India, June 26 -- On the podcast Go with Elmo Lovano - a three-hour conversation that doesn't feel half as long - pianist, composer and producer Robert Glasper describes walking into the Miles Davis vault for the first time.

He doesn't reach for the obvious metaphors about legacy or reverence. He talks instead about fearlessness: how Davis's archived material, even the unfinished fragments and discarded experiments, radiated a quality of the late jazz maestro's absolute refusal to repeat himself.

The vault is an archiving effort led by the Miles Davis estate. Glasper says it changed how he thought about his own work.

Listening to him, you understand that this is not a musician paying tribute to a hero. It is one restless spirit recogni...