The stellar Miles Smiles band has been confirmed for Ronnie Scott’s, the club has now confirmed on its website. A superband, it’s the return of Wallace Roney to Frith Street, the trumpeter above who famously was mentored and performed extensively with Miles Davis late in the great East St Louis man’s career. Miles Smiles is also headed up by drum titan Omar Hakim (Amandla, Tutu), with saxophonist Rick Margitza (Amandla, Live in Montreux), organist Joey DeFrancesco (Live Around the World), and ex-Herbie man Ralphe Armstrong on bass. The band has been playing in the States and appeared at the Cork jazz festival in the autumn, but this is a rare chance for London jazz club audiences to sample the band and its core material based around the Second Great Quintet album Miles Smiles released in 1967.

Already this year fans of Wayne Shorter who wrote several tunes on the album have warmed to his new take on ‘Orbits’, the lead-off track Wayne wrote for Miles Smiles, and which appears on the brand new Wayne Shorter Quartet album Without a Net that signalled a significant return for the saxophonist to Blue Note records, brought back to the fold by Don Was.

Miles Smiles originally recorded at the 30th Street Studio in New York city and produced by Teo Macero, besides ‘Orbits’ features ‘Circle’, plus Wayne’s most famous piece ‘Footprints’, and on side two of the original vinyl ‘Dolores’, Eddie Harris’ ‘Freedom Jazz Dance’, and Jimmy Heath’s ‘Gingerbread Boy’. MB
Miles Smiles plays Ronnie’s on 3-4 May www.ronniescotts.co.uk

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