Miles Davis Show to Benefit UCSD Black Arts Program

Miles Davis will make his first San Diego appearance in three years Saturday night at a fund-raiser for UC San Diego’s Contemporary Black Arts program.

Davis has been especially visible in recent months with the release of his autobiography, “Miles,” a frank chronicle of his life, including his indulgences as a womanizer and drug user.

“Amandla,” his 1989 album, continued in the groove Davis hit on other ‘80s projects, with his trumpet sprinkled over a funky young rhythm section. His newest album, “Aura,” was actually recorded in 1985. Produced by Palle Mikkelborg and recorded in Copenhagen, it includes several Scandinavian jazz musicians helping Davis on songs named after colors.

The trumpeter has had a tough time luring San Diego audiences. A 1988 show at Sea World, with Milton Nascimento and John McLaughlin, was canceled because of poor ticket sales after sponsor KSWV-FM, “The Wave,” (which has since changed formats), failed to adequately promote it. His 1985 and 1986 appearances at Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay were marked by great music and “mediocre attendance,” according Kenny Weissberg, Humphrey’s concert producer.

The UCSD Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Jimmie Cheatham, will open the show. Several Black Arts program students will get hands-on experience producing the concert--working backstage, as ushers, or in various technical capacities. Special patron seats close to the stage will be sold for $100. Proceeds from those tickets will go to the Black Arts program. Regular tickets are $35, or $20 for UCSD students. Near press time, 130 of the 841 tickets remained.

CAPITALIZING ON THE RECOGNITION he received from being portrayed alongside Charlie Parker in the film “Bird,” trumpeter Red Rodney, who Wednesday night opened five nights at Elario’s, has been busy.

“It’s done me a world of good, of course,” Rodney said. “It’s gotten me more choice work, more money and put my name out where people who see the picture know who I am.”

He recently played at a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald in New York City, along with San Diegan James Moody and other jazz stars. He works the big jazz festivals in Europe every summer, and he was honored last December in Rome by an Italian radio station for his contribution to jazz.

Rodney, known for the driving be-bop he began producing after joining Parker’s group in 1949, has just recorded an album, “No Turn on Red,” which he called “My best work in 40 years.”

But it’s a second new album, “Code Red,” that has him excited. For the first time, Rodney added electronics in the form of keyboard and synthesizer man Gerard D’Angelo. The music is getting play on about 150 commercially viable contemporary jazz, or fusion, stations.

The album recently debuted at No. 24 on Radio and Records’ contemporary jazz chart and at No. 26 on the Gavin Report.

At Elario’s, Rodney is joined by San Diegans Bob Magnusson on bass, Jim Plank on drums, Gary LeFebvre on sax, and, from Los Angeles, former Chet Baker pianist Frank Strazzeri. Rodney doesn’t foresee including a synthesizer on stage in the near future.

“LIKE ROCK IN THE ‘50s, swing in ‘30s and ‘40s, and jazz in ‘20s, ragtime was the thing at the turn of the century,” said pianist Bryan Finkelstein, who will play the music Friday night at 8 at Words & Music bookstore in Hillcrest. Finkelstein will repeat his performance at the Chula Vista Library Monday at 7:30 p.m.

Finkelstein’s timing couldn’t be better. His tribute to this black art form comes during national Black History Month.

“Just like a lot of jazz music was invented by blacks, ragtime is basically a Black American folk art form,” Finkelstein said. “The whites commercialized it, changed it, sped up the tempo. It became a vain imitation of ragtime. Tin Pan Alley in New York is what happened to ragtime, popular tunes written between 1910 and 1920.

“Ragtime is an instrumental music. It evolved from blacks imitating the sound of the banjo on the piano. That music became known as ragtime, or ragged time, because of the syncopation.

“Scott Joplin and a handful of masters wrote it out as classical music. In that respect, I regard ragtime as American classical music, written in a serious vein, not in a commercial way.”

Finkelstein, 38, became interested in ragtime through his parents, who had a record collection including plenty of ragtime. His performance will include songs by Joplin, Eubie Blake, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and John Philip Sousa.

RIFFS: San Diego flutist Holly Hofmann, whose new album “Further Adventures” is scheduled for release next month, plays with a crack band of locals Tuesday for KSDS-FM’s (88.3) “Jazz Live” series in the San Diego City College Theater. Hofmann will be joined by pianist Harry Pickens, saxophonist Gary LeFebvre, bassist Gunnar Biggs and drummer John “Ironman” Harris. . . .

Tonight through Saturday night, the Aubrey Fay Band plays electric jazz at the B Street Cafe in downtown San Diego. . . .

At the Beach House restaurant in Mission Beach: tonight, guitarist Dan Pepeila; Friday night, Mike Wofford on solo piano; Saturday night, Brazilian pianist Elfredo Cardim.

Jazz fan and sometime performance producer Bob Geib plans a three-show series of innovative jazz at The Loft in Pacific Beach, beginning March 31, with brothers Peter and Tripp Sprague, and also including the Rinaldi String Quartet and former John Coltrane bassist Art Davis.