AOTW - March 20th

[AllenLowe]

one interesting (trivia) fact about the Birth of the Cool is that, though recorded in mono, there was a good deal of separation between the drums and the rest of the band - they put Max in a separate booth (on, as far as I know, at least one of the Capitol sessions) -

[Free For All]

Absolutely there is a book of all the scores - it's one of the masterpieces that every musician should have. Jeff Sultanof prepared it using the original parts (long thought to be lost). It even includes stuff that was in the band's repertoire but was never recorded.

http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.jsp?...nd=E&catcode=06

Mike

Thanks Mike- I'm all over this! $16 and change at Amazon.

[Larry Kart]

Listening this afternoon, I was struck anew by how fine almost all of Miles' solos are -- not only remarkably hip harmonically (some of those note choices maybe no one else alive then could have/would have made) but also in terms of long-lined melodic thinking. Also, in terms of how the band phrases, he is the leader -- assuming the recording balance is relatively close to what they was happening in the studio. Mulligan certainly deserves his props, "Godchild" in particular. And I have to listen again, real hard, to the scoring of the main motif of "Rocker" -- seems to me (though even on the RVG remaster it's hard to be sure) that what Konitz and Mulligan are doing around/behind Miles' lead is very far from simple. A partial listen to Mulligan's GRP remake album makes me wonder whether they had the original scores in every case; I not only hear changes in scoring, which is legit if they were made because Gerry heard things differently in 1992, but also what seem to be simplifications or just transcribers' guesses. Speaking of Gerry, he was not a very good player I think at the time of the original sessions; the only solo passage from him that seems effective to me is his brief bit on "Moon Dreams." By 1992, he deservedly takes a lion's share of the solo space, though that does alter the formal balance of most of the pieces. Wallace Roney -- I'd say "nice try." The difference in the rhythm section work from 1992 to 1950 -- well, Max deserves the highest praise. And from what I can tell, Al Haig on the first date had much more to offer this band than John Lewis did -- in '50 or '92. Haig is especially alert and creative behind Miles. Phil Woods in '92 -- I winced at the thought but have to admit that he's not as gross here as I feared he would be. On the other hand, he does contribute to the frequently unhomogeneous sound of the '92 ensemble, though multitrack recording plus Mulligan's desires may have played a role in this too.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

No, the GRP recording used transcriptions. The original parts had not been discovered at that point. Ditto for the Miles at Montreux performance.

Mike

[AllenLowe]

1) I remember a story that Konitz told when he did the Birth of the Cool for a Smithsonian concert - he had called Miles a few times, who kept putting him off, so finally gave up and had the arrangements transcribed - after the concert Miles called Konitz and said: "Why didn't you just ask me? I have all those arrangements in my basement."

2) Interesting that Larry should point out what he did about Haig - Haig was the one who said to me he hadn't ever really listened to the sessions, but couldn't imagine they were any good because the conditions were so uncomfortable, and Max was away in a booth - I told him he should listen again, though I don't know if he ever did - at any rate, Larry is touching on something here which I've thought about a lot - (at least I think he is) - which is that there are real problems with John Lewis's piano playing, in a general sense (sorry Larry if I'm misrepresenting you) -

Edited March 23, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Larry Kart]

Allen -- Never cared much for John Lewis as a soloist, though I generally like his MJQ counterlines, which seem to set up Milt Jackson so nicely. All I was thinking of here was that Haig seemed so subtly responsive to Miles in the moment, while Lewis's comping on the other two dates seemed essentially planned out. As for Haig's memory of/mood during that first session, in the RVG reissue booklet there a shot of the band in the studio, with a standing Miles apparently demonstrating how a certain figure should go, and Haig at the piano looks as tickled with the proceedings as a man could be.

[sidewinder]

I was listening to Carisi's 'Angkor Wat' from the Evans 'Into The Hot' LP the other day and was reminded of just how great an arranger Carisi was. 'Israel' is probably the standout arrangement for me on 'Birth of the Cool' but I also very much like the Mulligan contributions. I'd agree with Chuck re: the solo contributions by Konitz. Some of those fast runs he puts in (on 'Israel' in particular) are just downright incredible..

Listening to Konitz the other week in performance with Kenny Wheeler, you realise just how much he's changed over all of these years as a player.

[AllenLowe]

I know that picture of Haig - much as I liked him he was an odd-duck and a world-class cynic, and you never knew what he was really thinking -

as for Lewis - I've always thought his blues playing in particular was pretensious and self-referential, a kind of pseudo-sophisticate/down-home approach. All right - here is a quote from a famous jazz pianist I once interviewed - can anyone identify him: "John Lewis? Why don't you listen to somebody who knows how to play the fuckin' piano, like Hank Jones?"

Edited March 23, 2005 by AllenLowe

[Jazz Kat]

Who the hell said that!!!!!!

[AllenLowe]

you gotta guess -

[AllenLowe]

oh, all right - Lenny Tristano -

[garthsj]

As promised earlier ... here is André Hodeir's analysis of the BOTC music. This is taken from "Jazz" It's Evolution and Essence," London: Secker & Warburg, 1956, pp. 127-132. (Forgive any typos that are the result of the scan..)

The Miles Davis Band

Is the cool style appropriate for bands of the size reached by those at the end of the classical period? Probably not. The ten brasses and five saxes in Hampton's 1946 band had one objected1to create maximum shock power. The sound aimed at by the band that Miles Davis organized in 1948, on the contrary, was a kind of unified half-tint. It was essentially a "chamber orchestra" by virtue of both its composition and the style imposed on it. Its melodic section consisted of six instruments: trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba, and alto and baritone saxes. It was a rejection of the hot idiom that permitted use of the French horn, which had for a long time been excluded from jazz bands. Similarly, Davis reintroduced the tuba, which had been highly rated by the oldtimers but eliminated during the pre-classical period. It wasn't brought back, be it noticed, simply to turn out rudimentary basses, but rather to be included among the melodic instruments. This plebeian was becoming an aristocrat. To the usual distribution of ranges, with two middle voices balanced by two high and two low ones, was added a distribution of timbres, with each instrument supplying a special color that still blended harmoniously into the whole. The rhythm section was limited to three basic elements – piano, bass, and drums. Davis didn't keep either the guitar, which would be difficult to manipulate in the harmonic and rhythmic climate he had in mind, or the bongo drums, which provided an element of exterior coloration that would be out of place in this intimate music. Accordingly, the band had no more than nine men, just one more than King Oliver's.

What remained to be done was to give the group a basic homogeneity. Did Miles Davis manage to do this by a careful choice of collaborators --– arrangers and instrumentalists – or did the initiative come from Gerry Mulligan and Gil Evans. as Barry Ulanov leads us to understand? Was it these two musicians who foresaw Davis as the leader of a band that was really their idea and for which they had composed scores even before it was actually organized? In any case, the problem for these arranger-composers was to write music that the performers could play in the same spirit as they would have improvised solos. Evans and Mulligan were joined by John Carisi and John Lewis- All of them had participated as improvisers, in the cool movement, so there was every reason to hope that the music they conceived would be profoundly impregnated with that spirit. The instrumentalists themselves were chosen among the young school's most remarkable improvisers. It was vitally important that they should express themselves naturally in a common language. The presence of an outside element, even a valuable one, would have weakened the band by destroying its unity. As it happened, only Bill Barber, on tuba, was not one of the movement's leaders, and he showed great flexibility, fitting into his new surroundings very well.

Although the Miles Davis band played in public on several occasions, it owes its fame to records. Nevertheless, it recorded very few sides. Its reputation was made by eight pieces recorded during two sessions in New York in 1949.8 In the first, the band included seven white musicians (Kai Winding, Junior Collins, Lee Konitz, Gerry Mulligan, Al Haig, Joe Shulman, and Bill Barber) and two colored, ones (Miles Davis and Max Roach). In the second, this proportion was almost reversed, since Winding, Collins, Haig, and Shulman were replaced, respectively, by J.J.Johnson, Sanford Siegelstein, John Lewis, and Nelson Boyd. Furthermore, Max Roach was replaced by Kenny Clarke, so only Davis, Konitz, Barber, and Mulligan remained. It is hard to compare the work of the two groups. One thing is certain: the second plays in a more relaxed way than the first. The two most successful sides, ISRAEL and BOPLICITY, both come from the second session. It should be noted, however, that the first group, which perhaps had less practice, had to handle arrangements that were trickier to perform.

Since some of the pieces (BUDO, MOVE, VENUS DE MILO are interesting almost exclusively for the playing of the soloists and the rhythm section, we shall consider only four sides in this brief study of the cool orchestral language. Two of them, JERU and GODCHILD, arranged by Gerry Mulligan, were recorded during the first session. BOPLICITY, arranged by Gil Evans, and ISRAEL, John Carisi's work, come from the second.

What do these two records bring us? They seem to offer, not merely the promise, but the first fruits of a renewal that has a twofold significance, first for what the music represents in itself and second for the conclusions it permits us to draw about certain conceptions demonstrated in it. To begin with, let us limit ourselves to a consideration of melody, harmony, and orchestration. The convergence of a fairly special orchestral combination and the cool style of playing created an absolutely new sonority, which is what was meant by calling it a fresh sound. The term is a good one. It gives a fairly accurate definition of this music's special climate and obviates certain misunderstandings on the part of listeners whom its small quota of the hot element might have led to speak in terms of "straight" jazz or even of "sweet" music. There is no justification for making such comparisons. Both "straight" jazz and "sweet" music, which are commercial products, make use of a sonority and a melodic and harmonic language that are exaggeratedly sugar-coated. The work of the Miles Davis band, on the contrary, boasts excellent melody and expresses it, as we have observed, by means of a sonority that is to be admired precisely because it forgoes all ornament; and if the firmness of its harmonic language is sometimes veiled by an apparent indistinctness of timbres, analysis shows it to be there nonetheless. Davis uses some of the same clusters as Gillespie, although the latter made them seem more aggressive because of their violently expressionistic context. Elevenths, thirteenths, and polytonal chords alternate with more consonant combinations; the successions are generally more supple, less mechanical than in Gillespie's work. Frequently – and this is one respect in which the new works fit into the jazz tradition – the harmony develops in the form of chord clusters garnished with acid dissonances. Judging by ear (naturally, I haven't had a chance to look at the scores), I'd say that the rather special character of these dissonances comes less from the actual notes than from the orchestration. Since the most dissonant note is more often than not assigned to the French horn, which has a less penetrating timbre than the other instruments, the result is an equilibrium in the superposition of timbres and intervals that is not the smallest charm of GODCHILD and BOPLICITY. This sort of interpenetration of instrumentation and harmony would repay closer study, with the scores in hand .

Generally speaking, the arrangements played by the Miles Davis band treat each section as a unit. Nevertheless, as we have just observed, the diversity of timbres among the winds adds a great deal of freshness. Moreover, the arrangers have shown a certain amount of flexibility, occasionally dividing this section. The voices are not yet really independent, but they are clearly moving in that direction. The writing of the middle voices in GODCHILD and the attempted polyphony of ISRAEL are evidences of an effort to achieve some still vague goal, which I would define as a worked-out counterpoint in which each voice is conceived as if it were improvised. Such music would require its creators to study a lot and to make a great effort of adaptation; but what possibilities a kind of jazz based on this principle would have! Miles Davis' beautiful passage in the second part of the central bridge in BOPLICITY, which imitates so delicately the ascending melodic figure stated a few bars earlier by the clear voices of the band, gives a cautious glimpse of what an orchestral language based on this conception might be,

Other details of orchestration and melody are worth noting. Octave doubling, a holdover from bop's unisons, is fairly frequent, notably in the central bridge of BOPLICITY and in the exposition of ISRAEL and GODCHILD. On this last side, the exposition, which is assigned to the tuba and bariItone sax, begins in a very low register; the color of the sound becomes brighter as the melody rises; then, in a second phase, the theme is taken up by the whole wind section. The gradation is skillful, and George Wallington's nimble theme lends itself nicely to such treatment. In terms of melodic analysis, the piece contains in the fifth measure a figure in triplets that is typical of the classical period; on the other hand, the central bridge of BOPLICITY begins with a phrase obviously inspired by bop. Except for these two relatively minor reminiscences, the melodic language expressed by the themes and the arrangements would seem to account in large part for the originality of these works. On this score, the most remarkable side is probably ISRAEL, which offers a rather astonishing renewal of the blues.

ISRAEL is an example of blues in a minor key, like Ellington's KO-KO. Combining the minor scale and the scale used in the blues results in a scale like the mode of D. With true musical intelligence, John Carisi has played around with this ambiguity, extending the modal color of his composition by making fleeting references to other modes and by using

defective scales. The most significant passage in this respect is the end of the trumpet solo (fourth chorus), in which a countermelody in parallel fifths accompanies Davis' improvisation. Since the soloist, too, has caught the modal atmosphere of the piece perfectly, the combination of his melody and the underlying harmony is an exceptionally happy one. It should be added that the blue notes, which figure naturally in each of the modes employed, help to make the piece sound like the blues but do not have the kind of expressive singularity that makes them stand out from the other degrees in the regular blues scale. Finally, ISRAEL suggests two other observations, one concerning the melody, which moves chiefly by scale steps at some times and largely by leaps at others, and the other concerning the orchestral language, which curiously heightens the effect of the lower voices by making them very mobile (particularly in the second and seventh choruses, which are the most polyphonic of all).

[mikeweil]

Finally, I think that we need an "Ashley Kahninization" of this whole enterprise ... not necessarily in that style, but a social/cultural history of the project considering its importance in the history of modern jazz. As an historian I wish that I was equipped musically to undertake that ... but .... Mike Fitzgerald ... What are the chances of bringing this off as a project, considering that most of the key players are no longer with us?

I was thinking about the next possible project for Kahn just the other day after purchasing a copy of his book on "A Love Supreme" ...

A worthy subject, that's for sure!

[Jazz Kat]

oh, all right - Lenny Tristano -

He can go shove it, I'm never listening to him.

[Chuck Nessa]

oh, all right - Lenny Tristano -

He can go shove it, I'm never listening to him.

Boy will HE be disappointed.

[AllenLowe]

actually, I think Tristano PREFERRED that people not listen to him - so if you really want to get back at him, listen as much as possible -

[couw]

this is too stupid. just listen to the music and forget about all the shit the artists said and some on this board seem all too eager to repeat. buy more records.

Edited March 24, 2005 by couw

[garthsj]

Before this AOTW thread ends .. any others who care to comment on this important album ... ?

[Free For All]

Before this AOTW thread ends .. any others who care to comment on this important album ... ?

I'll say thanks for picking this one. It had been sitting on the shelf for a while and it was nice to listen to it again. Plus, in the ensuing discussion I found out the scores were available (should arrive on Monday!!)!!

Good pick!

[Guy Berger]

Isn't "Deception" one of the first Miles tunes to experiment with stopping harmonic motion?

Guy

[JSngry]

The first, I think.

[Larry Kart]

One interesting aspect of Hodeir's piece (and I remember thinking this when I first read it, back in 1956) is its hope/belief that the way of this band was the way jazz could/should go, as in in this passage -- "What do these two records ["Boplicity" and "Israel"] bring us? They seem to offer, not merely the promise, but the first fruits of a renewal that has a twofold significance, first for what the music represents in itself and second for the conclusions it permits us to draw about certain conceptions demonstrated in it." But that's not the way things turned out, by and large; while a fair amount of valuable music (from S. Rogers, Mulligan, D. Tatro, et al.) took shape in the direct wake of the "Birth of the Cool" recordings, none of it I think (with the possible exception of Tatro's work) was as potent as the best "Birth of the Cool" pieces (and Tatro's music, as fascinating as it was, seems in retrospect to be inherently isolated). Of course Hodeir (a composer-arranger as well as a critic) himself tried to create his own music in something of a post "Birth of the Cool" vein, but it too has a nair of isolation and IMO isn't that successful anyway. Also, Hodeir's later critical writing makes it clear that he has no use at all for Ornette, Coltrane, Ayler and any music of that sort -- which perhaps brings us back to the question Chuck raised way back toward the start of this thread, about the implicit clash between black and white sensibilities in this band. I think this passage from John Litweiler's "The Freedom Principle" gets to the heart of things:

"A more literally detached emotionality arrived with the West Coast jazz inspired by both Tristano and Miles Davis's "Birth of the Cool" nonet, a muted, scaled-down big band. The relaxed, subdued atmosphere of West Coast jazz had a healthy acceptance of stylistic diversity and innovation, but it also accepted the emotional world of pop music at face value; even original themes are treated like more hip, more grown-up kinds of pop music. In bop's freest flights it could not escape reality, but these Cailfornians were not aware of the conflict of values that was the source of bop."

[AllenLowe]

interesting quote from Litweiler - I'd like to hear more on that theme -

[AllenLowe]

oh, and couw - thanks for this one: "this is too stupid. just listen to the music and forget about all the shit the artists said and some on this board seem all too eager to repeat. buy more records. " That's truly in the spirit of intellectual curiousity - no sense thinking about it - just buy the stuff -

[couw]

I was merely pointing out whatever Tristano may have said about whomever should not be a reason to refrain from buying his music.