Robert Irving III

Robert Irving III, an interdisciplinary artist, completes a distinguished lineage of post-bop pianists/composers who collaborated with the legendary Miles Davis. At age 26, Irving's composition "Space" initiated the 1981 comeback of Davis and their prolific nine-year collaboration. Irving produced two award winning Columbia Record albums for Davis, "Decoy" and "You're Under Arrest," while adding to his arranging/orchestration credentials by studying with Gil Evans, who decades earlier had famously arranged some of Miles Davis' most celebrated recordings. Irving has created several film scores, most notably Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Prisoner's starring Yaphet Kotto and Cristina Raines (uncredited), Street Smart (the last film of Christopher Reeve and the first film of Morgan Freeman) and Scenes For the Soul, the debut film of Director, George Tillman (Soul Food). Irving has produced five Grammy Award nominated projects while working closely with Terri Lyne Carrington, Carlos Santana, Wayne Shorter, Patrice Rushen, Diane Reeves, Grover Washington Jr, Nancy Wilson, Branford Marsalis, Regina Carter, Roy Ayers, and many other greats; also serving as Musical Director for The Last Poets, Dr. Donald Byrd and Sister Sledge. Irving Co-founded the Sonic Portraits Entertainment label in 2007 which was re-branded in 2017 as Sonic Portraits Jazz. In 2009 the Jazz Institute/Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs commissioned Irving to create the orchestral suite, "Sketches of Brazil" prompting the formation of his 33-member Sonic Portraits Orchestra. The suite premiered August 13, 2009 with 12,500 fans in attendance at Chicago's Millennium Park. Chicago Tribune music critic, Howard Reich wrote about the piece, "Extraordinarily ambitious... a tour-de-force of orchestral writing." On December 9, 2018, Irving premiered a commissioned composition featuring his Sonic Portraits Orchestra Youth Division in the performance of Sound Pictures of A Century the Living Legacy of Timuel D. Black. Professor Black, who mentored Harold Washington and Barack Obama, also brought Martin Luther King to Chicago for the first time. In 2020 Irving formed Ri3 Reels Corporation NFP and Chi Worldview Studio LLC towards the development and production of Documentary films with the initial focus being seminal Chicago born and/or based musicians. He has produced and edited music videos for over a decade. Irving is Musical Director of the Miles Electric Band featuring Miles Davis alums. Irving states, "This band does not pay tribute to Miles, but rather, it extends his legacy." Irving, who has worked as a art director and columnist for an internationally distributed magazine magazine and exhibited globally as a visual artist, garnered the Cover Story/Interview Nov/Dec 2016 Issue Chicago Jazz Magazine. He is the recipient of two Lifetime Achievement Awards; from Chicago Music Awards 2015 and from the Jazz Institute Chicago on October 26, 2018. He has served as a professional mentor for the latter organization for over 15-years.