FIVE WEEKS FOR MILES

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FIVE WEEKS FOR MILES 5 Saturdays... 5 Quintets... 5 Eras of Miles Davis... -- celebrating 100 years of Miles -- ---- Every Saturday in May 2026 -- 100 years after Miles Davis was born -- at Contxt in Toronto, multi-award winning trumpet player BROWNMAN ALI -- heralded as "Canada's preeminent jazz trumpet player" by New York's Village Voice -- will lead 5 different all-star ensembles through 5 historic eras of jazz which Miles Davis catalyzed & immortalized with his presence. ---- Week 1 - Sat. May 02: "Young Miles" - The Bird Years Week 2 - Sat. May 09: "Birth Of The Cool" - Post-Bop Miles Week 3 - Sat. May 16: "Plugged Nickel" - The Shorter Years Week 4 - Sat. May 23: "Bitches Brew to Tutu" - Electric Miles Week 5 - Sat. May 30: "Doo-bop" - Had He Lived…

Brownman, when asked about the tribute and the musicians behind the music, states, "For those who appreciate jazz as a true art form, FIVE WEEKS FOR MILES represents a rare opportunity to understand its greatest legend's career, where he could have gone and a reminder of what he might have meant to us today. I'm truly honoured to be fronting this sequential tribute and performing with such a monstrous cross-section of players." Brownman has put together a spectacular all-star cast for his production featuring everyone from award-winning Canadian jazz veterans Duncan Hopkins, Ross MacIntyre & Frank Botos, to luminaries in their own generation such as Nick Maclean, Jacob Wutzke & Bennett Young to the best of the youngest new breed of jazz modernists like James Griffith, Joel Bracken & Tymish Koznarsky (all 24 years old). This year will also feature in Week 5 acclaimed rapper N.I.Gel (from the POCKET DWELLERS), internationally acclaimed turntablist Erik Laar (Off Centre DJ School founder) teamed with the BROWNMAN ELECTRYC TRIO bass & drumset phenoms Sean Dennis & Adam Mansfield -- making the Week 5 ensemble an all-star jazz-hip-hop affair. "Whatever age, whatever background, whatever colour - we're all going to be giving all of ourselves over to Miles’ music… to try and do the man and his vision justice”, Brownman concludes.

====================== Week 4 - Sat-May-23, 2026 "From Bitches Brew to Tutu" - Electric Miles ====================== Legendary as a kind of line in the sand challenging jazz fans during the ascendance of electric psychedelic rock, "In a Silent Way" (Columbia Records, '69) hinted at the repetitive polyrhythms Davis would employ throughout the early '70s. It also partook generously of electric piano and bass tonal colourings previously explored in acoustic settings, but "In a Silent Way" and the subsequent "Bitches Brew" & "Live Evil" recordings remains a clearly electric jazz record, part ambient color exploration, part rock-inflected energy & vibe, and part outright maverick creativity. Long, breathy solos would be a feature of this era, glistening against his new group's strange admixture of musical moods. Miles would stay on this "electric" path right in to the '80's, continually exploring these textures with newer and younger generations of musicians. ---- :: Brownman Ali - electric trumpet (Snaggle) :: Jay Yoo - guitar (Snaggle) :: Nick Maclean - keyboards/synth (Snaggle) :: Sean Dennis - 6-string electric bass (Brownman Electryc Trio) :: Aaron Seunarine - drums (Teefin' Tingz)