The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (45 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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a perfectly integrated five-way conversation. The quintet was one of those occasions in the history of the music on which each instrument understood its role in the ensemble, contributed solo statements of its own, and made up a cohesive democracy of very individual voices. All the logic of the bebop group concept had found a kind of resting point, a balance, in this band, a sort of miniature golden age before the assumptions of the music began to be questioned again - by no one more than by Davis and Coltrane themselves.
The quintet repertoire consists almost entirely of well-chosen pop tunes and ballads such as "How Am I to Know," "It Never Entered My Mind," "It Could Happen to You," and "When I Fall in Love," as well as jazz standards of the 1940s and 1950s, such as "Salt Peanuts,'' "Woody'n You," "Well You Needn't," "Stablemates," and "Airegin." It would be practically impossible to choose only one of the five Prestige albums on any objective basis, as all are consistently excellent. My personal favorite, for what it's worth, is probably
Relaxin'
, with cookers like "If I Were a Bell" (listen to Paul Chambers's bass-line melodies under the soloists here), "Oleo," and "Woody'n You," and muted Davis readings of "I Could Write a Book" and "You're My Everything." But all five albums are worthwhile.
In June and September of 1956 the quintet recorded its first album for Columbia, '
Round about Midnight
(CK 40610), which includes the classic performance of the title tune along with Davis's ballad readings of "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "All of You." Davis uses the Harmon mute, which was becoming one of the most recognizable sounds in jazz, on all three. The album also contains a roaring version of Charlie Parker's contrapuntal "Ah-Leu-Cha" and Tadd Dameron's "Tadd's Delight," as well as a mid-tempo look at "Dear Old Stockholm," which includes a long solo by Paul Chambers.
Coltrane left the quintet for a while in 1957 to get his personal life together and to play with the quartet of Thelonious Monk, which he later said was a critical learning experience for him. Davis made several recordings while Coltrane was gone; one of the very best is the brooding and atmospheric soundtrack for Louis Malle's movie
Ascenseur pour l'echafaud
. Recorded in Paris at the end of 1957 with the excellent European musicians Barney Wilen on tenor, Rene Urtreger on piano, and Pierre Michelot on bass, along with American drummer Kenny Clarke, who was then living in Europe, the recording (
Ascenseur pour l'echafaud
[Fontana 836 305-2]) features the full soundtrack as originally issued on the Columbia album
Jazz Track
(no longer available) along with numerous alternate takes of the selections. The album doesn't have the same quality of completion that the Prestige and Columbia sets do, but there is unique and beautiful music on it, and it is highly recommended.
 
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Milestones
By 1958 Coltrane was back with Davis, sounding more distinctive than ever; he had evolved into one of the preeminent tenor players of the time. Early in 1958 a new member was added to the group, alto saxophone phenomenon Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, making it a sextet. Their first album,
Milestones
(Columbia CK 40837), is one of the essential jazz albums, showing all aspects of the group's abilities (except for ballads). Beginning with a ridiculously fast-paced "Dr. Jackle" (Jackie McLean's tune, spelled ''Dr. Jekyll" on the disc) and moving through a slow blues ("Sid's Ahead"), Dizzy Gillespie's up-tempo "Two Bass Hit," the haunting, perennially fresh-sounding "Miles," a trio feature for Red Garland ("Billy Boy"), and a strong, medium-tempo Thelonious Monk blues ("Straight, No Chaser") that uses the sextet horn voicings to good effect, the disc is paced like a good club set. Listen to the way Red Garland and Philly Joe Jones set up little riff patterns behind the soloists on "Two Bass Hit" for an example of their approach at its best. Coltrane's and Adderley's chase choruses on "Dr. Jackle" are stunning and give some idea of the power the group must have generated in live performance. And "Miles," in which the soloists play off of a couple of scales instead of off a set of chord changes, previews the radical extension of the modal approach that was to come on
Kind of Blue
(Columbia CK 40579). Davis's playing on this track is especially beautiful and timeless.
That summer the sextet appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival with two important personnel changes: the major new piano voice Bill Evans replaced Red Garland, and Jimmy Cobb replaced Philly Joe Jones on drums. Evans's style was somewhat more introspective than Garland's; it wasn't as rooted in Bud Powell, and it was to give the group a different coloration, although it wouldn't be felt strongly for a little while. Cobb wasn't the colorful, flamboyant player that Jones was; he had a cooler, more laid-back feeling on the ride cymbal. Although he tried to sound like Jones at first, his true nature would come out and, combined with Evans's sound, make a very important contribution to Davis's music over the next year or so.
Five tunes recorded at the 1958 Newport performance appear on
Miles and Coltrane
(Columbia CK 44052), showing the horn players in very strong shape; Davis is in an extroverted mood, even quoting several of Dizzy Gillespie's pet phrases on "Ah-Leu-Cha." Coltrane has begun what critic Ira Gitler calls his "sheets of sound" phase, attacking long, whirlwind, multinote phrases with a phenomenal intensity, and Adderley's singing sound conveys his blues-soaked ideas perfectly. The set also contains the first two sides the original quintet ever recorded, from October 1955, before even the Prestige sessions. The tracks
 
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"Little Melonae" and "Budo" are excellent, although Coltrane hasn't quite developed the strong voice he soon would.
The 1958 sextet is heard in all its true splendor on one of the essential Davis sets,
Miles Davis '58 Sessions: Featuring "Stella by Starlight
" (Columbia CK 47835). Recorded half at a May studio date and half at a live July session at New York's Plaza Hotel, this set captures the group at its most lyrical and at its hardest cooking. The first three tunes, "On Green Dolphin Street," "Fran Dance,'' and "Stella by Starlight," are pensive tracks with a unique mood; Davis has the Harmon mute in, and all the soloists make statements that are both subdued and extremely inventive. "Love for Sale," the fourth track from that session, is a cooker that goes through bright sunlight and shade. Adderley, especially, is bursting with ideas and energy here; the statements from Coltrane and Evans are more oblique and analytical, making for a fascinating mix of flavors in one track. Two of the three tunes from the Plaza date, "Straight, No Chaser" and "Oleo," are straight-ahead burners all the way; the ballad "My Funny Valentine" rounds out the set.
In the spring of 1958 Davis appeared as a sideman (a rare event, indeed, at this point in his career) on an album by his new sideman, Cannonball Adderley.
Somethin' Else
(Blue Note 46338) is a very mellow, moody set, on which the two horn players are accompanied by pianist Hank Jones, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Art Blakey. It is definitely Adderley's album, but Davis has some great moments, particularly his Harmon-muted melody statements on "Autumn Leaves" and "Love for Sale" and his open-horn work and call-and-response sections with Adderley on "Somethin' Else." Added to the five tunes of the original LP is "Alison's Uncle," a brisk-tempoed, bebop-flavored line different in character from the rest of the material recorded at the session. Davis plays a happy open-horn solo here. Adderley and the rhythm section all sound great throughout.
Miles Ahead
After Davis's eclipse in the early 1950s and his reemergence as a full-fledged star with his quintet in the mid-1950s, he was recognized as one of jazz's most distinctive stylists and as such found himself in demand for numerous special projects that would feature him as a solo voice in different settings. The most famous of these were a series of big-band recordings arranged by Gil Evans and featuring Davis as the solo voice. The three best-known albums to come out of their late-1950s collaboration (which had begun, actually, with the
Birth of the Cool
recordings in 1949) are
Miles Ahead
(Columbia CK 40784),
Porgy and Bess
(Columbia CK 40647), and
Sketches of Spain
(Columbia CK 40578).
Of the three, the one with the most varied program is
Miles Ahead
, which
 
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covers a range of moods from the fast "Springsville" to the profoundly moving "The Maids of Cadiz" in only the first two tunes on the disc. Evans's orchestrations are the work of a master; his extremely varied palette of tonal colors always creates a mood, out of which Davis speaks with unerring appropriateness. Davis's melody statement on Kurt Weill's fine ballad "My Ship" is indelibly poignant. Evans fashions a dense counterpoint to Davis's melodic lead on "Miles Ahead" and an intriguingly shifting background to "New Rhumba.'' But the high points here are too many to list.
Porgy and Bess
is, of course, Gershwin's opera translated by Evans, with Davis assuming the various solo voices. This is as beautiful and integrated a jazz album as you will ever hear; fans of the opera will certainly want it, as the familiar material is both treated with respect and given a whole new life through Evans's and Davis's magic. And Davis's fans will find no better showcase for his open-horn lyricism on trumpet and fluegelhorn. His melody statements on "Bess, You Is My Woman Now," "Summertime" (which he plays muted), and "Fishermen, Strawberry and Devil Crab," to say nothing of "It Ain't Necessarily So," throw a new but completely valid light on Gershwin's work. Don't miss this.
Sketches of Spain
is the least successful of the three Davis/Evans collaborations, although it has been a very popular album. The very long (over sixteen minutes) version of "Concierto De Aranjuez" is static to the point of being boring; there is little or no harmonic movement for much of it. (In this, it prefigures Davis's very static 1969 "In a Silent Way.") The music is an impression of the drone-oriented aspects of Spanish music and works mostly off of one scale, with vamps in the bass and percussion. If you like that kind of thing, you'll probably like this album. It points more toward trance, however, than toward mood. In
Porgy and Bess
, for example, there always seems to be a balance of opposites in mood; here the effect seems to point in one emotional direction, like devotional music (or, in the case of "Saeta," martial music).
In 1958 the French composer, pianist, and arranger Michel Legrand made a series of large-band recordings in New York using the cream of the city's jazz and studio musicians to play a program of recast jazz standards. The album that resulted,
Legrand Jazz
(Philips 830 074-2), is disappointing; parts of it haven't aged well, and Legrand sometimes gets too cute. Other parts are good, but three of the four tunes on which Davis is featured (along with Coltrane and Bill Evans) - a promising program including "Wild Man Blues, from Louis Armstrong's repertoire, Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz," and "'Round Midnight" - unfortunately suffocate under a fussy ensemble burdened with the presence of both vibes and harp. Only John Lewis's "Django" really works; the opening, in particular, sets an unforgettable mood.
 
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In 1956 Davis was the featured soloist on an extended piece for large brass orchestra written by John Lewis (the pianist and musical director of the Modern Jazz Quartet) called "Three Little Feelings." Over the nearly eleven-minute course of this through-composed piece (available on
The Jazz Arranger, Volume 2
[Columbia CK 45445]), Davis plays brilliantly and lyrically against Lewis's meditative backgrounds.
Kind of Blue
In the spring of 1959 Davis went into the studio with Coltrane, Adderley, Chambers, Cobb, and Bill Evans (Wynton Kelly was present for one tune, as well) and recorded one of his best albums, one of the most perennially popular jazz albums ever recorded and certainly one of the most influential. Others had made use of what came to be known as the modal approach before, notably Charles Mingus and composer George Russell, but the Davis sextet on
Kind of Blue
(Columbia CK 40579) produced a complete and wholly successful aesthetic statement, opening the floodgates on a new technique that was to have a profound influence on the way jazz sounded.
The modal approach is discussed in the Ensembles section at some length. What it stemmed from seems largely to have been a sense that the harmonic map dictated by the commonly used chord-progression approach was becoming denser and denser and making the music a kind of obstacle course, robbing it of some of its melodic beauty. Davis had always been a lover of melody; the modal approach simplified the harmonic map by giving the soloists a single scale to play on for long stretches, challenging them to use their melodic imagination rather than strut their harmonic knowledge and technical prowess.
The time would come when the modal approach would be done to death and become more of a prison than the chord-changes approach may have seemed at the time. But the music on
Kind of Blue
was a powerful argument for the incorporation of the new techniques into musicians' repertoires. Over thirty years after it was recorded, the album still sounds fresh and emotionally and intellectually moving. "So What," perhaps the most famous song on the album, is an extended, medium-tempo blowing vehicle on two scales; Davis, Coltrane, and Adderley take solos that startle with invention and fresh ideas. "Freddie Freeloader," a blues at the same tempo as "So What," features Wynton Kelly, one of the best pianists of the 1950s and early 1960s. ''Blue in Green" is one of the most delicate and beautiful things Davis ever recorded; his muted statement of the melody is unforgettable. "All Blues" is a blues waltz with a unique sonority due to the modal approach, and "Flamenco Sketches" is, like "Blue in Green," a performance of rare delicacy and mood,

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