Yesterday we chatted with Kenny Garrett on the phone. The alto and soprano saxophonist, composer, bandleader and NEA Jazz Master - the USA's highest jazz honour - renowned for his work with Miles Davis in the 1980s and for his own great contributions to the music since, was speaking from the States where he lives in New Jersey. ''I got back from Europe last night,'' he said. He had been playing across the Atlantic with his Sounds From the Ancestors band in Poland, Finland and in Italy. The context for the call was his new album Who Killed AI? A collaboration with the musician and producer Svoy who is local to Garrett in New Jersey - certainly this ''electronic album'' isn't the AI tail that wags the jazz dog, but instead a sparkling new pretty organic departure and striking in its skittering, hugely up-tempo runaway motion and one that even drum 'n' bass doyens Chase & Status might feel at home with.

The album earns a fairly unique place in Garrett's extensive discography as a leader that goes right back to the mid-1980s and Introducing Kenny Garrett on the late Gerry Teekens' Criss Cross label released a few years before Garrett began to work with Miles. Whether Svoy and Garrett will play live together is a moot point. ''Maybe, at some point,'' is all Kenny says on whether they will gig together given that he has a working band that he has just been touring with. He was billed to have played the Blue Note Milan recently with pianist Keith Brown, bassist Jeremiah Edwards, drummer Ronald Bruner Jr and percussionist Rudy Bird.

With more beats per minute than a stack of ECMs on Who Killed AI, Svoy, aka Mikhail Tarasov, Garrett has worked with before. But this is the first time that the electronica dude shares a co-credit on the cover of an album with Garrett.

Hailing from Detroit, Garrett, now 63, is an influence on the likes of next gen Blue Note alto sax wiz Immanuel Wilkins. Wilkins told us in an interview run 4 years ago in these pages how when he was much younger his own dad used to drive him to neighbouring places in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to hear Garrett play. He enthused about Kenny's time with Miles especially on Michael Jackson's 'Human Nature.'

The seven tracks on this latest album - the title of which was suggested by a saxophone playing friend of Garrett's, he explains, called Skip - were recorded mostly in KG's New Jersey living room. ''Svoy would just come by, listen to my melodies and create his thing. It felt in retrospect very comfortable in my living room''. We don't get mired in anal discussions about AI much mercifully, Kenny says simply that ''it's been around a while'' referencing Chat GPT, the milestone technology that took everyone by surprise when it came out in 2022. Svoy - ''he lives around the block'' - Kenny knew from Berklee ''and those BMI competitions'' - contributes programming, vocals and piano and shares all the original writing and arranging credits with Garrett - the majority of tunes on the album.

Let's not forget that Who Killed AI also feeds in an instrumental cover of Rodgers and Hart's 'My Funny Valentine' that Miles as far back as the 1950s practically made his own. It is almost obligatory that Kenny imitates Miles' famously raspy voice and does not disappoint during this short call with a quick burst. He explains that the way he counts in the seriously catchy 'Ascendence' the opening track released ahead of the full album is the way that Miles used to count everyone in when they played together.

The good news and net results are that it's all fun and often a roller coaster ride. Some of the Garrett sax solos are as ferociously compelling as Savoy period Charlie Parker. He tells us that one of his techniques on the album is while still playing the sax to conjure the guitar intervallically. Also when asked he says that none of the tunes are sped up. Asked what was the most important thing or things that the 5 and a half years with Miles Davis taught him he says ''openness about music'' and that ''Miles was my teacher''. ''The first two songs,'' Garrett also is quoted in pre-release publicity materials as saying ''are really reminiscent of Miles. The way I'm stretching the melody - that’s how I played with Miles.''

''I listen to everything'' he exclaims when quizzed about contemporary music that he might listen to. ''I keep my ears to the ground'' and jokes that before drum 'n' bass came along he used to jam in that style but he and his bandmates would call it ''fusion''. We chat about Jaylen Petinaud a bit, the drummer marlbank was impressed with in Herbie Hancock's band in London last summer and with whom Garrett has also gigged. He says ''Jaylen would come to gigs - he was a fan of my drummer Ronald Bruner Jr''. Wrapping up our brief chat he says that what he is playing right now is ''a natural evolution for me as a musician - the integrity is in the music.''

Who Killed AI? Out through Mack Avenue on 12 April. Opening track 'Ascendence' is streaming

Kenny Garrett, photo: Jimmy Katz