Icon: Miles Davis
Before Bob Dylan or David Bowie or whoever else became famous for periodically reinventing themselves, Miles Davis was already at it. He first gained attention playing fast bebop trumpet with Charlie Parker, then fronted the nine-piece band that established softer cool jazz. (One of his collaborators was arranger Gil Evans, who’d go on to direct a series of orchestral LPs for Miles.) In the ’50s Davis founded his first great quintet, a highly influential group that made John Coltrane’s reputation, and morphed into the sextet that recorded the most famous jazz album ever, Kind of Blue, in 1959. In the 1960s Miles assembled his second classic quintet, a gloriously loose outfit including Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. In the ’70s he went loud and electric, and in the ’80s played overtly pop-influenced funk.
An irresistibly lyrical trumpet player, Miles Davis demonstrated how less could be more. He valued silences and chose notes with care, gravitating toward his horn’s warm middle range. He popularized use of the metal Harmon mute, stuck in the trumpet’s bell for an even more intimate, confidential timbre — one of the iconic sounds of jazz itself.
Must-Haves
-
Miles Davis was a master of subdued ballads, and there are some beauties here, like "It Never Entered My Mind," one of the loveliest tunes in the jazz canon. Miles uses Harmon mute to intensify his yearning, pleading tone, abetted by pianist Red Garland's lacy arpeggios, Paul Chambers 'tolling bass and Philly Joe Jones's subdued swish of brushes on snare drum. This quintet set the style for a zillion jazz... ballads to come, but that was just one side of what it could do. Here they also play a medium-tempo "Trane's Blues" — the rhythm trio gets the following "Ahmad's Blues" to itself — and a couple of brisk bebop/hard bop numbers that bring out Philly Joe's best. His sharp accents propel "Four" and "Half Nelson" with Miles on confident open horn — not that whippet-fast tenor saxophonist John Coltrane needs much prompting on the latter. Miles and Coltrane show the attraction of opposites. The trumpeter excelled at conveying coiled tension, while Coltrane was the jack-in-the-box sprung, playing busy, soaring lines with a brawny tone. Workin' was drawn from two marathon 1956 sessions (which also supplied material for Steamin,' Relaxin' and Cookin') and the band plays like it's in a nightclub, ending with the get-offstage "Theme."
more » -
Easily the most famous and recognizable (and written about) jazz album of all time, 1959's Kind of Blue had a deep concept you didn't need to know about to love the music. Fifty years later it still sounds fresh, from the finger-snapping grooves of "So What" and "All Blues" to the subdued, come-here-baby moods of "Blue in Green" and "Flamenco Sketches." Miles had been looking for ways to simplify his music, and... he and pianist Bill Evans had already experimented with extended improvisations over a couple of chords (like Evans's "Piece Peace"). Kind of Blue took the idea one step further, popularizing the new trend of "modal jazz" — improvising on scales or modes, one at a time, instead of running a steeplechase over fast-changing harmonies. The three horn soloists are studies in contrast: trumpeter Miles dark and introspective, alto saxist Cannonball Adderley bright-toned and singing, and tenor man John Coltrane — already obsessing over scales on his own — eagerly squeezing in as many good ideas as he can. But the strength of the concept binds them together. Bill Evans 'piano playing (except on "Freddie Freeloader" where he's replaced by the funkier
more » -
Arranger Gil Evans was one of Miles Davis's key allies throughout his career. Starting in 1957 they collaborated on four projects for trumpet and orchestra, beginning with the fine Miles Ahead and ending with the problematic but still rewarding Quiet Nights. The series 'middle volumes are Porgy and Bess, where Gershwin's music inspires some of Miles's most poignant trumpeting, and the exquisite Sketches of Spain. Its long flagship number recasts a... slow movement from a 1939 guitar concerto by Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo; it's enlivened by Evans 'gorgeous dissonances for flutes and massed brass, and flamenco echoes from rattling castanets. But the album's real marvels are a pair of shorter pieces derived from field recordings, which push Miles into previously uncharted territory. "The Pied Piper" is based on a Peruvian Indian pennywhistle melody, played by a pig castrator to advertise his services as he makes his rounds. Miles imbues it with such deep feeling, it's as if he empathizes with the pigs. "Saeta" draws on music for a Spanish Holy Week procession, right down to the sound of a brass band advancing from and then retreating into the distance, like something out of Charles Ives; the dire, wounded sound of Davis's trumpet is unforgettably stark.
more » -
Recorded 10 months after the Plugged Nickel gigs, Miles Smiles showcases the leader's second classic quintet wholly comfortable in their new identity, with the rhythm section pushing and questing, Miles compellingly askance with his solos, and Wayne Shorter brilliantly pointing out avenues and trap doors to wend through the maze. The unique combination of abstraction and logic in Shorter's compositions are crucial to the enterprise, highlighted by the definitive version of "Footprints,"... unquestionably his most renowned piece. But there is also durable pleasure in "Orbits," which seems to start abruptly in mid-sentence, pause, and circle back to the melody; and "Delores," which had an open-ended structure that invited the bass and drums into the front line.
more »
The Classic Quintets
-
Miles, the first album released by the trumpeter's classic 1955-57 quintet, is probably the least known of the bunch. (It was waxed after 'Round About Midnight and before all the gerunds: Workin, 'Steamin, 'Relaxin' and Cookin.') It's delightful, not least for what Miles does with his new toy, a metal Harmon mute with its central stem pulled out, to let a thin stream of air escape. The sound is at once relaxed... and pressurized, and oh so perfect for ballads: slow ones like a lingered-over "There Is No Greater Love," and puckish ones like Duke Ellington's "Just Squeeze Me." The quintet takes the delightful 1929 "S'posin'" uncommonly fast, and as elsewhere makes effective use of a simple ploy: John Coltrane's tenor sax is kept under wraps on the melody, to burst forth when it's time for his solo. Pianist Red Garland fleetly raps out the chords, Paul Chambers' bass walking is really more of a trot, and Philly Joe Jones's drum accents are a kick in the pants. The horn players 'phrasing isn't always so different on "S'posin'," but Miles keeps circling back to the melody, while Coltrane doesn't give it a backward glance. The horns get to harmonize too, sublimely, on Benny Golson's "Stablemates."
more » -
If you want to know what Wynton and Branford Marsalis were listening to when they erupted on the scene in the early 1980s, hear E.S.P. — they even reprised its "R.J.," using the same rhythm section, on Wynton's debut album. The roots of the brothers 'swaggering attitude and deft transitions from one time feel to another are here too. E.S.P. was the first studio outing by trumpeter Miles Davis's second great... quintet of 1964-'68, where Wayne Shorter on tenor sax joined the gold-plated rhythm section of pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams. (The band had already been warming up on the road.) Shorter had the concept: tunes with weird chord sequences, and even weirder melodies that seemed to pogo around in one spot, like the title track. Soon they were all writing like that, with Miles editing the tunes to bring their best ideas into focus. There's a little of Davis's old Spanish feel on "Mood," but the music's also influenced by free jazz's way of picking at the edges of forms. Trumpet and saxophone attack the melodies in loose unisons that recall Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry — or it would, if Miles and Wayne weren't so much more urbane as stylists.
more » -
By 1967 and Nefertiti, the fourth (and last full) album by trumpeter Miles Davis's great '60s quintet, the music had gotten increasingly bizarre. On tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter's title track, he and Miles just keep repeating the mournful short melody line over and over; there are no solos, unless you count pianist Herbie Hancock's bursts of commentary in the cracks, or drummer Tony Williams 'fireworks behind the horns. "Nefertiti"'s circular strategy worked... so well, they reprise it with variations on "Pinocchio" (one line melody, but with solos this time) and "Capricorn" (a tune constructed from repetitive figures.)
more »
By this stage in the band's development, there was no mistaking who was driving: Tony William's double-time cymbals and cracking snare thunder are all over everything, all the time, but the effect is so relentlessly musical his onslaught never feels like too much. (Listen to him slowly come to a roiling boil on "Nefertiti.") Hancock had gotten in the habit of soloing one-handed, to keep a lean profile. Ron Carter is the band's pulse and heartbeat. His fast running lines tether "Pinocchio," "Capricorn" and "Hand Jive"; on "Riot" his bass is a log drum. This is the sound of musicians reinventing the art of the jazz quintet.
![Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet [Rudy Van Gelder Remaster] album cover](http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/114/646/11464676/155x155.jpg)
Electric Miles
-
Miles Davis eased into electrified jazz with the spacious and tasteful In a Silent Way and the bubbling stew of Bitches Brew. He took a massive leap forward on live albums recorded in 1970, like Black Beauty and At Fillmore released back in the day, and these belatedly issued sets from New York's premier rock palace (where he split the bill that weekend with Steve Miller, and Neil Young and ... href="http://www.emusic.com/artist/Crazy-horse-MP3-Download/12101029.html">Crazy Horse). It would be the last recording as a member of Miles's working band by saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who plays nasal soprano sax as well as beefier tenor. The music wasn't so much funky as frenetic. The sextet featured drummer Jack De Johnette, the sometimes barely audible Brazilian percussionist Airto, the great bassist Dave Holland (playing electric here) and scene-stealing electric pianist Chick Corea. He pummels the keys like free jazz titan Cecil Taylor, and revels in close-interval dissonances like Thelonious Monk. But with Corea's amp cranked up to 12, the effect is very different; he gets a gloriously distorted crush of sound from his Rhodes. At times it's like Corea and Holland especially are intent on playing free jazz with electric instruments; the band makes an invigorating collective roar.
more »
Related Content
-
sweeton March 6, 2013 at 12:04 am said: the greatest MILES
