Wallace Roney © Andrea Canter

Wallace Roney and his genre-pushing sextet, fusing acoustic and electronic elements, tour the Midwest in celebration of a new High Note recording (Jazz), with visits to Nighttown in Cleveland (August 18^th), the Dakota Jazz Club in downtown Minneapolis (August 19^th), Chicago’s Velvet Lounge (August 21-22), the Blue Shop in Burlington, IA (August 23), Jazz Central in Dayton, OH (August 24^th), and the Jazz Loft Society in Cincinnati (August 25th). An acclaimed protégé of Miles Davis, Roney faced criticism early in his career for his significant similarities to his mentor in tone and expression. His latest recordings and three Grammy Awards have served to dispell accusations of mimicry, proving that the stylistic affinity is in no way a cover for any shortcomings or lack of individuality. On tour with Roney this month are long-time collaborator and brother Antoine Roney (tenor and soprano sax), Aruan Ortiz (piano), Rashaan Carter (bass), Eric Allen (drums) and Steve Brown (turntables).

Antoine Roney © Andrea Canter

Roney was still using a borrowed trumpet when Miles Davis first heard him at Radio City Music Hall in 1983, offering the young musician one of his own horns. Thus Roney became the only trumpeter to be directly mentored by Miles Davis, a relationship that culminated in collaboration at the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival (recorded as Miles and Quincy at Montreux) shortly before Davis’ death. And despite Davis’ advice to the contrary, Roney left Blakey to join Tony Williams’ Quintet in 1986; he also performed with David Murray, Slide Hampton, John Hicks, and Charlie Rouse. At the end of the decade, Roney was twice named as Best Trumpeter to Watch in the Down Beat Magazine's Critic's Poll. At about this time, Roney began recording and performing as the leader of his own ensembles, appearing on the Muse label with Gary Thomas and Kenny Garrett. After Davis’s death, Roney came together with Williams, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Wayne Shorter in a series of live tributes (billed as VSOP) to the late trumpet king (released in 1994 as A Tribute to Miles). He also filled Miles’ trumpet chair in Gerry Mulligan’s Rebirth of the Cool project. Still trying to find critical acceptance for his own music, such projects may have fueled the claims that he was merely a Miles imitator. “The industry wasn’t giving me the opportunity to play my own music,” Roney recalls.

In the 90s he made several recordings for Warner Brothers and Concord/Stretch. Now on High Note Records, Roney released Prototype in 2004 and will issue Mystikal in October. Roney’s latest work pulls in “stuff I hear today, the new synthesizers and the new sounds that appeal to me. I bring all those elements together and still try to play what I consider straight-ahead, innovative music.”

Rashaan Carter © Andera Canter

Cuban pianist Aruan Ortiz was classically trained as both a violist and pianist, and his influences reflect Bach, Mozart and Liszt as well as traditional Afro Cuban music and jazz greats Bud Powell, Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk. After winning Best Cuban Composition at the Symposium of Cuban Music in Jamaica in 1995 and recording in Spain, he was awarded a series of scholarships to study classical piano at the Professional Conservatory in Vilaseca, Spain, and jazz piano with Joanne Brackeen and Danilo Pérez at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. In the U.S., he’s played with Wallace Roney, Roy Hargrove, Stefon Harris, Lionel Lueke, Eric McPherson, Jane Bunnett and Jerry Bergonzi, and has won numerous honors in Europe. In addition to his trio and quartet projects, Aruan also works as an assistant professor at Berklee College of Music, and gives workshops and clinics in jazz and Cuban music at different universities around the U.S.

Bassist Rashaan Carter, son of a jazz saxophonist, was already a member of the Washington, DC jazz community as a high school student, performing in venues such as Blues Alley, Twins, HR-57, and the Bohemian Caverns. Before graduation he had appeared with Gary Thomas, Roy Hargrove, and Stefon Harris, and played in trio around DC with brothers Roland and Russell. He cites Paul Chambers, Ray Brown, Dave Holland, and Ron Carter as his key influences.

Eric Allen © Andrea Canter

One of the less mainstream approaches that Roney has taken with his sextet is the addition of a turntablist, most recently, Steve Brown (DJ Axiom). The results tend to draw mixed reactions to the extension of the sonic palette to include pre-recorded excerpts, spoken passages, scratchings and scrapings. Miles would approve.

If you’re wondering where modern jazz is heading, be sure to check out the Wallace Roney Sextet and this incredible crew of innovative artists. As Roney himself observes, “Don’t be stuck in the past but retain the greatness of it. And live in the moment. Live in the future.”

See the Wallace Roney Sextet:

• At Nighttown in Cleveland, August 18 (www.nighttowncleveland.com)

• At the Dakota in Minneapolis, August 19 (www.dakotacooks.com)

• At the Velvet Lounge in Chicago, August 21-22 (www.velvetlounge.net)

• At the Blue Shop in Burlington, IA, August 23 (319-758-9553)

• At Jazz Central in Dayton, OH, August 24^th (www.jazzcentraldayton.com)

• At Jazz Loft Society in Cincinnati, August 25th (513-559-9220)

Full schedule at www.myspace.com/wallaceroney

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