Á

42 DOWNBEAT FEBRUARY 2017
Blues Alley. Terry brushed him off but, during
a second encounter, asked the 12-year-old
Roney to play something; the child responded
with Morgan’s solo on “M&M” from the
Jazz Messengers album Meet You At The Jazz
Corner Of The World. An enduring mentorship
ensued. Soon thereafter, Roney met Dizzy
Gillespie, who showed him “different scales,
things about mouthpieces and breathing exercises.”
At age 15, he sat in with Blakey. At 16,
he sat in with Cedar Walton, who subsequently
hired him for a two-week engagement. He
matriculated at Howard University, left after a
year when Abdullah Ibrahim took him on the
road, then transferred to Berklee. “I was aiming
to go to New York,” Roney said, explaining why
he left school in 1981 to join Blakey.
Two years later, Roney joined Jon Faddis,
Randy Brecker, Lew Soloff, Jimmy Owens, Art
Farmer and Maynard Ferguson at a Davis retrospective
concert at Radio City Music Hall.
Hancock, Carter and Williams were the rhythm
section. After rehearsal, Carter introduced him
to his partners. After the show next evening,
Farmer informed Roney that Davis wanted to
meet him. “I went to Miles’ dressing room,”
Roney said. “He told me, ‘I heard you up there,
playing those things. Here’s my number, call me
tomorrow.’” He called, and received an invitation
to visit.
From then until Davis’ death, Roney says, “I
saw him every time he was in town, if I could.
Or if he was playing, I was always there. Miles
didn’t like a lot of silly people, but he took me.
He didn’t just pick me out of the street. He
heard someone who was going inside his back
pocket, his best stuff, and he said, ‘Man, how
did you figure that out? OK. Come on over
here.’ I wasn’t just playing a couple of his licks.
I was trying to figure out the theory, and giving
my heart to it, because I knew it was the next
extension of what the music is about.”
On Oct. 27 with Corea, in the first chorus of
his solo on the set-opening “All Blues,” Roney
hewed closely to Davis’ original 1959 presentation
on Kind Of Blue, then counterstated with
complex variations, creating long lines phrased
to fall at odd places against the groove locked
down by Stern, Miller and Blade.
“Wallace plays in Miles’ spirit, and he captures
that essence, but there’s more to it,”
Garrett said a few days later. “I’d hone in first
on his beautiful, round sound—it grabs your
attention immediately. We met when we were
both 17—he was playing more like Clifford
Brown, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard
then, and he already knew harmony. Now he’s
evolved to another level harmonically, extending
the lines, playing harmony on top of harmony.
He’s way ahead of the game.”
After the Oct. 26 soundcheck, Roney discussed
his decision, made in his early 20s, to
embrace Davis’ innovative strategies as a jump-