Guildhall Jazz Open Day

Interview with Palle Mikkelborg

by Scott Stroman

Extract from interview transcription, taken 26 June 2023

Scott Stroman: Would you say that Aura is about your feelings about Miles Davis?
Palle Mikkelborg: Exactly. Because that was what they [Leonie Sonning’s Musicpris] asked me to do: ‘He should only play 5 minutes’. I didn’t know that one night the telephone [would ring] in ’84 and I would hear [Miles’] voice: ‘Hey! Palle!’ I thought it was a friend of mine, joking! But it was actually Miles saying ‘I want to record this’.
Funnily enough, he had a little tape recorder with him, an old tape recorder, you know? Where he’s recording on cassette. So he heard that and said ‘I want to record that’. He said ‘Can you make it in ten days or something like that? We will come.’
SS: So he had the concert and he had this little recorder and he had recorded some of it himself?
PM: He recorded some of it and listened to it and then he said ‘I’ll be there’.
SS: Did you actually do it on short notice like this?
PM: We did! In Easy Sound [studio in Copenhagen] and [Miles’] staff arranged it so that the band was there. We picked up soloists [even though] some of them were supposed to go on holiday or whatever. They said ‘No, No, Miles is coming. We will skip everything to be there when he’s there.’
SS: So they made the [Danish] Radio [Big] Band available and changed everything they were going to be doing?
PM: Exactly.
SS: Oh, of course, you can do that kind of thing when everybody work for you! You didn’t have to get all the players one at a time from a New York studio or something? You could actually get the band complete and bring in people like ‘NHØP’ [Danish jazz double bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen]. Was he in the [Radio] band?
PM: No. He was partly in the band. Not really. He was travelling so much, that he couldn’t…
SS: Of course, on the original [1983 concert] John Schofield came with Miles. He was part of the ‘package’ if you like?
PM: Right. But John McLaughlin…
SS: Tell us about how John McLaughlin [came in to it] because he wasn’t playing with Miles at the time was he? That was long after…
PM: Yes. Long after.
SS: So how did it turn out that John McLaughlin was on this record?
PM: [Miles] found out that John was playing in a concert hall [in Copenhagen] and he said ‘Get him in! Let him come!’ And John wouldn’t say ‘no’, of course. You wouldn’t say ‘no’ to Miles. So, he came. Completely unprepared. Or, over-prepared, as he always was, because he is fantastic. He had no idea what we were playing and what the themes were. So I asked him, ‘could you please *plays notes on the piano* play these notes?’
He had a rented guitar. A rented amplifier. And he had the piece. We played him some of the score. Some of the things. And Miles said ‘record’ right away because [John] was in the middle of a sound rehearsal [back] in the concert hall that night.
SS: Speaking of that moment, when [Guildhall Jazz Orchestra] perform this, in London, that moment [when the guitar comes in] is going to sound a bit different than it did on the Aura record. Won’t it? We just discussed how, when that guitar first comes in, it comes in gently and then it builds up and then the brass come in… yeah! But the way that John plays it it’s right in your face.
PM: It’s in our face, yes. But not in the piece. Not in the score that you’re playing.
SS: Tell us a little bit about the difference between the original score, the way the piece was played in the first concert for the radio - or nearly the way it was played for the concert, when Miles was there watching and just playing at the end – and the record that you made the next year. What changes did you make when you brought it out on Columbia?
PM: We did it like this, from the beginning. We started from the beginning, we started and Miles commented on it. We recorded it as a song itself. The next one. Exactly the same. Miles commented, ‘I don’t like the guitar there as we have [it]’ and asked the guitarist to do something else or asked the bass player to do this and this. [We] recorded that… you know that… *demonstrates on the piano*…
SS: The reggae…
PM: The reggae kind of thing, yes. [Miles] liked that. Very much. But he did that as a separate tune. Finished. And the next one. And the next one. And then, at the end, we had them so they were mixed like one song at a time. One song. Not like one piece.
SS: And then you re-assembled it into a slightly different order so that it would have impact? So that when you start the CD you’ve got something that’s a little bit like the opening of the piece but for not very long and all of a sudden ‘BANG’, it comes flying in, doesn’t it? With McLaughlin?
PM: So, in a way, the piece that you will be playing is more my idea and the other [studio] one is with the genius hands putting his sparkling light over the whole thing.
On the very night that he got the prize we played that part which I showed you *demonstrates on the piano and sings the drum part* - the Messiaen chord – we played it. The audience clapped. And [Miles] said, ‘play it again!’. [We said to Miles] ‘Are you joining us’. [Miles said] ‘No’. So we played it without Miles and then he came out and he said, ‘Play it again! Now with me’. Because he was supposed to get his prize, you know? So he had to do it again because the guy who was to deliver the check had no idea where we were in the piece! He [had] never heard music like that before. So it was a mishmash, but a lovely mishmash. Miles came in and played three or four times I think.
SS: And nobody’s going to tell Miles ‘no’ are they? He’s like a treasure. You had him for five minutes and all of a sudden you had him for ten and then fifteen… ‘Keep playing!’.
PM: He loved to play over these chords… *demonstrates chords* … that was the trick in the horns.
SS: But Miles didn’t know what the chords were. He didn’t care what the chords were.
PM: No, he didn’t…
SS: He just wanted to be inspired by the sounds.
PM: He said, ‘To me it’s Blues. It’s not Messiaen. It’s Blues.’ He took it like that. He felt these chords were… *plays chords on the piano*
SS: Sort of like a #9 or something? The Blues scale can fit over the top… I find the relationships also, like in the Turangalila Symphony… you know? It’s Blues.
PM: It’s all Blues!
SS: It’s been going on for a long time, hasn’t it? Also, minor third, major third… that’s not exactly the same as the Blues but there’s a relationship there. There’s a dissonance with the #9 and the resulting harmonies… Superimposition, like on the major chord, a third above the tonic in a Blues scale type sound…
PM: Exactly.
SS: That’s also maybe why [Miles] and Gil got so excited about Spanish music, right?
PM: Of course!
SS: So I can see why [Miles] immediately thought, ‘Oh, [Palle]’s on my wavelength.’
PM: I gave [Miles] the Turangalila Symphony as a present. The recording with Bernstein. And November Steps [by Toru Takemitsu] on the other side.
SS: So, in a way, you developed a similar relationship to [that which] Gil Evans had with Miles, didn’t you? I mean, you were learning from each other, you were sharing things from different backgrounds…
PM: I was learning from him… I don’t think they were learning from me!
SS: I don’t mean teaching you but sharing ideas that you had been inspired by and you could [both] relate to, you know? Just like [Miles] with Gil.
PM: I loved when Gil Evans said, ‘Tchaikovsky. The melody maker.’ I loved that. I think of that every time I hear Swan Lake. He respected that [work] so much.
SS: But those guys, like I guess, [you] now know that I know you a little bit, always have open ears for new ideas and, you know, when I heard all those recordings that Alan Lomax made in Spain, when I was working in Spain… I was listening to Alan Lomax’s recordings of Galician music and right there, all of a sudden, there were all the tunes that are in Sketches of Spain. Gil and Miles must have been listening to this music!
PM: Of course they did!
SS: ‘Wow, how does that music work? That’s like our music!’
PM: I am very, very pleased that you, Scott, and [Guildhall Jazz Orchestra are performing AURA] and I’m sure it will be it will be appreciated up there *points to the sky* where [Miles] is. Like he said about Gil Evans, ‘Gil Evans is not dead… he’s not dead… he’s just changed.’ He said that. He didn’t want [Gil] to be dead. Gil Evans was supposed to write a piece for the same [Leonie Sonning’s] Prize celebration concert, but Miles said, nicely, on the elevator, ‘Gil was supposed to be here’. ‘I know’, I said. [Miles said] ‘He’s sitting home listening to overtones’. Isn’t that beautiful?!
SS: That’s fantastic! That gives you a kind of insight into the relationship, into the way they talked to each other!
PM: Yes! It’s just like two small boys are two grown-up masters. Yes.
SS: Oh, that’s amazing.
PM: So, that whole area of my time with Gil Evans, which I loved – I think that man was a Buddhist monk. He said, ‘I just orchestrated it like Duke Ellington [but] with other instruments’.
SS: I think he slightly underestimated himself there!
PM: I think so!
SS: But, I know what you mean. It’s true. You can trace the ideas, of course. There is something very true in that.
PM: [Gil] was so underrating himself. He was a master. Never to forget Gil Evans. He inspired us all. Also those who don’t know it!
SS: One last thing, it’s a little bit different, but, we’ve talked a lot about Miles Davis and about [Aura], but what about all the other things which you’ve done, because this is only one small part of your life really, I mean, you’ve worked with musicians from all over the world and you live in Copenhagen and not only have you played, obviously, a lot ‘at home’ but you’ve worked with a lot of other people coming through here, or going out of here. Maybe, like London, Copenhagen was a place where many people came to?
PM: It was.
SS: … and you became the person of connection for many of them. Is that true?
PM: I don’t know. My role is very timid, I think. But, for me, it was a great time with the Americans, like George Russell and Dexter Gordon, who I worked with and wrote the Strings [and Things] for ‘Dex’. And Bill Evans I met and wrote for as well. And I remember how timid I was in those days. When Gil Evans came over to play at the old [Jazzhus] Montmartre [in Copenhagen], Johnny Coles forgot his passport and couldn’t leave America before the next day. So Herluf [Kamp-Larsen], the owner of the club, called me and said, ‘Come in and play with Gil Evans Orchestra’, because Johnny Coles couldn’t make it. I said, ‘No, I don’t dare!’ I didn’t want that. Then [Herluf] called again and said, ‘Come on! That’s sh*t I don’t wanna hear from you! Come on! Be a man. Take your trumpet. Come in here. They need a trumpet player.’ So, I came in and that was my first night with Gil Evans. Years and years and years ago. And you can see here… *turns to the shelves behind* the little picture I have of me and Gil from that period.
SS: That’s fantastic. It’s a great picture of both of you.
PM: He was fantastic. What a person. How can you be so soft and still survive in that world? I said to myself, ‘How can you?’ Of course, I didn’t say anything about that [to Gil]. And then we did the tour with Miles [Evans] and Noah [Evans], [Gil’s] sons.
SS: But then you also had [musicians], not only coming from America, but coming from other countries in Scandinavia and also you mentioned about [musicians] from South Africa – Dollar Brand [Abdullah Ibrahim] – and musicians must [have] been coming from Eastern Europe, you know?
PM: I had not so much to do with the Eastern Europeans, although they were here, and [made] a fantastic mark on [Denmark’s] musical culture – like [Krzysztof] Komeda, if you remember Komeda? I wasn’t much involved in [those] circles. I was there when they recorded, but I was just sitting there, doing nothing. And ECM, I worked with ECM a lot. With Terje Rypdal’s groups. Beautiful guitar player from Norway, as you, probably, may know. And Jon Christensen. We had a trio for many years and did a couple of recordings for ECM. And so on and so on.
SS: We haven’t even said, in this interview, about your trumpet playing. I mean, if someone watching [or reading] this interview didn’t know you they might say, ‘Is he just a composer? Or, is he a piano player like Gil Evans?’, but you’re not!
PM: I’m not! I’m none of that. I’m basically an almost fulfilled trumpet player.
SS: That’s nice to hear! That’s pretty good!
PM: I still have my trumpet. My old Martin [trumpet make], yes. I had Martin before I knew that Miles had Martin. I had this one before Dizzy [Gillespie], you know?!
SS: No kidding!
PM: Dizzy had this mouthpiece as well. The Al Cass.
SS: … and your flugelhorn too, I see.
PM: The flugel as well, yes. And that’s why I felt ‘home’. I felt that my message was there. If I could make that happen, I would end happy. But then, Miles came in the way! And you came in the way! And all you *gestures to the camera* people came in the way wanting to do a 40 years tribute, a fantastic 40 years tribute to the piece.
SS: You know, I wasn’t interested in doing [Aura] because it was a [40 year] tribute. I was interested in doing it because I really like the music.
PM: I’m very pleased.
SS: You know, sometimes you do projects, and we’ve talked about a few of them, and I’ve done quite a few historical, you know, repertory projects. You try to recreate as much as you can of the sound of Duke Ellington or any of those orchestras or anything in the past and, like doing classical music, like doing Bach, the music is still alive, of course, and it has its own [resonance], but sometimes it feels ‘of a period’ and even though the recording you made with Miles using things like we don’t use very much anymore, like the Simmons drums and some of the synthesizer effects, but I listen to them now and they sound fresh to me again. They sound right. In the same way that a period instrument sounds right when you do Bach or even the horns for a Wagner or something, they fit the language of the music so well. So, I wanted to do this piece because I really wanted to experience standing there – I have to say, I do this totally selfishly, all these pieces, nobody realises, I mean, I wanted to do [Charles Mingus’] Epitaph because I wanted to be right in the middle when all that sound comes at me. Not because of ‘I want to be in charge’ but because I want to have the best seat in the house. And that’s what you get as a conductor for these sorts of pieces with wonderful sounds.
PM: Exactly.
SS: So that’s the reason I think we want to play it. Because we want to experience the music.
PM: What a lovely attitude to the piece!
SS: … and if we get the benefit of somehow learning about the past and learning about you and some insight into Miles, that’s a bonus. But, really, the idea is just to experience wonderful music, you know? That’s what I think it is.
PM: Thank you. What a pleasure. And thank you and good luck!