By Rosine Alleva – Rock At Night EU Editor
In november 2016, in Switzerland, Basel, I had the great privilege to interview Marcus Miller for Rock At Night. It was during his Afrodeezia tour at the famous Baloise Session for the closing night.
A great millesime that year with Jeff Beck to open the festival, Brian Wilson…Both amazing artists sadly gone today. And for the San Javier Jazz Festival closing day, Rock At Night was present and extremely thrilled to interview Marcus Miller again. It’s after this fantastic music celebration that the interview took place.
It’s already the fourth time you participate to the San Javier Jazz Festival. What do you think about this
festival in particular?
Marcus Miller- Well, I think it’s very special! The festival has been running for 27 years, for jazz! It’s not like a pop festival! You have to really be dedicated and you can tell it’s dedicated, to the people. They make sure you’re comfortable, on stage, you saw the audiences. It’s beautiful! So it’s really special.
Music is part of life here with a huge music diversity, what do you think about the
Spanish audience?
Marcus Miller- Yeah, you can tell that music is an inner part of their daily life , not something they deal on to do just on weekends or in the summertime. They feel the music, you can tell they listen very carefully, not just like listening on the surface. And we can tell because when we’re having shows, where people are listening more carefully to appreciate and they were right there with us every time but tonight especially, so they’re very special.
Laid Black was your latest album in 2018. Although you constantly collaborate with a lot of artists, produce, compose, does this leave you any space for a coming album?
Marcus Miller- I always find space but this time, after my collaborations and then to think about an album, there was the pandemic period called covid where I had to decide “are you gonna put out an album during covid? Some of my friends, colleagues did. But with the situation we all found ourselves in in Covid, I decided to wait. And maybe have the opportunity to present people with positivity and hope coming out of Covid. I didn’t know that other crazy things would happen after Covid like politics and so. But now I’ve got music in store to start presenting to people and I’m looking forward to it.
How did you live the pandemic period? What impact do you think it still has on the music industry today?
Marcus Miller- What I really thought was will people stand shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people around them at a concert and listen to music when Covid is over? In other words, is live music finished? Just like the movies, everybody stayed home with their home theatre. Movies aren’t what they used to be before Covid… I really felt that there was a chance that it would affect music as well…
So our first gig coming back from Covid was early 2022, we played in Paris at “La scène musicale”. When I went on stage in front of four thousand people, all so happy to join the music, enjoying the music and be together! I was really gratified to see how thirsty people were, people were missing it, and needed to be together to celebrate. That was really a great feeling.
How do you view the Jazz evolution with the new generation?
Marcus Miller- It’s interesting to see the cycles. I think Jazz’s first trust was from 1920 all the way to 1980. You could see the devolpments every ten years. New Orleans, Big bands, Bebop, Hard bop, Cool jazz, Modal Jazz, Free Jazz, Fusion all the way to 1979,1980. And then the young musicians of the next generation, rather than going to the next style, started going back to different periods of jazz, back to history. They would play music like when it first came on the scene, from the 60’s, playing Miles Davis and get from the 60’s, plus 1980 but this was the beginning of the kind of the second voyage of jazz. A lot of young musicians in the 80’s really followed that. They started learning jazz in school, college, not only jazz in people’s living rooms and in clubs, they were learning the covers. By definition, education didn’t teach about it because when the young musicians were coming through they were really connected to the 60’s.
Next generation started to say they needed to make music for today. Although they studied the path, they seemed more intent on adding new elements like hip hop and rhythms from possible roads. So I’m just interested in watching that kind of path. The same thing happened with R&B, like pop music, black pop music. It started with pure jazz, New Orleans and then blues then Rock n’Roll, soul music, funk music and then hip hop. Soul music has got so sophisticated. It had orchestra, production. It was big! We’re talking about Philly Soul, Motown. The new generations stripped everything and they went to just the beat. Not even singing it, just rapping. That was slowly going up, getting more and more sophisticated. It’s an honor to be able to see the cycles.
You collaborate with many young musicians, bringing your huge experience, what
does this bring to your own music? Tutu revisited is a good example of how
you work with new talents.
Marcus Miller- “Tutu revisited” was when I began to collaborate with musicians, and people were younger than me.
And that started to become my next journey. “Tutu revisited” mission was to rediscover the
music that I worked on with Miles in the 80’s but with new musicians and new perspectives.
And I started to use the guys from that band in my next band to continue on, that was a
rebirth coming.
You recently collaborated on the beautiful single Via Dolorosa. with Fred Hammond, Khristian Dentley, Gabriel Preisser. How did the idea arise to record a new version of this classical Christian song?
Marcus Miller- I can’t take credit! Khristian Dentley, it was his baby. He called me, saying he did this massive “Via Dolorosa”, with Fred Hammond, the opera tenor Gabriel Preisser, himself, a choir, he got all the instruments, the orchestra but he had no introduction. So he asked me to play the bass clarinet on it . He sent me the tape, I played it, sent it back and he said it
was perfect! That’s all I know. But you heard it! I didn’t know it came out.
Jazz’s influenced rock, pop, and hip-hop, despite not being a mainstream genre. Do you think blues, rock will still exist in the future? Many young people don’t seem to be familiar with the names of famous artists in those genres.
Marcus Miller- Knowing names and knowing music are two different things. I know many young musicians. They’re not dealing with the apps but with music files. How do they know who the musicians are? But they sample, they play hip hop. Then the manager tells them they need to get the permission to use this! Because the music maker doesn’t even know who the artist is.
Same for young audiences. You can’t expect young people to just dig into music from 50 years ago unless somebody exposes them to and gives them opportunities to hear classic recordings.
Although tribute bands are also a good opportunity to appreciate rock or blues, would these genres really last?
Marcus Miller- The key elements for rock, blues are timeless and will always be incorporated in many music styles. In the 70’s jazz musicians started to use popular rock instruments. Rock, blues popularity may change, evolve but they will likely endure and influence new generations of musicians.
Thank you very much for this new interview and the fantastic concert. Looking forward to seeing you again on stage.
Marcus Miller- Maybe next time not in 9 years..!
Many thanks to Chris Fritz
WEBISTE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM
From Belgian and Italian parents, I grew up with music, dance and big fun! I love singing since I'm a little girl, I still am, haha. When I was 14, I saw my first concert: T-Rex. Later it was FrankZappa, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Fela, Canned Heat, Little Feat, Bonnie Raitt, Earth, Wind and Fire ....
I dreamed to have a chat with each of them 😀 Before interviewing bands, I used to sing (and still do) and met lots of great musicians. I had the chance to be the support band to Joe Cocker in 2007. I love to communicate and meet people (Italian blood).
Working for magazine, a few years ago, l met José Oliveira! We were working at the same festival in Colmar. 2 people from the South with the same passion just recognized each other...and we stayed in contact since then. Here I am! Enjoying concerts, covering interviews and articles with José for Rock at Night!!
- “Sublime Tragédie” from Monaco to L.A.!!! - February 10, 2026
- Chatting with the Cinelli Brothers at the Yecla Jazz Festival in Spain - October 18, 2025
- Yecla Jazz Festival – Spain with The Next Movement - October 16, 2025
