Miles Electric Band - "Jean Pierre"

When Vince Wilburn Jr. Miles Davis' nephew and the driving force behind the Miles Davis Electric Band needed someone to take a live multitrack recording and make it sound like a record, he called Rich Keller.

Rich is a celebrated hip-hop mixing engineer. He is also a lifelong jazz bass player with deep ties to the fusion world Miles helped create. This is the session where both sides of him show up.

In this two-part Puremix exclusive, Rich opens his Pro Tools session on 'Jean-Pierre' (an 11-minute live beast from the SFJazz concert) and walks you through every decision from session architecture to master bus. No hi-hat mic. Heavy bleed on every track. Fader rides baked into the recording before it ever reached him. And a band full of living jazz legends who need to sound exactly as powerful on record as they did on that stage.

His philosophy is simple: 'I want to hear what I'm seeing.' Not to reinvent. Not to impose. Just to let the music breathe, lock, and hit.

In this series, watch how Rich Keller:

- Navigates the unique challenges of mixing a 12-piece live jazz fusion band in Pro Tools
- Solves a missing hi-hat mic with a creative overhead compression approach
- Uses the video reference as a genuine mixing tool, not just a bonus
- Builds a record-ready mix out of a broadcast-style live multitrack
- Approaches the master bus with SSL, Gold Clip, and the God Particle
- Shares a musician's philosophy of mixing: feel first, technique second