struggle with the software for the instrument, it finally was stable and worked perfectly for what we needed it for. we could have the drums and the sequence are going at the same time and locking it to the film  the Roland SBX 80 sync box which is time went on over the years was totally indispensable. 

As we’re working through the day, Marcus says that tomorrow. Miles is going to come in and play. Everybody is very excited about that.. the next day I get up and I decide you know, I’m gonna wear the shirt to the studio. We work through the day and get the word that Miles is going to show up about 6 o’clock. Everything is prepared for him to play and 6 o’clock comes in here comes Jim Rose, Miles right hand, man, and right behind him is Miles. He immediately sees Marcus and gives him a nice hug and then looks over and sees me and gives me definitely the wave and a good look. It was definitely a look of recognition that he definitely knew what I had done previously. 

So Miles starts playing and he is playing open horn just like he did on sketches of Spain and that big wide sound is so beautiful. Of course, everybody’s a little nervous, because look who’s in there no matter how good the vibe is. We get through one of the tracks and then Marcus goes up to Miles and ask him if he’s hungry and like to eat some dinner with us. Miles is up for that and I don’t know why he has this uncanny vibe of knowing what to do, but Marcus asked him if he wants some ribs and Miles acknowledges that that’s a good idea. So there is a barbecue place not far from the studio that we order from and meanwhile, we go back in the room to do some touchups from the track before.

Now the food comes and Miles walks up to me and feels the material on my shirt and says

“Jason This is a nice shirt, where did you get it? “ I told him and we just had a little chitchat and then he said “Just remember it’s all part of the Show!” that was a serious comment because I thought about it and I thought that as a musician that your clothes did represent the kind of vibe that you create about yourself. You find a look and you build it and that’s what I did over the years as far as what I wear, and how I present present myself. if anybody would know about dressing sharp and presenting a vibe it’s Miles Davis. So we go into the lounge and we sit down and start to eat and talk a little bit about the music and all of a sudden Miles holding court and talking about things that happened in the past and his life in St. Louis with his sister driving this old car and his family vibe there. He goes and morphs into talking about Bird  and Coltrane and we are all sitting in mesmerized at sitting in the room and listening to this true musical icon, and his reminiscing and observations about life and the music. 

I won’t forget that 90 minutes ever. 

Miles he’s in a really good mood and we’re in the studio and he’s playing on another track.

We are definitely feeling very up as what we are listening back to something so beautiful with him playing that open horn.. Marcus is composition is really coming alive and the sounds that surround Miles are ethereal and beautiful. The points that happen when people come in and say really good stuff about you and what you were doing is to be humble and acknowledge it, and understand that that is what is expected of you and it’s a pleasant surprise when it’s recognized. The more we listen to the more I’m thinking that this is way ahead of the movie and that I hope that they take advantage of such a beautiful soundtrack so far. The reality is the movie hasn’t been scored yet they don’t know what they’re going to do and we have three tracks that we’re working on. 

Another scene shows up at the studio the next day, and it is crazy scene with this weird cab driver, taking Ellen Barkan through the streets of Madrid. were using samples and interesting percussion voice samples to make this weird scene actually be weird. I don’t know if it was going to make the movie or not but we ended up calling The Colgate Smile for some strange reason because the guy had a weird smile. Past the point of having. Miles on the tracks, and doing scoring on a couple of scenes. The next thing you know the word comes in that they want Marcus to do the rest of the score and they want him to do it in LA. He has to do the whole score in a week. I figure well I’m done and he probably use someone out there that he’s used before and it’s familiar with. I know who he was thinking of and this person was very qualified There’s no doubt about it but the LA vibe was they work slow. 

So I’ve got one more day left on this job as it’s Thursday. Marcus comes in the studio and immediately says to me come here man I need to talk to you… OK what’s up. Usually with me my insecurity always makes it soI’m ready for the next shoe to drop even though it never has.

We going to the lounge and he says to me look man do you want to come out to LA with me and finish this?. We have do it in the week and work fast. I know that if I worked with …..

I’m not getting it done in a week. I of course, was incredibly flattered and said let’s do it.

The next thing you know I’m getting a call from Gary Kurfursts office and they already booked a plane flight for me and now they need to know what equipment I need because they’re going to rent everything. I will, of course bring out my cases of sounds with me with all of my disks. Back then we weren’t using hard drives we were using floppy disks.! Talk about ancient.. but that’s what we had. They were going to put me up at the legendary Sunset Marquis hotel in West Hollywood.. get me a car, per diem, and I’d be making some more money for sure.

The one thing that I did figure out I wouldn’t be getting is sleep.

OK so I am now in LA. And at the Sunset Marquis and they have me in a very nice suite. I can order breakfast and the company will pick it up. We are going to be working at Amigo Studios out in the valley. We want to hit it at noon every day. So I get there at 11 AM because all of the gear is there and we need to set it up in in the control room. there is nobody there to really help me set it up the way I know how to need to so I can interface the way that I do with my own system in New York. I have most of the gear that I used, and I brought out my programs for the analog synthesizes on cassettes with a little data cassette deck, so I can load my sounds in.

I meet the engineer Steven Strassman.He seems cool but of course we’ve never worked together and he knows very little about me, but he knows that this is a real job we have to do and it’s going to be intense . I meet a few people at the studio and one thing that was very cool was right next-door to us working on the TV show Crime Story one of my real heroes Al Kooper along with the greater arranger, Charlie Callelo.. that was very exciting to me. In my mind, Al was the great New York legend, who created so many amazing projects and music. That were a big part of my life. to be working next-door to him amazing.

So in comes Marcus and he’s in totally Gemini mode as he’s very low-key and just walks right in and starts sitting at the piano, playing some stuff that he’s probably trying to go and find a spot to start the music and what he hast to do.. this is a major bit of pressure composing right on the spot to the movie. This is how it has to get done though. I’m sitting in the control room

And he just walked in just a matter-of-factly and goes J get me those voices with the cello in them and see if we can find some synthesizer to add to it.No Hello how are you, how was the flight? He just jumped right into it, but knowing Marcus that doesn’t surprise me. 

Now we are looking at this opening scene and the opening scene is Ellen Barkan laying naked in a stream in Spain. But she has a red dress kind of draped over her. We didn’t know what to expect when the movie started running on the monitor, and when it did, we both started looking at each other and really started laughing. OK! We are off to a good start.! Who can complain Ellen looks amazing.. and yes it was full frontal and I was like wow what is this movie about? I’m just gonna say that it was surrealistic from beginning to end. A great cast with Jody Foster and Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Martin Sheen. The settings are in Madrid, and it’s basically about a woman who is a daredevil who’s going to jump out of a plane without a parachute and land on a trampoline in the middle of the desert. There’s a chance she’s gonna die and she goes to Spain to find her formal lover cause even though she’s married to Martin Sheen she still in love with him and that is Gabriel Byrne. OK if I get into the rest of the movie, I’m totally gonna lose you but let’s just say you should go check it out if you can find it somewhere in 2024.

Marcus’s concentration is really intense and we are moving meticulously through various different scenes and it definitely is a slow process and very deliberate. The one thing I know is that I am working fast and when he needs something I am whipping it up to perfection pretty quickly so he can keep on working. I know it helped because it didn’t break his concentration..

Once he started getting into the scene and I saw him really getting into the composing sometimes I would leave the control room and go play some video games because I didn’t want to keep on hearing the same parts over again to influence me to come back to the same thing I was doing. I wanted to try to be surprised so I could do it on the fly and inspiration.

It was working. I think the engineer Steven was duly impressed with how Marcus and I were working together. it was very meticulous and even though time-consuming there was no waste of time, and nothing bogging us down.

Mary Lambert shows up and she seems pretty happy that Marcus is doing the score and she’s hanging out with us for a bit listening back and checking out the seams and I know she was very happy. There was a very intense scene that we were working on and I knew it was gonna take Marcus a minute so I decided to go next-door and introduce myself to Al and Charlie because I really wanted to meet them. Al was cordial, although not very warm but still I had a nice conversation with him and I definitely had a connection with Charlie because he had worked out of The House of Music in West Orange, New Jersey, which was one of my homebase studios run by Charlie and Irene Conrad. Charlie had been the arranger on that amazing album, Dr. Buzzards Savannah band. Charlie truly was legendary. it was an interesting combination and they had this moving studio that they could just do all the scoring on and then move it on wheels right into the room where they can put it right down on tape and sync it to the film.. very cool, and very stated the art.

Marcus wrote another piece that he wanted Miles on, and Miles was in town staying at his place in Malibu but I don’t think he was going to come by the week that I was there. We were very deep into it. The Sunset Marquis was a very cool place to stay. It was pretty laid-back. I saw some pretty famous movie stars staying there. One morning I went down for breakfast and then with Gene Hackman. What a legend. This is starting to happen, and I’m getting this kind of work on the upper tier, and delivering the goods. The one thing I knew was that I was keeping it loose in the studio and keeping the vibe up. I think the room needed that because it was intense getting through the scenes. as I keep mentioning it was a very eerie and ethereal movie and Marcus had to go through creating Spanish motifs along with some weird kind of horror movie soundtrack. 

One thing I didn’t mention was that at that point in my career, I was being managed by Michael Lang. Michael claim to fame was he was one of the organizers of Woodstock. Without getting too deep into it right now I can tell you that there is a chapter in the book where I talk about personal relationships and I will cover more about Michael during that part and explain the whole vibe behind our relationship. I can just say that for what I offered it was disappointing at times. Michael was managing Joe Cocker and managed to get Joe signed to capital records in the United States because he was doing so well in Europe. I’m bringing this up because I got a call from his office saying that Michael was going to be in LA and that he was going to be staying at the Sunset Marquis. I had about 90 minutes in the morning to do something before I had to leave to the studio but one day as I was walking down to go to get my car Michael was sitting in the lobby with Joe Smith who is the president of capital records. no at that point wouldn’t have been great for him to really give me a great introduction. The vibe we were trying to create was to build me as an upper tier, Musician, and Producer.. when I walked into the lobby and saw michael there, I stopped for a second to say hi and Michael’s introduction was very basically bland. No excitement no kind of building me up a little bit telling Joe that maybe we could have a meeting and I can tell him what I’ve been doing and that I’m in town working with Miles Davis!! it was extremely disappointing to me, and I saw the writing on the wall at that point. Any of your other clients working with Miles Davis,Luther Vandross, Chaka Khan, and other great artists? 

I did invite Michael to come to the studio and he did come one night, but he always kept his cards close to the vest and never showed too much excitement. I introduced him to Marcus and Gary Kurfurst showed up also along with Mary Lambert. I looked at michael the same way after that, and as I said, they’ll be more about him, and a more focused chapter in this book.

So we are working 14 hour days and I know that we are tired as hell and Marcus is definitely stretched but he’s really coming up with some fantastic music and I know that the LA people that have come by the studio are duly impressed of what they are he. You don’t realize that people know about you because you don’t pay them much attention to the word getting out there but people had known about Marcus and I and working with Miles and Luther.. 

Now it’s Thursday and who happens to give a call to the studio but Tommy LiPuma.Saturday is going to be my last day because I’ve got a jingle final on Monday morning in New York and I thought we were pretty much done at that point as Saturday  was coming. Tommy however, was not done with the George Benson ,Earl Klugh album and they needed to be some more synthesizer over. So Tommy wanted to know if when we finish Siesta on Saturday night if we could start with him around midnight and work till three or 4 o’clock in the morning and finish the overdub on the two of Marcus. I would get paid double scale for two sessions.. still I had to get up at 9 o’clock in the morning to make the plane to come back to New York and I had to pack up all the gear. 

Tommy shows up about 1130 on Saturday  night and I’ve got to tell you I was barely functioning.I went in the lounge and close my eyes and told them when they needed me just to nudge me because I was so burnt. But I went in the room and in those three hours we got those overdubs done, and we came up with some very nice parts. Hanging with Tommy was always cool, but we were both incredibly tired. We were done every night at two in the morning and by the time I got to sleep it was four and then I got up about 10 , took a shower, ate breakfast and went right over to the studio. Now it’s 4 AM on Sunday  morning and I’m packing up the gear. I go back to the hotel it’s about 530. I gotta get up at eight… bring the car back to the airport jump on a plane and head back to New York. I wasn’t even going to go home. I went right to the Excelsior hotel. Here is the deal, however… it is Super Bowl Sunday and the Giants are playing. I believe the Denver Broncos in LA. I have to take this flight at 10 AM because later that day every flight is booked because of all the people coming back to New York from the Super Bowl. Talk about a crazy scenario. The plane was really empty going back to New York.

When I got to the hotel, I walked in the room and there was the game just starting.

The Giants won. Marcus took the day off. But I know he had to come back in the studio on Monday and some of the gear was still there, especially the emulator, and I left him some disks of some of the orchestra stuff..Miles play on some more cues but I knew that didn’t have an effect on me.

I went to bed right after the game and slept all through the night got up the next day, and my gear was at the studio that I had sent in that was already packed up because I knew about the jingle before I left for LA. Home and basically just want to do nothing and the phone rings and it’s Marcus and there’s a few things that still need to be done so I walked him through using the emulator.. the next day Miles came to the studio and played more trumpet. Everybody was very happy.

So you would think that’s the end of the story.. but it’s far from it. The movie basically came out and did nothing. It’s definitely a movie worth checking out because there is a great cast and incredible story but that’s happens with indie movies sometimes. The biggest story is what happens to the music that was so fantastic.. definitely an album has got to come out because this is really great and very imaginative music. Now for the snag..Miles representatives wanted it to be a Miles Davis album. Reality was that for the album he wasn’t on it and Marcus was doing all the composing and playing and we were both in there creating this beautiful piece of work. It should be Miles Davis and Marcus Miller Music from Siesta.. well that wasn’t going to fly and Warner Bros got in the middle of it and for almost a year it was pretty messy. Marcus deserved every bit of the credit he should’ve been getting because I saw what he went through to create this music and I know what I went through to make sure it all had that extra special thing to it that even though it was traditional it definitely wasn’t and had a futuristic to it. 

There is a possibility that this album will never come out, and that would be an incredible shame. I don’t really know whether Miles actually knew what was going on and all the drama behind-the-scenes. so according to my recollection, Marcus went and had a meeting with Miles and told him all the work that was put into a good portion of the album that he wasn’t there for. If I remember correctly Miles asked him what he was doing while we were making the record. And I guess he said I guess I was just kicking back.! A couple days later, after the months of drama, the word came down that Siesta would be coming out! That was great news.

But the other thing was that we needed another song to add to the project. 

I got a call from Marcus’s coordinator Bibi, who tells me that he’s got to put together another song for the album and we want to go into Minot in a few days and cut a new track. OK no problem let’s get it done. Well now we are at the studio on a nice summers day and I’m prepared to spend a good 12th to 14 hours to put this together. Ray Bardani is going to be the engineer and they’re gonna probably mix it the very next day. I can just say that this is an incredibly creative track that we did….Conchita/Lament. This track has got everything… next level. A great mix.. we really put a great effort into it that day, and just didn’t go and added as filler. Miles wasn’t going to be playing on it and this was Marcus’s show.. the line of communication was strong and man the creativity was truly flowing.. Minot was a great hang.. one of our favorite studios.. totally out of the way in White Plains and you’re always felt it was your own little personal hang.. Tom Camilo ran a good place, and it always felt like family.

The upside of the song was we all got to make a few extra dollars and they were well earned and well-deserved with the amount of time that was put into this project. Before the movie came out, we went to a screening in New York at a screening center on Broadway. Some cool people showed up like Chris Franz and Tina Weymouth from the Talking Heads and I think everybody believed it was something really good happening there, but it was pretty damn ethereal to think that the general public was going to catch on the premise of this movie..

I seen the movie about 15 times from working on it and it was a very heady piece of work.

If you get a chance check it out I’m sure you can find it somewhere… but if you can’t at least go to the music services and listen to this wonderful soundtrack and know the story that I just told you and what it took to get it to that place.

Musical Comments

The reality is that nobody knew what this was going to sound like when we started working on it. I think it is an album that really deserves some attention for what really was put together here. Again a combination of instruments with electronics that brought the music and sound to a whole other place. The melodies are so strong and so many beautiful moments..

Siesta with John Scofield on Guitar,Omar Hakim on Drums,Marcus on Bass clarinet and Miles on Open Horn. The Keyboard textures just open up the song to whole other place.

Claire..you can’t emulate feelings with when it comes to a melody.Earl Klugh adds beauty with his classical guitar and again creating those unique textures brings the composition and track to a very contemporary place. Miles and the open horn along with Marcus’s fretless bass.

Los Feliz.. this is one incredibly beautiful track.  It matches the scene of the movie so beautifully and so dramatically as it all comes together at the end for you to see what this movie really was about. I thought it was a great idea To have James Walker add real Flute to the flute samples.

Conchita.As I mentioned earlier we did this track about 7 months after the album was done.

You can hear some real crazy stuff going on. When Marcus asked me about having something that had some water flowing through it… I took out a sample of a toilet bowl flushing and it’s crazy as it sounds it worked perfectly. Those are those moments when you just start laughing and you have no idea why it worked but it did..

It was also difficult working when you don’t have your own equipment there and for all of the sessions in LA I was using rental equipment. it would’ve been too much money sending all of my stuff out there and I’m sure they got a good deal at the rental company. But I did use the Emulator 2, Yamaha DX72 with TX Rack, Oberheim Matrix 12, and a couple of others I don’t remember. ,

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