Yesterday I was very pleased to read that Will Layman wrote about my book The Extraordinary Journey of Jason Miles...A Musical Biography in his Pop Matters Column..It brought me to a place that I was able to think a little more about why exactly I wrote this book the way that I wrote it. I didn’t write it as a memoir or a bio. I wanted to bring music fans of all kinds into the experiences that I had in the recording studios and on the road with some of the greatest artists and musicians of our time..
Will just like Marcus Miller who wrote the forward acknowledge the fact that the times that we were making these albums were truly magical. It made me think about what is the percentage of even musicians that were put in the position that I was. Starting as a part of great productions and winding up with my own productions and leading bands and performing a great festivals and venues all over the world and what it took to make that Journey
I wanted to bring people into an experience that they never had the opportunity to experience And maybe never could imagine themselves in the middle of. A number of times during my life I had to pinch myself to really make sure that I was there. Will mentions all these artists and I was in the studio with them all at various times. I saw the personalities and I saw what made them geniuses and I also reminded myself how hard I really had to work to maintain the level of excellence that everybody was expecting from me.
I wanted to bring the reader to a place of happiness and musical Nirvana to let them know what was put into these amazing albums that we were given the privilege to have a great budget for and to be able to spend the time to really craft the music to perfection and totally bring the great talent that the artists we were making the albums with that moment for them to show the world what they really were about as artists and songwriters and musicians.
Yes I would walk in the studio one day and and walk into the lounge and see Steve Gadd sitting here about to play drums on the session or Richard Tee
Telling me how happy he was that we were going to work together that day. Walking in the control room and seeing Tommy LiPuma and the first words out of his mouth were “Hey Babes what’s happening!”
Wills’ column covered some great ground but most importantly it reaffirmed to me that no matter what the outcome is with this 1st book of mine it was worth getting the stories out there because they are documented for future artists ,Engineers,Producers and of course fans to appreciate a truly magic time in the music and recording scene…As Marcus Miller said in the forward that I had the front row seat in the middle of a magic time in the music world.
So here is the link again to Amazon and with the summertime coming up I think this would be a very enjoyable read for those that could want to put themselves sitting next to me while this was all going down
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