Miles Smiles with Wallace Roney, Bill Evans, Robben Ford, Joey DeFrancesco, Darryl Jones & Omar Hakim at San Francisco Jazz Festival at Herbst Theatre

More than 20 years after his death, jazz megastar Miles Davis continues to cast a long shadow over the music world. Miles Smiles features some of most prodigious players who thrived in Davis’s final bands, coming together to pay sizzling tribute to their legendary employer. Wallace Roney is the only trumpeter Davis ever mentored and he held down the trumpet chair in the great Tony Williams quintet. Saxophonist Bill Evans had a spectacular run, appearing on six Miles albums in the early ‘80s. Joey DeFrancesco was 17 and unknown outside of Philadelphia when Davis recruited him, a spotlight that revived the flagging fortunes of the Hammond B3 organ...

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More than 20 years after his death, jazz megastar Miles Davis continues to cast a long shadow over the music world. Miles Smiles features some of most prodigious players who thrived in Davis’s final bands, coming together to pay sizzling tribute to their legendary employer. Wallace Roney is the only trumpeter Davis ever mentored and he held down the trumpet chair in the great Tony Williams quintet. Saxophonist Bill Evans had a spectacular run, appearing on six Miles albums in the early ‘80s. Joey DeFrancesco was 17 and unknown outside of Philadelphia when Davis recruited him, a spotlight that revived the flagging fortunes of the Hammond B3 organ. Robben Ford, one of the era’s dominant contemporary jazz guitarists, put in a memorable stint with Davis in the mid-80s. Electric bassist Darryl Jones landed his first touring gig with Davis, filling the formidable shoes of Marcus Miller before moving onto work with Sting and the Rolling Stones. Drummer Omar Hakim, a veteran of Weather Report, appeared on the landmark Davis albums Tutu and Amandla. This gathering of Davis alums qualifies as a monumental jazz event.

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