MILES DAVIS' ***** ALBUMS

*****ALBUMS: 1) THE BIRTH OF THE COOL

INTRODUCTION:

Te Birth of the Cool was much more than an album of music. It was the start of a movement as depicted in Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, the title of a movie by award winning Director, Stanley Nelson. Reviews were mostly positive but at times mixed, criticism coming from those who lament the ‘talking head’ style of documentary that predominates, unfortunately in my opinion, the structure of modern documentaries. It is amazing how many ‘experts’ or in this case ‘musicologists’ pop out of the woodwork but it is vital not to interrupt the flow too much and, personally, I would always prefer to see more of the artist and his life and music than heads unnecessarily popping up to fragment the spoken documentary part of the film. A well written script and a good narrator is all that is needed although, to be fair,  the decision for this film was to use the words of Davis himself supplemented by actor Carl Lumbly reading words from Davis’s’ autobiography so criticism on these grounds is perhaps harsh. That apart, the film is essential viewing for those wishing to appreciate the significance of the series of 10” releases that would be brought together under the title of ‘The Birth of the Cool’ and how these recordings influenced subsequent events. The documentary starts with Davis’s early life in St. Louis, his move to New York where he enrolled at the prestigious Julliard College, and joined Charlie Parker’s band. Davis’s love affair with Juliette Gréco and his heroin addiction and cold turkey recovery are all depicted. To be fair, despite my reservations about ‘talking head’ style documentaries, key players are interviewed, including Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter. The trumpet was, of course, Davis’s’ voice, his means of expression, and music was everything to him. His own sulky, rasping human voice was perhaps mirrored in the use of a muted trumpet, quiet, measured and undemonstrative. The footage in the film includes the Kind of Blue Quintet; the challenges of orchestrated jazz are also revealed in his collaborations with Gil Evans; also his hard bop conversion with another classic quartet that featured Hancock and Shorter culminating in the electric jazz fusion approach of Bitches’ Brew. In the part dealing with Davis’s delicate relationship with his first wife Frances Taylor, what can only be described as sexism and abusive behaviour, making Frances choose between Broadway and being with Miles.

Of course, Davis suffered a major form of discrimination himself, racism, when he was told to move by a Police Officer while standing outside the Birdland Night Club in New York in the summer of 1959. Despite his explanations that he had a legitimate reason for standing there (escorting a white lady to a waiting taxi) and would go inside shortly, he was beaten with a nightstick by patrolman Gerald Kilduff aided and abetted by Detective Donald Roker , needed medical treatment, and to add insult to injury which necessitated bandaging of the head, charged with assault and disorderly conduct, had to pay $1,000 bail, and had his Cabaret Card, which gave him the right to perform, taken away from him. The charge was reduced to third degree assault and his Cabaret Card returned. Eventually, all charges were dropped but the impact on Davis psychologically and in terms of his career were significant, the band having to break up while he was without his Card. It took Miles years to hit his creative stride again.

“Ahead of its Time”

MILES DAVIS: THE BIRTH OF THE COOL (1949-1950) (Capitol) (Nontet) (New York) was recorded over three sessions (January and April, 1949 and March, 1950) released originally as a series of 10” 78 RPM records and compiled in a mono LP on Capitol Records in 1957.

TRACKS: Move, Jeru. Moon Dreams, Venus De Milo, Budo, Deception, Godchild, Boplicity, Rocker, Israel, Rouge. (Most titles released as series of 10” 78 RPMs and issued as a mono LP on Capitol Records in 1957. An extra vocal track, Darn That Dream was added in later additions but I have treated that as a bonus track and not integral to the original project.

MUSICIANS: Miles Davis, trumpet; Lee Konitz, alto saxophone; Gerry Mulligan, baritone saxophone; Junior Collins, Sandy Siegelstein, Gunther Schuller, French horn; Kai Winding, J.J. Johnson, trombone; John Barber, tuba; Al Haig, John Lewis, piano; Nelson Boyd, Joe Shulman, Al McKibbon, bass; Max Roach, Kenny Clarke, drums.

NOTES: Under the influence of Gil Evans and Claude Thornhill whose Orchestra was the first prominent one to deploy French horns and tubas in jazz, Davis conjured up a notable series of necessarily short pieces to fit the available format that combined together well when released on LP for the first time seven years later. (There is more information to be found about Davis and the ideas behind his worthy Nonet in the preceding text). Suffice to say the relaxed, ‘cool’ music that emerged would have an influential effect beyond New York to the opposite shores of the West Coast Jazz Scene. Each piece seems longer than its allocated three minutes or so with Davis demonstrating his economical and effective ‘soulful’ use of space on pieces like Moon Dreams arranged by Gil Evans. Gerry Mulligan’s composition Jeru was also outstanding, again with concise solos by Lee Konitz and Mulligan himself. John Lewis, already an accompanist for Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Ella Fitzgerald, arranged four of the pieces, including the impressive Move, and would become the founder and Musical Director of The Modern Jazz Quartet. The Birth of the Cool was an early indicator of the talent of Miles Davis and of the success he would achieve and still sounds fresh and relevant today- ahead of its time, in fact.