Marcus Miller, photo by Mathieu Zazzo.

There is universal recognition that times have changed in the music industry. Recordings don’t serve as a major source of income for many acts or companies any more, so artists make their name and earn their reputations on stage. This is a welcome development for those of us who prefer the live concert to the stereo, and is a professional change to which legendary bassist Marcus Miller has readily adapted.

“You have to get on the road,” said the 53-year old Miller, who will be playing tomorrow night at The Howard Theatre. “I’ve spent the past five years playing for the people. It’s a very organic life I’ve been living.”

This is a marked change from how Miller spent much of the previous twenty-plus years. After having earned his reputation as a trailblazing bass player at a young age, in the ’80s Miller became an in-demand session musician and Grammy winning producer. As a sideman, he worked with any number of jazz and R&B greats, including jazz icon Miles Davis, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. From the control room, he was the driving force behind Tutu, arguably the strongest of Davis’s latter efforts, and produced hits for Luther Vandross, Roberta Flack, Natalie Cole and David Sanborn. He is also an accomplished film composer, having written scores for Spike Lee’s School Daze, Eddie Murphy’s Boomerang and Chris Rock’s I Think I Love My Wife.

“Making a really heavily produced album was not easy back in the day. Only a few people could do it where it would still have a human feeling to it,” Miller said of his time as a self-described “studio rat.”

But after his 2005 release, Silver Rain, Miller recognized the shifting landscape in how people consumed music. He saw that it was becoming increasingly rare that people even bought — let alone listened to — entire albums. Things came full circle for Miller at that point, and he decided to go back on the road to collect experiences so that he would have something meaningful to express when he returned to the studio. Miller recorded an album and toured extensively with SMV, a group with equally prodigious bassists Stanley Clarke and Victor Wooten. He also did an orchestral project, and also revisited his Tutu years with a young band whose members were fresh out of music school. Playing with those musicians inspired Miller to return to the studio to record Renaissance, which came out earlier this year.

“This album was written with those young guys in mind,” said Miller. “I wanted to have music where these guys could really dig in.”

Like his mentor, Miles Davis, Miller revels in being able to present young talent to the world. Many of the album’s cast will appear with Miller at tomorrow’s concert. His bandmates include trumpeter Lee Hogans, saxophonist Alex Han, D.C. area keyboardist Federico Gonzalez Peña and drummer Louis Cato. Miller also believes that hearing the songs from Renaissance will offer tomorrow’s audience something different than those of previous albums and tours in that like everything else in his life, it is a more organic process.

“Ten years ago if you bought an album after my concert, you’d have to make a transition when you listened to it,” said Miller. “Now, after the concert if you buy this album, there’s not any transition.”

Marcus Miller & Co. will perform tomorrow night at The Howard Theatre. 6 p.m. doors/8 p.m. show. $45 in advance/$50 at the door.