When Marcus Miller tapped young trumpet sensation Christian Scott to re-interpret Miles Davis for a new spin on the classic “Tutu” album, both men seemed undaunted by the task at hand.

“Christian’s had hit records, he’s a forward looking guy and he knows his history,” said Miller, in praise of the 27-year-old Scott.

Meanwhile, New Orleans native Scott, heralded as the architect of a new genre of neo-jazz fusion, took it all in his stride.

“No, I wasn’t really daunted,” said Scott. “I think a lot is made of something like that, but when I decided to do the project with Marcus, and we started rehearsing, he told me to approach it the way I would with any project. So, I just tried to do my job and make music to make people happy.”

The results will be seen this Saturday as Miller’s Quartet — with saxophonist Alex Han and drummer Lou Petto — take to the Hollywood Bowl’s revolving stage as part of the two-day 32nd Playboy Jazz Festival.

Scott, like Miller, is making his fourth appearance at the festival and both recognize its importance to the jazz calendar.

However, in his forthright manner, Scott declared himself “not particularly captivated by the American jazz festivals.”

“I think they have such a stagnant system in the context of how they book and promote the festivals. They’re more exclusive than inclusive; it’s sometimes hard to find out what’s going on.

“But the Bowl is such a cool venue. We’ll have a good time when we show up to play and Marcus is a band leader playing music with love in his heart, and trying to touch people.”

A graduate of the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Scott has been performing since he was 13 and is the nephew of renowned jazz alto saxophonist Donald Harrison.

His latest album, “Yesterday You Said Tomorrow,” was recently hailed by Britain's BBC as “the best jazz record for 50 years.”

It was also recorded by one of the icons of the genre, having been engineered at Van Gelder Studios by Rudy Van Gelder, who’s half-century career included work with the likes of Davis, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane.

“He heard our ‘Live at the Newport [Jazz Festival]” CD and said it had the potential to a new sound,” explained Scott.

“He’d stopped recording 20 years ago and was only concentrating on re-mastering earlier work, but he came out of retirement to work on ‘Yesterday.’ It was incredibly humbling and showed me I still have a lot of work to do.’”

Meanwhile, Miller said he is looking forward to playing the festival, which he calls a “big block party.”

The expected sun-drenched weekend is likely to draw a capacity crowd near 17,000 to the Bowl, which he considers a “unique and relaxed atmosphere” for live jazz.

While the festival vibes will stay with patrons long into the night, they probably won’t change their lives come Monday morning.

However, the prolific Brooklyn-born jazzman, who actually wrote Davis’ classic “Tutu” album — named after Archbishop Desmond Tutu — was once paid that ultimate compliment, as an artist who changed people’s lives.

“It was a few years ago at a the South African Jazz Festival in Cape Town,” he recalled.

“I was on a radio show and didn’t know what to expect. [Well], the interviewer asked me what it felt like to have made the most important musical contribution to ‘our freedom struggle.’

“I was like, what do you mean? He said do you know how important that record was to us. It gave us the strength when we needed it. I told him I didn’t even know it had made it to the country because of censorship and he said, ‘When we need it, we get it.’”

Thus, on Saturday Miller will revisit “Tutu” with his specially-assembled quartet.

“It’s something we’ve been doing for the last few months,” said Miller, who was classically trained on the clarinet and also plays keyboards, sax and guitar.

“I played in Paris at the end of last year and there was this huge Miles Davis exhibition at the museum there. It was beautiful and the director asked if I would perform.
“But I didn’t think it was such a hot idea. Miles was not the kind of guy who liked to look back. Then I started thinking that maybe I would like to perform that music because I hadn’t played it for a long time.”

He added: “So I thought what if I got some young musicians who were barely born when me and Miles were creating the album. Christian was already a promising talent on the scene.

“I did a master class at Berkeley and heard Alex. He was just ridiculous and I said, ‘Man, when are you graduating because I’ve got a gig for you.’ And Alex recommended Lou. After we got together, so many people were excited about it that we ended up doing a three month tour.”

According to Miller, he’ll probably mix it up for the rest of the set, but it being jazz he won’t really know until they get on stage.

Plus, don’t be surprised if legendary Playboy Jazz Festival emcee and huge jazz fan Bill Cosby makes an impromptu appearance on percussion.

“Hugh [Hefner] and Bill have been great patrons of the music over the years,” said Miller. “Jazz can be a difficult art form to get into, it takes a minute. But it’s like classical music —those great composers always had someone sustaining them so that they could achieve what they set out to do.”

Miller recalled that he met Cosby back when he was 17 or 18 and the comic icon just walked into the jazz club where Miller was performing and started playing the cymbals.

“Later when I joined Miles’ band in ‘81, he got married to Cicely Tyson in Bill’s house and I ended up in a couple of ‘Cosby’ episodes.”

Thus, 35 years in the business has given Miller, who tours four months of the year, an interesting perspective on the scene.

“The world has definitely got smaller,” he said. “It used to be clear that you could tell which part of the world you were in just by the audiences.

For instance, in the early ‘80s when we started touring Japan they treated jazz like classical music.

“You wouldn’t hear a sound until the very end. Coming from New York, that felt very unnatural. But then in Italy, Brazil, Amsterdam, there was a lot of energy. Now when we play Osaka, it feels like we’re in New York, while other Japanese cities are still very traditional.”