The Miles Davis-inspired multitasker offers something kind of old, kid of new, kind of borrowed and definitely “kind of blue” on his latest set

When Jason Miles named his 2015 album Kind of New, the title was, of course, inspired by Miles Davis’ 1959 landmark LP, Kind of Blue. But beyond that, the phrase served as a declaration: The most important thing the two artists share is not half a name and two-thirds of an album title, but an insatiable need to keep moving forward. While some musicians might spend an entire career playing blues guitar or jazz saxophone, or making shiny pop hits aimed at the top of the charts, the 68-year-old, Brooklyn-born Miles has made his mark as a master multitasker—laboring as an innovative electronic keyboard programmer and pianist, producer, arranger, session musician, composer, recording artist, facilitator of exciting tribute albums and more.

In 2017, Miles took his new catchphrase to the next step, releasing Kind of New 2: Blue Is Paris, 10 interpretations of the titular song, each featuring a different guest. Now, with the March release of Black Magic, his newest project, the concept has been extended even further. The album is credited to Jason Miles/Kind of New—it’s become something of a personal trademark—and features a mix of brand-new studio recordings and live tracks recorded at the New York City club Nublu in 2018.

“With this new album, I feel like I was really able to accomplish something,” says Miles, who plays keyboards on the 10-track set, accompanied by Gene Lake on drums, Reggie Washington on bass, Jay Rodriguez on saxophones, flute and bass clarinet, and Philip Dizack on trumpet. (Jimmy Bralower and Steven Wolf also provide drum programming on one track each.)

“This band in the studio is a motherfucker. This band live is a motherfucker,” Miles adds with characteristic forthrightness.

Miles had been working on new music for some time, and probably would have recorded and released it as it was. But then, he says, “came the gamechanger. I went to see Herbie Hancock play and I said, ‘He is going to the next gear when there is no next gear to go to.’ I came home and listened to my new songs and I said, ‘These aren’t good enough.’ I put them to the side and said, ‘I’ve got to start fresh.’ All of a sudden, the flow started happening.”

Within a week, Miles had composed the four new songs that start off Black Magic. He committed to recording them but knew that the album would need more. “I wanted to show that doing a record in the studio is different than doing something live,” he says, adding that he came up with the idea of fleshing out the album with material from the Nublu show, including a cover of Davis’ “Jean Pierre” and tunes co-written with three prominent jazz musicians.

Once the album was finished, Miles thought about what to call it and the “Kind of New” concept led him to Black Magic. “Sometimes, you have to go outside the lines to get shit done,” he says, “and that might mean some black magic. Because the regular shit ain’t working.”

In many ways, Miles has always been about operating outside the lines. Although he is known primarily for his work within the jazz realm— the new album, he says, honors the “small, electric, funky group tradition” of bands like Weather Report and Return to Forever. “I’m not a jazz musician,” he clarifies. “I’m a hybrid musician.”

His résumé backs him up. Miles started on the accordion at age 7, then switched to piano and organ. By his early teens, he was already playing music publicly, mostly at resorts in the Catskills, when The Beatles altered his course. Before long, he was catching The Who, The Rascals, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and other seminal acts in concert whenever he could and frequenting New York venues like Fillmore East and the Electric Circus. A chance exposure to music of guitarist Wes Montgomery introduced him to jazz. He soon embraced the piano stylings of Hancock, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Bill Evans and the rest, and when the ‘60s gave way to the ‘70s, Miles became infatuated with the new sounds that would come to be called fusion, such as electric Miles Davis and Weather Report. He became proficient in the emerging technology of the Fender Rhodes and ARP synthesizers and was able to find regular work. Luther Vandross, Grover Washington Jr., Roberta Flack, David Sanborn, Marcus Miller and even Davis himself, who used Miles on his Tutu, Music From Siesta and Amandla albums, are just a few of the artists with whom he’s collaborated over the years.

Since his heady early days, Jason Miles has been nonstop prolific, carving out a parallel career spearheading tribute albums to favorites ranging from Washington to Weather Report, Davis and Marvin Gaye. Another, A Love Affair: The Music of Ivan Lins, nabbed a Grammy for a track Miles produced with Sting on vocals. He’s played on sessions for Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, George Benson, Chaka Khan and many others, and explored such diverse areas as R&B, pop, Brazilian music, children’s music and country (producing Suzy Bogguss’ Sweet Danger). If there are two overriding qualities that suffuse all of the music he works with, then they would be “groove and melody. Keep people in that pocket, and they’re going to be with you,” he says.

What’s next for Miles? “Something in another direction, something that will get the audience into a different conversation” he says unhesitatingly. “This concept, ‘Kind of New,’ could be anything.”