WSJ Article on Miles

[clandy44]

Fifty Years Later, George Avakian

Remembers Miles Davis

By JOHN MCDONOUGH

July 7, 2005; Page D7

If George Avakian were to nominate his most important achievements as a record producer, he would have much to choose from. His contributions to Columbia Records' jazz catalog have been well chronicled. In the 1950s, he helped restore Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to stardom and make new stars of Erroll Garner and Dave Brubeck.

But of all the gifts Mr. Avakian brought to Columbia, the gift that keeps on giving most is Miles Davis. The stoic trumpet legend, who died in 1991 at age 65, remains among the label's most valuable assets. Of the 26 Grammy Awards Davis and his records have collected since 1960, 18 have come after his death. Nine of those have gone to the continuing series of deluxe boxed sets that since 1996 have been cataloging his body of work.

It was in 1955 that Mr. Avakian quietly signed Davis and proceeded to produce the early masterpieces on which his reputation as an innovator would rest. By way of observing the 50th anniversary of his relatively unsung arrival, Columbia/Legacy has been rolling out a rapid procession of Davis reissues, starting in January with three, including a new CD-DVD coupling of "Kind of Blue," the 1959 album widely considered to be his finest single work. In March came single CDs of last year's seven-CD box, "Seven Steps," covering the transitional 1963-64 period (and issued in April as a 10-LP set from Mosaic Records. Last month saw a repackaging of Davis's first Columbia album, "'Round About Midnight" (1957), expanded to two CDs with a previously unissued 1956 quintet concert with John Coltrane. And in September expect another boxed set, "The Cellar Door Sessions," from three nights in 1970.

The object of this celebration earned his iconic stature in many ways. But the Miles Davis that arrived at Columbia in 1955 was still very much a work in progress. "People think he came to Columbia with big ideas about recording Third Stream orchestra works with Gil Evans," says Mr. Avakian. "Miles didn't have an idea in his head when he came to Columbia except that he was ambitious and wanted the kind of exposure and promotion Garner and Brubeck were getting.

"Soon after we set up a pop album department at Columbia in 1947, Miles started this little campaign. Whenever I'd run into him, he'd say, 'Hey George, when are you going to sign me up?'...He would say it in a charming, winking kind of way. But I always knew that he meant it."

There were two problems. Davis was under contract to Prestige Records. And he was a junkie. "I didn't want any part of junkies," Mr. Avakian recalls, "because I'd been around them enough to know that they're nothing but trouble. It was terrible to see it in Miles. Around 1952 he was hardly working and would come and sit in at Birdland on Mondays when they had an open-door policy. He looked slovenly and his playing had deteriorated. It was a sad thing. During this time when he would say 'sign me up,' I could always say no because of the Prestige contract."

2005 MILES DAVIS RELEASES

January

'A Tribute to Jack Johnson'

'My Funny Valentine'

'Kind of Blue' (CD and DVD)

March

'Seven Steps to Heaven'

'Miles Davis in Europe Four & More'

'Miles in Tokyo'

'Miles in Berlin'

'The Best of Seven Steps'

June

'Round About Midnight:

Legacy Edition' (2 CDs)

August

'The Essential Miles Davis' (2 CD-DVD)

September

'Miles Davis: The Cellar

Door Sessions 1970' (6 CDs)

But by 1954 Davis had straightened himself out. When Mr. Avakian saw him at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1955, he decided the time had come for a serious talk. "Those who had heard of Miles at all then mostly thought of him as a bebop player," Mr. Avakian says. "But I saw Miles in a different way. I saw him as the best trumpet ballad player since Louis Armstrong....It could be jazz ballads like 'Round Midnight,' but I thought it could have a broad appeal on the basis of being very pretty music -- easy to listen to on one level -- yet of a very high quality for jazz fans. That was the principle potential I had in mind in signing Miles."

Jazz by then had grown across the decades mainly through leaps in virtuosity that expanded the limits of the music. But with bebop, the music reached the practical limits of where virtuosity could carry it. The great contribution of Miles Davis was to slow the arms race of technique and show that there were paths to innovation that didn't necessarily depend on hitting more notes higher and faster. The languorous intimacy of his ballads helped open that door. The remarkable thing is how close Columbia came to missing the potential that Davis offered.

"Within Columbia there was absolutely no interest in Miles," Mr. Avakian recalls. "He wasn't a factor in the business we were doing, which was getting to be huge. Fortunately, there was no need for me to ask anyone's permission to sign him."

Mr. Avakian offered Davis a two-year contract with options and a $2,000 advance for each of two albums against a royalty of 4%, which was only a point below what Doris Day was receiving. As for the 18 remaining months of his Prestige contract, Davis himself suggested a simple solution.

Mr. Avakian spoke to Bob Weinstock of Prestige and told him that he'd like to start recording Miles right away, but that Columbia would not release anything until his Prestige contract expired. Weinstock agreed, recognizing, Mr. Avakian says, that the promotion Columbia would be investing in Miles 18 months hence would greatly enhance the value of any Miles Davis LPs Prestige would release before then.

Davis knew he would now have to form a working group and hold it together until his first Columbia album came out in 1957. "By the end of the summer Miles had come up with John Coltrane and asked me to come down to the Anchors Inn in Baltimore and listen. I remember well that Coltrane just knocked me out with the last set. That was the thing I needed to push me over the line. Miles made his first recordings with Coltrane in October and we signed the contract at the same session."

Eighteen months later, Davis debuted as a Columbia artist on "'Round About Midnight." The album contained the first recordings made by the now legendary Davis-Coltrane Quintet. But with the 18-month lag, Prestige had in the meantime recorded and issued several albums by the same group.

With the quintet overexposed, says Mr. Avakian, "I knew I would have to do something different with Miles....In 1956 I had recorded Gunther Schiller conducting two pieces for brass ensemble in which Miles was soloist. It was strictly for art and didn't sell well. But when I heard Miles in that context, I decided we should explore something further along that line for his next album. Miles was free to choose whom he wanted to work with to get that result, and he chose Gil Evans. The three of us had lunch for two days in a row working out the plan, and the idea emerged that they would do an album with as many pieces as they wanted with background conceptions that Gil could provide. I asked for only one thing: provide an original piece that could support the album concept I had in mind, 'Miles Ahead.'"

The success of that LP brought Davis the fame he had wanted and solidified his place in the Columbia roster. Mr. Avakian would produce one other Davis album, "Milestones," and help lay the groundwork for "Porgy & Bess" and "Sketches of Spain" before leaving the company in 1958. Together their timing could not have been better. Davis appeared on Columbia the same year Jack Kerouac published "On the Road." A new breed of postwar individualism was stirring in the beat movement, which embraced modern jazz as its music. Davis was a perfect expression of its cool detachment.

"Miles was a natural rebel," Mr. Avakian says, "very original, and therefore perceived as authentic. The beats may have admired his coolness, but I don't think they would have liked him. He enjoyed the privileges of material well-being too much. While he may have appeared anti-Establishment, Miles was a man who very much wanted the protection of the Establishment."

It was a protection Columbia would provide him for the next 30 years.

Mr. McDonough writes about jazz for the Journal.

[Bright Moments]

thanks for posting this!

[Christiern]

I wonder how Gunther Schiller is doing.

McDonough, a true jerk who used to kiss John Hammond's ass, should have asked George about Schaap--that would have brought to life this pedestrian article.

[Guy Berger]

It was in 1955 that Mr. Avakian quietly signed Davis and proceeded to produce the early masterpieces on which his reputation as an innovator would rest.

Guy

[Jazzmoose]

It was in 1955 that Mr. Avakian quietly signed Davis and proceeded to produce the early masterpieces on which his reputation as an innovator would rest.

Guy

←

No shit. I'll double your and throw in a ...

[jazzbo]

No shit. Everyone knows he was nothin' til Teo took over producing his ass. -_-

[Christiern]

No shit. Everyone knows he was nothin' til Teo took over producing his ass. -_-

←

Yes, Lon, but we were talking about his music.

[Dr. Rat]

(clandy44 @ Jul 7 2005, 07:09 AM)]

It was in 1955 that Mr. Avakian quietly signed Davis and proceeded to produce the early masterpieces on which his reputation as an innovator would rest.

Guy

But when Miles Davis was playing international playboy and superstar in the 1970s, he was riding on the success of . . . his Prestige Recordings?

And your typical WSJ reader knows Davis how?

This wasn't written for an audience of jazz historians, but for an audience rather casually aware of jazz as a pop cultural/artistic phenomenon. Meaning the pre-Columbia Davis is pretty much below the radar.

--eric

Edited July 7, 2005 by Dr. Rat

[Michael Fitzgerald]

I'm missing the argument.

Miles became huge based on his Columbia recordings (not his Prestige ones). And the ones that got him noticed in this big way were pre-Teo.

Mike

[jazzbo]

I agree with you, funning aside about whatever it was that Teo was producing, music or anatomy. . . .

[Dr. Rat]

I'm missing the argument.

Miles became huge based on his Columbia recordings (not his Prestige ones). And the ones that got him noticed in this big way were pre-Teo.

Mike

←

Not your fault you're missing it, I quoted the wrong post!

Should have been Guy's.

[JSngry]

No shit. Everyone knows he was nothin' til Teo took over producing his ass.-_-

←

Well, no, but when Miles Davis was playing international playboy and superstar in the 1970s, he was riding on the success of . . . his Prestige Recordings?

←

No, a combination of the 1950s Columbia sides and Bitches Brew and the accumulation of a lot of press hype in between.

Truthfully, Miles was already considered an innovator before his Prestige sides, thanks to what's come to be known as The Birth Of The Cool. He could've died in 1952 and still been considered an innovator. Probably not a world famous one, though.

I think the point is that McDonough's assertation that it's the Avakian-produced Miles sides are the ones on which Davis's reputation as an innovator rests is more than a little overstated. The "legend" was created over the long haul, not with one or two albums. Avakian helped create the star, but that's only a portion of the legend. How many stars become legends and don't just stay stars? Some and none, mostly the latter.

This wasn't written for an audience of jazz historians, but for an audience rather casually aware of jazz as a pop cultural/artistic phenomenon.

←

Well, again - if they don't know anything coming in, and are likely to know not too much more on the way out, you might as well, give'em the facts, not the half-truths or convinient-but-innacurate soundbites. To say that Avakian's productions went a long way towards creating the reputation is accurate. To say that they ARE the reputation, isn't, and you don't have to delve into the minutiae of jazz history to delinitate that.

I don't know if McDonough's choice of words was an intentional statement of his well-known "agenda" or if it was just a throwaway line meant to flatter the subject of his article in the eyes of the readership. Either way, it's just not good writing, because it's A) not accurate, and B) the great George Avakian has enough other accomplishments that equally qualify as legendary, so there's no need to create the impression that. "Hey y'all, this is the guy that made Miles Davis a STAR!" and let it go at that. Again, no need to go into minutiae - a single sentence could get the point across just dandily.

Seems like everywhere I go these days, I'm surrounded by slop, people who know better not doing better, and people who don't know better (but should) not caring to do so when presented with the opportunity and the means. Fuck that shit.

It's official - I'm now a Grumpy Old Man.

Edited July 7, 2005 by JSngry

[Christiern]

Grumpy old man is correct.

[JSngry]

Well, I'm actually a Grumpy Middle-Aged Man, but part of that deal is feeling old before your time...

[clandy44]

Sorry I posted. Won't be doing that again. Sick of all the angry folks. Good luck to you.

[Jazzmoose]

Oops. We have become an antagonized lot, haven't we?

[couw]

Oops.  We have become an antagonized lot, haven't we?

←

yes

[JSngry]

It'll pass. It always does.

[GA Russell]

Clandy, I'm glad you posted it. I wouldn't have known about it if you hadn't! Thanks!

[PHILLYQ]

Sorry I posted.  Won't be doing that again.  Sick of all the angry folks.  Good luck to you.

←

Clandy44,

Please don't be upset by the reaction and discussion that followed. When you post an article you never know what way the discussion will go. I posted an article once and the discussion went in a completely different direction that what I thought would happen. That's just the way it goes sometimes. I appreciate you posting the article because I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

[Free For All]

I didn't think the responses were particularly angry or nasty. Just some regulars bein' themselves. Definitely don't take any of it personally though, clandy44.

One thing that is for certain around here is that you never know what direction a "conversation" is going to take when you post something.

Just part of this odd little cyberworld we frequent.

[JSngry]

Yeah, even of I don't care for McDonough and have qualms about what he wrote, hey, I still enjoyed reading the article and appreciate having it posted here. If I gave the impression that I didn't, I apologize. My "dispute", such as it was, was in mild rebuttal to Dr. Rat's point, and then one thing led to another...

[Free For All]

Yeah, even of I don't care for McDonough and have qualms about what he wrote, hey, I still enjoyed reading the article and appreciate having it posted here. If I gave the impression that I didn't, I apologize. My "dispute", such as it was, was in mild rebuttal to Dr. Rat's point, and then one thing led to another...

←

Apparently your rebuttal was not so subtle.

Good Thad Jones tune, BTW.

[Guy Berger]

Clandy -- I didn't mean to offend. My issue is with that one line by McDonough, which to me, conveyed his conservative spin (I mean, this dude makes Crouch and Wynton seem open-minded) -- that we can ignore Miles's recordings between 196x-1975 (I didn't even think of BoTC or the Prestige records, but same comment for those).

Guy

[AllenLowe]

well, this place can make you a little gun shy -