Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet), Taylor Eigsti (piano), Harish Raghavan (bass), Kendrick Scott (drums), BBC Concert Orchestra / Miho Hazama

Royal Albert Hall, London
Thursday 20 August 2026

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Photos (c) BBC / Andy Paradise

Commemorating Miles Davis in the year of his centenary was an obvious inclusion for this year’s Proms, and tonight’s concert more than fulfilled its remit through focussing on those seminal albums when Davis collaborated with multi-faceted pianist and arranger Gil Evans.

While no single event could do justice to a legacy the scale and scope of Davis’s, the present selection made sense with its often expansive arrangements being ideally suited to the Royal Albert Hall acoustic not least through what were, for the most part, idiomatic orchestrations by Miho Hazama. Moreover, the layout with trumpet, piano, bass and drums soloists arrayed at the front of the platform worked to the advantage of both this music as of these musicians.

1959’s Porgy and Bess still offers a pertinent overview of Gershwin’s opera even if trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire took time to settle in Bess, you is my woman now – his playing not so much intimate as tentative. Segueing into Evans’s simmering Gone saw him find his groove, not least via a stunning break by drummer Kendrick Scott. An expressive if (thankfully) never cloying Summertime gave Akinmusire requisite breathing-space, while I loves you, Porgy (aka I wants to stay here) brought out the luminosity of Evans’s arrangement along with its dextrous contribution by pianist Taylor Eigsti (an inspired late replacement for Sam Harris).

Although compiled from earlier sessions, 1957’s Birth of the Cool was hardly less influential on release yet, (over-)embellished by Hazama, Little Variations on ‘Boplicity’ was a little too knowing for its own good. Nor did her blowzy orchestration of the sensuous Blue in Green suggest 1959’s Kind of Blue as being other than quintet music, but her book-ending of Falla’s capricious Will o’ the Wisp with his malevolent Dance of Terror or inexorable Ritual Fire Dance created an El amor brujo medley for the BBC Concert Orchestra to come into its own.

After the interval, 1957’s Miles Ahead was represented by the segueing of Weill’s My Ship – Akinmusire doing justice to Davis’s soulful flugelhorn playing – into the title-track with its evocative modal writing and restive atmosphere necessarily unresolved at the close. 1963’s Quiet Nights is the last of and the ‘Cinderella’ among these Davis/Evans collaborations, but their take on Once Upon a Summertime brings eloquence to this overly sentimental ballad abetted here by Hazama’s orchestration. She and the BBCCO took a break while the quartet, notably Harish Raghavan’s smouldering bass solo, impressed in Akinmusire’s Henya from his 2023 album Owl Song. It was left for the ‘Adagio’ from Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez to close the programme with a pathos that no amount of ‘coffee-table’ overkill could efface.

A programme that, whatever its unevenness, confirmed the relevance of these albums almost seven decades on. Soloists and orchestra reconvened for a propulsive take on Ahmad Jamal’s New Rumba (from Miles Ahead) that saw this evening through to a scintillating conclusion. Hopefully more such events will take place at the Proms, maybe one centred on the music and arrangements of George Russell who – despite his being absent from Alyn Shipton’s otherwise admirable programme essay – made so much of post-bop jazz not just possible but inevitable.

Pieces performed as follows (all arrangements by Miho Hazama)

Gershwin arr. Evans Porgy and Bess – Bess, you is my woman now (1935, arr. 1958)
Evans Gone (1958)
Gershwin Porgy and Bess – Summertime (1935, arr. 1958); Porgy and Bess – Porgy and Bess – I loves you, Porgy (1935, arr. 1958)
Davis/Evans (arr. Hazama) Little Variations on ‘Boplicity’ (1949, arr. 2026)
Davis/B. Evans Blue in Green (1959, arr. 2026)
Falla arr. Evans/Hazama El amor brujo (1914-16, arr. 1959/2026)
Weill arr. Evans Lady in the Dark – My Ship (1940, arr. 1957)
Davis/Evans Miles Ahead (1957)
Barclay/Legrand/Marnay arr. Evans Once Upon a Summertime (1954, arr. 1962)
Rodrigo arr. Evans Concierto de Aranjuez – Adagio (1939, arr. 1959)

You can listen to this Proms concert on BBC Sounds until the end of September 2026, and you can watch on BBC iPlayer

Published post no.2,991 – Saturday 22 August 2026