Young drummer's got a lot of Miles on him

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Lucas Sader says it's time for him to pay tribute to the music of Miles Davis, since he's spent so much of his life listening to it. (JOHN MCLEOD)

Legendary trumpeter Miles Davis still strikes a chord with young jazz musicians and fans a couple of decades after his death.

And a group of mainly young musicians led by drummer Lucas Sader is reprising the work of the 1960s Miles Davis Quintet, known as the "second great quintet," in a tribute show Sunday, Jan. 15, at Aqua Books.

The trumpeter was many things to many people, but the 1964-'68 quintet of Davis, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and teenage drummer Tony Williams was a powerhouse whose compositions, arrangements and collective musical skills made it one of the best bands in jazz history.

And that is what attracted Sader, a 21-year-old fourth-year student in the jazz studies program at the University of Manitoba faculty of music. That, and the fact that drummer Williams was just 17 when he began playing in that quintet; Sader was about the same age when a music teacher loaned him the Four & More album, where he first hear Williams, as he prepared to audition for the music faculty.

The tribute "was something I've always wanted to do," Sader said. "It was a ground-breaking group in jazz."

In the summer of 2010, the drummer was in Montreal when the We Want Miles: Miles Davis vs. Jazz art exhibit was on display. Sader bought an exhibit catalogue that included handwritten music charts by Hancock and Shorter and used them to put together the music for his Davis project.

"Today the music (of that quintet) really challenges what people think is possible," Sader says. "Most of my friends listen to it a lot, but it takes a lot of listening and practising to play it.

"I listened to it so much of my life, it was time to pay tribute to it," he adds.

The Aqua show will include originals and arrangements of standards by the quintet. "Those are benchmark arrangements of those tunes," Sader says.

"I am going to be recording the show and using it as part of my project's application to this year's (TD Winnipeg International) Jazz Festival."

Sader will also talk about the quintet musicians, their compositions, their input into that group and their role in the history of jazz.

"The idea is to present this music with our own voices, keeping in mind what they played," Sader says.

The Lucas Sader Project includes Sader, bassist Karl Kohut, pianist Will Bonness, tenor saxophonist Niall Bakkestad-Legare and Derrick Gardner, the faculty's new trumpet professor.

Sader and his bandmates "have played many shows together over the past few years. They are all musicians and people of the highest calibre, so to share this experience with them will be very special.

"It's crucial to have Derrick on the gig to provide the lead voice," Sader adds, just as Davis was the most experienced musician and the others younger. "He's pumped for the show."

The tribute set lists include tunes such as The Sorcerer, Pinocchio, E.S.P., No Blues and a Sader arrangement of Ellington's Sophisticated Lady in the style of the Davis quintet.

Tickets to Nineteen Sixties, A tribute to the Miles Davis Quintet, by The Lucas Sader Project, Jan. 15, 8 p.m., Aqua Books, 274 Garry St, are $10 at the door ($5 students).

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Jazz continues to play a big part of the Rady Jewish Community Centre's Music and Mavens series as it marks its 14th season of music and speakers in Tuesday and Thursday afternoon programs (2-3 p.m.) from Jan. 10 to March 8 at 123 Doncaster St.

Singer Helen White opens the series tomorrow fronting a quintet in a concert called Scat, Bebop and Vocalese. If you haven't seen and heard this good singer perform, you should.

On Feb. 16, singer Anna-Lisa Kirby will lead a Jazz Vocal Studio Showcase with students from the University of Manitoba faculty of music's jazz studies program.

On Feb. 28, 12-piece Latin band Tropical 99 -- with members from Canada, the Caribbean and Central and South America -- mixes Latin jazz and blues and other Caribbean sounds

Pianist Ron Paley closes out the season on March 8 accompanying singers Joanna Majoko, Charlotte Martin and Amber Epp.

Admission is $10, $6 for RJCC members.

chris.smith@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 9, 2012 D3