Artists from the Frost School of Music kicked off the 2025-26 season of the Jazz Roots series at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County this month with an electrifying concert memorializing the music of Miles Davis, the trumpet player and musical genius who transformed jazz music.
“Kind of Blue: Celebrating the music of Miles Davis” featured the Frost School’s Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, led by Frost School Dean Shelton G. “Shelly” Berg, artistic advisor to Jazz Roots, and its resident conductor, Scott Flavin.
The Nov. 7 concert packed the Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center with an audience eager to hear Davis’ music on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Berg, a five-time GRAMMY-nominated pianist, was a featured soloist, together with saxophonist and GRAMMY nominee Ravi Coltrane, son of legendary saxophone player and Davis compatriot John Coltrane; Frost School professor and renowned jazz artist and trumpet player Etienne Charles; and acclaimed vocalist and alumna Veronica Swift, B.M. ’16.
Together they performed music from some of Davis’ most powerful and timeless albums, including “Kind of Blue,” “Birth of the Cool,” “Sketches of Spain,” and “Tutu.”
