Episode description

Miles Davis - trumpeter, composer, bandleader - is championed by Adrian Utley of Portishead.

"He's always been really important in my life, right from early on when my dad used to play him. It was part of the atmosphere of our house."

From the early years with Charlie Parker via Kind of Blue to playing in front of 600,000 hippies on the Isle of Wight, Miles Davis was a musician who never stood still. "Always listen for what you can leave out," he used to say.

Portishead's seminal 1990s album Dummy seems to have taken advice from the man. As Adrian Utley explains to presenter Matthew Parris:

"The darkness and the sense of space is the thing that I have assimilated from Miles ... he's in my DNA."

With Richard Williams, author of The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music.

Producer: Miles Warde

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.