Robert Glasper on Remixing Miles Davis, How Jazz Invented ‘Swagger’

So you basically had access to Sony’s entire Miles archive – any multitrack recording you wanted?
Yes, ’cause when they asked me to do the remix project, I told them I didn’t want to do a remix, necessarily. Normally when you hear “remix,” you think, “OK, they chopped up four bars and looped it and put a hip-hop beat to it.” You’ve heard that before. But I wanted to do something different, so I asked them if I could go into the vault and take multitracks and try to make some new compositions and ideas from those multitracks. ‘Cause I feel like, paying homage to an artist, it’s better to do something that’s inspired by them – a new work that’s inspired by them, versus another person saying they redid your song.

These do sound like entirely new songs. On the Erykah Badu track, it’s almost like she’s duetting with Miles – it sounds like the two of them were in the studio together. 
Exactly. And that was the whole purpose of that song, specifically, to bring those two worlds together. ‘Cause I think Miles would’ve loved Erykah, you know what I mean? And part of the reason I did that too was, I didn’t want every track to be the same. I didn’t want it to be [mock-wearily] a sample from a Miles thing, and you hear trumpet, and you take a part of his solo from the trumpet and you loop it. And there’s trumpets on every track, and this is Miles Davis, and you get it. 

Because I feel like people diminish him to the trumpet, you know what I mean? [Sarcastically] “If you don’t hear the trumpet, it’s not Miles!” And he’s so much more than that, so I made it a point to, you know, have Miles incorporated in every track but in a different way. So for Erykah’s track, he was incorporated literally playing the trumpet. On another track, you might just hear Miles’ handclaps, and the musical palettes are built from songs of his, from the multitracks. Some songs, you might just hear his voice, as far as it being obvious. There’s a song where I have him whistling. There’s different aspects of him – I thought that was a lot fresher of an idea to do, and you can sneak Miles in without it having to be the obvious trumpet thing. 

That approach parallels your own role on this album. You’re a piano player, but you solo very little on Everything’s Beautiful – it seems like you too don’t want to be reduced to your instrument.
Exactly. I’m producing it… I didn’t want to play much at all on this album. I wanted it to be basically new compositions that I made from the frameworks of his old compositions. So most of the stuff you hear is actually original Miles stuff; I just changed it around and built it different. I took a keyboard solo on the Erykah song, and then I took a piano solo at the end of “Milestones,” but that’s all the soloing I do.