Robert Irving III
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Robert Irving III, (1953) American pianist, composer, arranger and music educator
A native of Chicago, Irving was one of a group of young Chicago musicians that in the late '70s and early '80s formed the nucleus of Miles Davis's recording and touring bands. Irving left the Davis band in 1989, and has gone on to a prolific career as touring musician, composer, arranger, producer, educator and interdisciplinary artist. Irving has recently (with the 2007 release of New Momentum) resumed his career as a recording artist under his own name.
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[edit] Biography
Robert Irving's first musical instrument was the bugle, followed by a range of brass instruments including cornet, French horn, and valve trombone. While he was a brass player, Irving also studied piano to further his knowledge of musical theory.
Irving's family moved to North Carolina in 1969 and remained there until 1978. While in North Carolina, Irving continued his studies in musical theory, played trombone in concert bands, keyboards for pop/funk and fusion bands, and organ and piano for gospel groups. Hammond organ and keyboards became his primary instruments.
After returning to Chicago in 1978, Irving connected with a number of young musicians, including Vince Wilburn Jr. and Darryl Jones who would later join him in the Miles Davis band. These musicians formed a series of bands, including Data and AL7. In 1979, AL7 was invited by arranger/producer Tom Tom 84 to record some demo tapes for Maurice White (of Earth, Wind, & Fire). Vince Wilburn Jr. played some of these tapes, particularly a composition of Irving's entitled Space, for his uncle Miles Davis. Space captured Davis's interest, and led to the Chicago musicians being invited to New York for Davis' first recording sessions in several years.
The fruits of these sessions were included on the 1981 album, The Man with the Horn, the first recording Davis had released in six years. The title track, The Man With the Horn, was co-written and arranged by Irving, who also co-wrote arranged another track titled Shout.
In 1982 Irving became musical director and pianist for the Kuumba Theater production of The Little Dreamer… a Nite in the Life of Bessie Smith and studied stride-piano with the legendary Little Brother Montgomery, who had composed music for the show. The show ran for over six months at Chicago’s Ivanhoe Theater and featured Kansas Fields on drums (who had actually played with Bessie Smith).
In 1983 Miles Davis invited Irving to work as composer, keyboard player, arranger, and co-producer for the sessions that resulted in the album Decoy. He also invited Irving to join his touring band. Darryl Jones had joined the band a few months earlier, and Vince Wilburn Jr. joined in 1985. Irving remained with the band for 5 years, holding the keyboard chair and the role of music director.
In addition to Decoy, Irving played a major role in Davis's 1985 recording, You're Under Arrest. Irving co-arranged, with Davis, six of the nine tracks on the album, including Time after Time and Human Nature, which were quite popular and remained in Davis's touring repertoire until his death in 1991. Irving also composed four of the nine tracks, and co-produced the album with Davis.
While working on the material for You're Under Arrest, Irving added to his arranging credentials by studying with Gil Evans, who decades earlier had arranged some of Miles Davis's most celebrated recordings.
Other projects from this period included composing the soundtracks for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents--The Prisoners (1985) and the feature film Street Smart (1985), starring Morgan Freeman and Christopher Reeves, both of which featured Miles Davis on trumpet, producing albums for fellow Chicagoans Ramsey Lewis (1981 and 1982) Randy Hall (1984), and R&B singer Tony Ransom (1985) and blues singer, Bobby Jones (1985).
Irving remained with the Davis band until 1989, when he released his first solo album, Midnight Dream, and he remained close to Davis up to Davis's death in 1991.
Since leaving the Davis band, Irving has been based in Chicago and has kept active on many musical fronts and continued to develop as a pianist, arranger, composer and producer. He has performed, as leader and sideman, with a list of musicians that includes David Murray, Wallace Roney, Eddie Henderson, Lenny White, and fellow Miles Davis alumni Darryl Jones, Vince Wilburn Jr., and Al Foster. He has contributed to these settings as composer and arranger and pianist.
Irving has recorded as leader and music director of the Davis alumni bands ESP and ESP2, on a number of David Murray albums, as a member of Khalil El Zabar's Juba Collective, and with Wallace Roney. He has produced albums for, among others, Terri Lyne Carrington (Real Life Story, 1990). In the Chicago community, Irving has taught and lectured at numerous schools, workshops and community events, and he founded Chicago's African Arts Ensemble (an 18-piece pan-African jazz group commissioned by the African Festival of the Arts). Irving has also found time to compose the score for the George Tillman, Jr.'s 1995 feature film, Scenes for the Soul, and, for the Miami Chamber Symphony, Mademoiselle Mandarin, a concerto for jazz harp and orchestra that featured Swiss harpist, Markus Klinko.
With the 2007 release of New Momentum on the Sonic Portraits Entertainment label, Irving has returned to recording under his own name.
Irving is also a painter. When he was a member of Miles Davis's band, Davis encouraged him to take up painting. Irving actually began painting regularly in 1997, and has seen his work exhibited in a number of galleries.
[edit] Selected Discography
2007 -- Robert Irving III, New Momentum (Sonic Portraits Entertainment) -- leader, composer, arranger and producer (with Terri Lyne Carrington)
2002 -- Juba Collective (Khalil El Zabar), Juba Collective -- piano, organ, keyboards
2002 -- Miles Davis, The Complete Miles Davis at Montreux -- composer, arranger, keyboards
1997 -- Wallace Roney, Village -- keyboards
1997 -- David Murray, Fo Duek Revue -- piano, composer
1996 -- David Murray, Dark Star (#1 on Billboard chart) -- organ, piano, synthesizers
1995 -- David Murray, Jug-a-Lug -- organ, synthesizers
1994 -- David Murray, The Tip -- organ, synthesizers
1992 -- ESP, ESP (Robert Irving III, Darryl Jones, Bobby Broom, Kirk Whalum, Toby Williams -- composer, arranger, keyboards, producer
1991 -- Susan Osborne, Wabi (Nippon Music Award for Best Creative Concept) -- producer
1989 -- Terri Lynne Carrington, Real Life Story (Grammy Award Nominee) -- producer
1989 -- Robert Lee Irving, Midnight Dream -- composer, arranger, keyboards, producer
1985 -- Miles Davis, You're Under Arrest (Grammy Award Nominee) -- composer, arranger, keyboards, producer
1983 -- Miles Davis, Decoy (Downbeat Album of the Year) -- composer, arranger, keyboards, producer
1981 -- Miles Davis, The Man With the Horn -- composer, arranger, keyboards, producer
[edit] References
Cole, George, The Last Miles (University of Michigan Press 2005)
[edit] Outside Links
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