Kenny Garret and Svoy: 'Who Killed AI?'

There's an energy to the new Kenny Garrett album - Who Killed AI? Together with producer-musician Svoy, Garrett takes seven crazy jams to produce a cocktail of 'real' and electronic sounds that burns with excitement.

For many, Kenny Garrett is known best as collaborator with Miles Davis and there is a sense that this work with Svoy is exactly what Davis would have been doing if he was still with us. But Garrett is certainly not resting on his laurels, the man who has worked with Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard and Chick Corea has also appeared on tracks, albums and stages with Guru, Q-Tip, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Bruce Springsteen and Meshell Ndegeocello. 

One of my favourite tracks that features Garrett's sax is Miles Davis's version of Human Nature, with simply beautiful flute and alto sax. Similarly, on this new album, his My Funny Valentine has an expressive and considered soprano sax that sings around and above the electronics. Whatever he plays, he seems to find his own space and own it.

The sessions for Who Killed AI?, as Garrett recalls, were remarkably comfortable. “All Misha had to do was show up with a computer; we’d set up a mic and that was that,” Garrett says. “It was really just about having fun. It wasn’t like you were in the studio. We’d be joking around, grab something to drink, then say, ‘OK, let’s try this! Let me play that melody…’”

Alongside Garrett's expressive and experienced saxes, Svoy’s electronics still aim for a diverse and intricate quality and together they harness the tools that technology offers to fit with their creativity. Who Killed AI? is an album that blends everything wonderful about Kenny Garrett's sax that we've loved since his earliest days together with the potential of musical creativity in the 21st century.