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Have you ever seen the movie where a guy happens into a jazz club late at night and it just so happens that he catches one of those once in a lifetime performances? Well, while that may describe one of several movies that immediately come to mind, that’s the sense one gets when listening Miles High, the newest release from Skip Martin.
With 26 album releases as lead vocalist with Dazz Band, Kool & the Gang and his own solo projects, Grammy winner Skip Martin wanted to record a project where he did his “singing” through his trumpet, and while there is a tad bit of singing involved in Miles High, the vast majority of the album is strictly instrumental.
Miles High begins with the feel good “Do Da”, which has a nice mixture of trumpet and voicebox with a pretty cool distorted sound. For a jazz cd, this song seems to “start it off with a bang” as it were. “I Give My Heart” has kind of an old school soul feel to it with, of course, a good steady amount of trumpet added to the mix. There is a hook (song title) that is actually a number of vocals mixed with good harmonies, and quite a bit of keyboard/synth that give this song a throw back kind of theme.
In “Are You Ready,” the debut single with Skip on trumpet and vocals, Wayman Tisdale on bass guitar, and Ricky Lawson on drums, you can almost smell the stale smoke in the air and see a dark nightclub in front of you with one spotlight on the stage as the music envelopes you. “Are You Ready” is the most laid back song on the album, and it really gives the listener an excellent sense of how smooth jazz is supposed to be. There is also an additional rendition of the song in which Bronze Paragon speaks words over the music, as well as the same concept in a second rendition of the song “Apropos”. This isn’t the best of ideas, but it is original. It almost plays out like a bit of poetry being read in the midst of music; kind of a So I Married An Axe Murder type feel.
Ronnie Laws appears on sax on the “Smooth Sailing” track in a beautiful trumpet and sax duet, ranging from sultry grooves to profound narratives. “Miles High,” the title cut, a tribute to Miles Davis written the night Miles died, shows a range of diverse influences from the modern jazz era.
In Miles High, Martin does an incredible job of encompassing the entire spectrum of jazz. Even if jazz isn’t your cup of tea, the album does a sensational job of pulling in the listener, while possibly even educating one on the finer points of jazz.
Genre: Jazz
Sounds like: Miles Davis
Best Song: “Are You Ready”
