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John Beaudin - Hi Jason, nice to talk to you man.

Jason Miles - Hi John. Thanks for connecting with me. You know sometimes we all need to chill and my wife and I watch TV together twice a week. One is for "The Sopranos" and on Thursday night we love to watch "Survivor." We love that mental game crap.

John - Isn't "Survivor" on right now though, you're missing on account of me? (laughing)

Jason - Don't worry she's taping it.(laughing)

John - So you don't watch things like American Idol?

Jason - Not really. On the fringe once in a while I'll catch it. I have a TV in the studio but it usually has the sound off. Sometimes I watch a ball game, I just don't listen to it. I think 'American Idol" is almost like the game shows of the fifties but it's just a different vibe. I think we're trying to turn our youths into something that's maybe not so cool. The problem with "American Idol" is not the winners but what they do to the winners. They turn the winners into something generic. Even though these kids are good and they fit in with the times right now there is no one there that will have a distinct artistic image.

John - I hear the cringing quota on the movie "From Justin to Kelly" was pretty high.

Jason - (laughing) Justin who, right?

John - We'll chat about the Miles Davis project in a second but first I have to tell you "Maximum Grooves" really inspired me. You gave a little more to the genre on that one.

Jason - Well, thank you. I do appreciate that. I'm a child of the same thing that you are. The guys who did it with me definitely understood what I was doing.

John - It was great to see you do the Don Grolnick song "Cactus."(Grolnick died on June 1, 1996 of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma)

Jason - Well, Don Grolnick was a very sublime dry kind of dude who was very funny in his own way. For a while there I didn't get Don, I really didn't. I didn't get it with the music and I didn't get it in what people saw in him but as time went on I started understanding a beauty that he had. It was something completely different and it depended on how good he made you sound and that to me as a player is maybe the ultimate thing. When you make somebody sound great. Sure Don Grolnick had his solo albums and he had some great stuff but if you notice for instance on the last album he did "Medianoche" he had the ensembles together and really built it around the music not around how great of a player he was.

John - I only saw Don Live once and that was with James Taylor. I think it was the summer of 1992. He was Taylor's musical director.

Jason - Yeah, that's what he was doing back then. He came up with a couple a good lines for me I asked him what I had to do to get going when I got back to New York. He said, "Be prepared to go long periods of time without making any money." Another one of his famous lines was "I like the edge however I like to be about two blocks from the edge." His funeral was one of the saddest days of my life. His service was so sad because when I looked around at everybody there we all had this look on our faces; we were all on the same page that day.

John - I know you also knew Herbie Mann who just passed away. We're all getting to that age where our friends, fathers and music hero's days are getting shorter. That happens after you turn 40.

Jason - Yeah, I know what you mean. Herbie and I were close and the one thing I will say is Herbie definitely wasn't ready to die because he had so much life in him. He was Herbie Mann, it was always push, push, he was also so much into the music and his friends and life! He still made it to 75 though.

John - The tune "You Da Mann" that you dedicated to Herbie Mann on "Maximum Grooves - Coast to Coast" is one of my favorite tunes on that album.

Jason - That songs a groove and a half and Derek Trucks just brought it someplace else on guitar.

John - Yeah, that's a rescue tune for someone who's on the fence about this genre.

Jason - Thanks man you know what the format is all about now? It's a "learn to love your reverb" format!

John - (laughing)

Jason - I know it might sound crazy but here in the United States I think its music made out of fear. It's fear that your song won't get played on the radio. As a musician you should think about making a living but I think some of these guys who use too much of the record companies money lose sight. Instead of making what a real record should be it's turned into something else. You know what, a Smooth Jazz record shouldn't cost two hundred thousand dollars so the more the record company gives you the more they dictate what is needed. Everybody wants a Smooth Jazz radio star with the singles but there's no proof that the formula actually sold albums for people.

John - What would you do?

Jason - Well, you have to find that space. You should target your songs on the album,you should have three singles for radio that the label will work for the next year the other songs should keep the feel of what you do but move it a long a bit more. You know I don't find that on some of the records out there but then again some of the people making this stuff are very convinced that what they are doing is very hip. I've been accused of having artists on my records that sound better on my records than they do on their own. (laughing)

John - I've heard you say a few times that you'd like to work with (David) Sanborn again because you felt that there was still something inside him that people haven't heard yet.

Jason - Sure. I was there for a bunch of records and I was really lucky. Well, lucky is one side of it and talented is the other side of it, sometimes you can't be totally humble about it. I wouldn't be there if I didn't have my shit together. The story is I was in that circle with Marcus (Miller), Tommy LiPuma, Luther Vandross with all these major productions going on watching all this go down. I would have had to be an idiot to not pay attention on how they brought out the best in the people and the best in the music. You're only as good as what you learn, if you can't learn anything how can you get good at anything.

John - Well sure but you can lead a horse to water. A person needs the intention to get to the other side and a depth to even recognize an opportunity.

Jason - Yeah but a lot of people understand that. One night when I was with Luther in L.A. working and he looked around and said "You know everybody, it's 8:30 I'm going to sing tonight man so can it everybody has the night off." So I decided I'd go to the movies but the show didn't start until 10:30 so I asked Luther If I could just hang out and he asked "Well what are you going to do?" I told him I'd just sit in the back and he responded "all right just sit in the back but don't say nothing." I just watched him do thing how he got the most out of his vocals. If you're in a situation that's worth a million dollars your not getting paid a million but it's worth a million bucks you have to know what to do. I've been through a lot of cycles in music, four cycles. There were the eighties with all the sequences, synthesizers when technology started getting off the ground and now we're tapeless and it's all digital. It took a lot to learn it all.

John - Did you see Luther on Oprah?

Jason - I did see Luther on Oprah. It's an incredible miracle that he's here and I went through a lot of diets with Luther I don't mind saying that and I was always worried about Luther. He never took care of his health the way that he really could have, you know? I think that this will be a long journey back for him. I wish him the very best.

John - How do you feel about radio?

Jason - Well, it's all about the market research and the radio panels and the big programming meetings so the days of seventies radio like WRVR in New York where they'd play "Bitches Brew." We're not in that society anymore. We're in a consumer society now, we consume and the ads tell us what we consume and the radio keeps us listening so they can sell you stuff. The music in radio is just the filler and what they do is give the audience the blend that they think will keep the people listening until the ads come on.

John - I'm sure you're a fan of Satellite radio?

Jason - Satellite radio is a very important thing. It's not going to kill regular radio or anything but it's collecting a cult of people, well it's growing. There's a million XM customers and that's a lot of people paying for radio at $9.99 a month.

John - The variety is such a huge selling point too.

Jason - Sure. The variety that you have is so right on the money and when you listen to "Watercolors" on XM you're listening to great Smooth Jazz. At least you won't hear the single that's been chopped down for radio. They won't just play the single.

John - They are trying to get into Canada right now as well as Sirius and one of the companies I've worked for since 1989 CHUM is trying to do a Canadian version. Of course I'm hoping CHUM wins it so I could be involved. Jason was there a point in your career where you stopped, took a breath and recognized that you made it?

Jason - Well, one time ok and only one time. Making it is a very bad way to put it.

John - Yeah, it's sort of the cliché that can't really describe the situation but you know what I mean?

Jason - Yeah, I know. A star is born. (laughing) Well, number one I make music and by doing that I can pay the bills but beyond that making music is so much of a blessing no matter how hard it can get and sometimes it's very hard. These days it's getting harder with the way the business side of it goes.

John - So what was that one time that you felt that moment of gratification?

Jason - (laughing) Well now that I think of it I think there were three times. The first was when I first worked with Miles Davis. That to me was the biggest moment of my musical life. How high can you reach well that was high. Another moment was a night that I was working with Marcus (Miller) and we were doing David Sanborn's album. I was doing the synth programming and he did this thing for the movie "Scrooged" with Bill Murray. In the session was Miles, Sanborn, Paul Shaffer, Larry Carlton, Marcus and myself. I was helping Paul Shaffer with the synth stuff. I was standing in the room and as I looked at these guys, my mind was just blown. We were all waiting around because the director of the movie was there and I heard this guy on the phone saying, "Hey man you really have to come down the heaviest dudes are here Miles, Sanborn, Carlton, Paul Shaffer and Jason Miles." (laughing) When he put my name in that place for that moment it really hit me.

John - Yeah, how could that not affect you?

Jason - Well, it did because up to that point this is where I worked this is where I worked to get to another level and there it was the other level.

John - And the other, third moment?

Jason - That would be playing Carnegie Hall with Ivan Lins after the record 'A Love Affair' came out.

John - I love that record.

Jason - Thank you that record was one of my passions of life. We were at Carnegie Hall and everyone was there from the record except Sting who was in Europe at the time. Dave Koz replaced Grover who had passed away of course. What happened was Ivan started playing solo and I went out and stood on the drum rise and I looked out to the whole expanse of Carnegie Hall. Every seat was filled and it was a pretty amazing feeling. So there you go John, those are my three moments. (laughing)

John - Anybody would be honored just to have one of those.

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Watch for Part two of our interview with Jason Miles - Coming soon

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