MILES DAVIS

Miles Davis 1926-1991

          Miles Davis was possibly the coolest person ever to walk this earth. Steve McQueen came close, but Miles takes it. But putting coolness aside, the music of Miles Davis influenced so many players and listeners, and he created so many new genres of jazz, took jazz music and jazz trumpet playing in so many new directions it would be nearly impossible to come up with a list of absolute bests from his discography. With that in mind, though, there are some individual recordings that should not be missed by anyone who cares to understand the depth of Miles Davis’s contribution to the world of jazz. So, let’s get right to it.

          I go back to a 1958 recording, already more than ten years into his career. The albums up to that time have their own swing, their own important history, but there is an album called BASIC MILES (C32025- released 1973), a collection of classic performances by Miles that is impossible to find, but if you can, listen to Stella By Starlight, with John Coltrane on tenor, Bill Evans, piano; Paul Chambers, bass and Jimmy Cobb, drums. The sensitive solos by Miles, Coltrane, and Evans, reach levels of painful beauty that few others in jazz do with a standard. Interestingly, another take of Stella from the same session is on the album ’58 SESSIONS, but Miles’s solo is not nearly as good as on the BASIC MILES track.

          Several albums came out of those quintet years with Coltrane on tenor, but to sample the real energy of that group, listen to the live concert at Newport in 1958, especially Straight, No Chaser (either MILES AND MONK AT NEWPORT, or the CD re-release LIVE AT NEWPORT).

          Summertime, from the PORGY AND BESS album (1958) is an absolute Must-Listen. Miles’s muted plaintive interpretation of Gershwin’s famous song, partnered with Gil Evans orchestral arrangement is one of the all-time high points in jazz. Listen to the entire album. One trumpet riff by Miles in the final twelve bars of There’s a Boat that’s Leaving Soon for New York is right up there with the most lyrical ever to flow out of a trumpet.

          Anyone who likes jazz needs to own the album KIND OF BLUE, the 1959 release that turned jazz on its ear with its modal progressions that basically announced to be-bop, “You’re finished, man.” The tune So What is the main attraction of the album, again with Coltrane and Bill Evans featured strongly. It is no wonder KIND OF BLUE became one of the best selling jazz records of all time. It was gentle enough for non-musician jazz lovers, but for jazz musicians, advanced the form.

          The studio album SEVEN STEPS TO HEAVEN (1963) launched a new quintet. The tune Seven Steps to Heaven is an absolute classic, with Herbie Hancock’s piano solo setting the stage for his years with Miles. That new quintet included Herbie Hancock on piano, George Coleman on tenor, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. Wayne Shorter replaced Coleman after two years and the group remained intact for more than five years. The studio albums they produced contain the reserved, avant garde jazz of the time that occasionally was too esoteric for mass audiences, but their live performances explode with energy. Listen to Miles’s stratospheric genius on My Funny Valentine, originally off the live album MY FUNNY VALENTINE (also on GREATEST HITS). Compare Seven Steps to Heaven off FOUR AND MORE to the studio version to get a taste of the incredible force of the group in concert. While you’re at it, don’t miss the tune Four, one of Miles’s best tunes of the era. Listen also to the albums LIVE IN EUROPE, and MILES IN BERLIN, both equally exciting live albums from the same period.

          Miles again created new directions in music with a burst of innovation that began in 1969 with the album

IN A SILENT WAY

. He makes musical first ascents with each of the next three albums, BITCHES BREW, TRIBUTE TO JACK JOHNSON, and LIVE EVIL. A Must-Listen is Sanctuary off BITCHES BREW. This is pure sound energy for its own sake, precisely the direction Miles takes us for the next decade. Listen to some or all of Right Off (JACK JOHNSON album) for the clarity and intensity of his trumpet playing which is the absolute best tone of his career. The piercing long tones; no one does them like Miles. Listen to Selim off LIVE EVIL for a haunting melodic composition that just hangs in the air and never comes down.

          Miles expands our musical world with GET UP WITH IT (1974), a powerful album of gentle beauty and force. He plays the organ on this album almost as much than the trumpet. The outsider but Must-Listen track is Rated X, six minutes and fifty-three seconds of the most vicious interplay ever between organ and percussive sounds from drums, guitar and electric piano. You may not like it, but who other than a visionary could create something like that?

           The 1980s is a prolific decade for Miles. He returns from a five year retirement with THE MAN WITH THE HORN (1981) and a monster line-up of sidemen. Fat Time has a kickass bass groove (introduce Marcus Miller) and guitar solo by newcomer Mike Stern that is totally novel to the jazz genre. Aïda introduces a melody that evolves into Fast Track on the live album WE WANT MILES (1982). Five minutes and sixteen seconds into Fast Track, Miles blows some of the most clarified prolonged high trumpet tones he has ever blown. It is ‘Miles in the 80s’ at its prime. The tune Katia, off YOU’RE UNDER ARREST (1985) has an intense trumpet-organ theme over a complicated Eastern percussions rhythm and stabbing guitar lines by John McLaughlin. Miles’s cover of Michael Jackson’s Human Nature strays from typical Miles but is nevertheless a beautiful tribute.

          AMANDLA (1989) is a collection of eight tunes, all under six minutes, written mostly by bassist Marcus Miller. More structure and melody to the tunes, but with plenty of funk. The Must-Listen tune is Mr. Pastorius, the only straight jazz tune with unmuted trumpet on the album, a poignant eulogy to Jaco Pastorius.

          So there. That’s one short playlist tour of Miles Davis’s career in under twenty tunes. Each is the best of its period. But there is so much more. All the tunes in between are worth studying.

          Miles once said the history of jazz could be said in four words: “Louis Armstrong Charlie Parker”. That was the first half of the twentieth century. The second half requires two more words: Miles Davis.

BILL EVANS (piano)

                                                       by James Channing Shaw





Bill Evans (1929-1980)



Who could possibly come up with the best one or two performances or recordings by legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans? He made over seventy albums as a leader and performed thousands of concerts during his career. I can, however, share my experiences with the man, and propose a few must-listen tracks.

I probably saw Bill Evans more than ten times, mostly in small clubs, sometimes with twenty-five people in the audience, talking and clinking glasses throughout the show. Two memorable concerts stand out, one at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village in the spring of 1972, and the other in April, 1979 in Tacoma, Washington.

My friend Dan and I sat alone at a table at the front of The Village Gate, about five feet from the piano. We had arrived so early to get good seats we were the only ones in the club. No cover; one drink minimum. While Eddie Gomez was setting up his bass and music stand, Marty Morrell came in, spoke quietly to Gomez and left the club again. We discovered that Morrell had locked his drums in the trunk of his car and wouldn’t be playing that evening. Bill Evans and Eddie Gomez decided to do the first set as a duo. No tune specifically stood out as a best performance that night, but the duo format created something fresh and exciting. They played off each other in a way I had never heard. I like to think that we witnessed the serendipitous start of what became two duo albums, the studio recording INTUITION (1974), and the live performance album MONTREUX III (1975). Invitation off the former, and Elsa off the latter are as good as jazz interpretations get.

The second stand-out concert in 1979 took place in Tacoma, Washington, at The Engine House, a converted fire station. The trio included Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums. They played very well, but Bill Evans uncharacteristically schmoozed with the audience and introduced every tune. Never before had I heard him utter a word. At the end of the night, he picked up the microphone and said, “You can say that, on the night of April 21^st, 1979, you heard Bill Evans speak.”

Bill Evans must-listen tracks:

From Miles Davis’s KIND OF BLUE (1959), listen to Bill Evans’s piano accompaniment and solo on So What. It is understated, impressionistic, a series of cluster chords and modal intervals of 4ths and 2nds in which the silence between the notes is as important as the notes.

           

Peace Piece, off the Riverside album PEACE PIECES (RS-3042), recorded 1958, released 1969, is another example of the impressionistic solo piano playing of Evans in the late 50s and early 60s.

BILL EVANS AT TOWN HALL (1966) is a beautiful album. Listen to Solo—In Memory of His Father, in which he improvises on Turn Out The Stars with tender, lyrical playing like no other jazz player has ever played.

BILL EVANS, FROM LEFT TO RIGHT (1970) is produced with orchestra and contains some gorgeous tunes. Listen to The Dolphin, Before and After for a taste of his flowing right hand and tasteful comping with his left.

From THE BILL EVANS ALBUM (1971), listen to Waltz For Debbie. He wrote the tune and recorded it many times. Every version is excellent, but this one has a degree of control and accuracy with an intensity that is special, enhanced by superb studio recording techniques. There is a solo on the Rhodes piano, but the final acoustic piano solo on the tune is as good as Bill Evans has ever played.

My absolute favorite, from SINCE WE MET, is a trio version of Turn Out The Stars from a Village Vanguard live recording in 1974. The solo version in the TOWN HALL album is excellent, but this one is the best playing I have ever heard from Bill Evans and from the trio. There is no bass solo to change the mood (sorry, Eddie), so the energy remains with the piano, building in rhythm and intensity with each chorus. Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell fall right in behind Bill. It is formidable playing with massive control and musicianship.

           

Obviously there is much more for you to explore on your own. Lovers of jazz still mourn the loss of Bill Evans, a gentle soul and masterful player.

HERBIE HANCOCK: Must-Listen Tracks

            If there were a lifetime award for ‘jazz player with the most rhythm', Herbie Hancock would easily walk away with it. His are not the polyrhythms of certain Caucasian or East Indian players, nor are they the sometimes frenetic Latino rhythms in jazz; his is the steady basic beat that he takes to tantric heights or get-down lows like no one else can. (Check out the final vamp in When Love Comes to Town, off the POSSIBILITES album if you don’t believe me). If you combine that talent for killer rhythm with his exquisite touch, Herbie Hancock is probably the best jazz pianist of the last fifty years, with only one or two on the same short list.

            Before he had his own group, Herbie’s solos as a sideman with Miles’s quintet were the envy of every aspiring jazz pianist. When he left Miles, he formed his own groups and brought out his composing chops with popular tunes like Watermelon Man and Maiden Voyage. Those two, along with Tell me a bedtime Story and Dolphin Dance, became instant jazz standards.

            But then! He completely blew the jazz music world away in 1973 with HEADHUNTERS, the recording that catapulted jazz-rock fusion to the forefront of jazz. His arrangements on that album combined the chordal voicings and virtuosity expected of jazz musicians, with funk and rock rhythms, to create a brand new kind of musical power and emotion. It was totally thrilling. In HEADHUNTERS, the energy of Hancock’s playing on synthesizers and the Rhodes piano took the music to fever pitch and rhythm, while synthesizers allowed him to write rich orchestral-like accompaniments. Benny Maupin’s tenor saxophone and bass clarinet playing on the album is magnificent. The bass clarinet solo in Vein Melter, especially the short one at the end of the tune, is as hauntingly beautiful as Mahler or the best classical music strains ever written. Maupin chooses his notes carefully.

           

            For all who care to know Herbie Hancock’s playing, the following tracks are Must-Listens. They come from his mid years, mostly.

            It would be criminal to omit the piano solo on Seven Steps to Heaven, off the Miles Davis album of the same name. Before Herbie entered the scene, piano solos were lame on tracks along side the intense horn solos being performed by Miles and Coltrane. Here, Herbie’s piano playing is tasteful, clean and crisp, a clear taste of his future potential.  

            Toys, off the SPEAK LIKE A CHILD album. Talk about cool! After the horns of the sextet present the melody line, Ron Carter moves the tune into a steady stroll while Herbie, the only soloist, plays with his urbane penthouse touch of single notes, fourths, runs, block chords and fine left-hand comping. Micky Roker’s drumming fits the mood perfectly. The entire album is a gem in a similar restrained style.

            Sly, off HEADHUNTERS, not only is a fine composition, but the solos by Benny Maupin and Herbie take the energy to levels hard to imagine, and then take them higher still. Truly a driving force of a tune, one of his absolute best. And of course, the beauty of Vein Melter does just what the title says.

            Butterfly, off the THRUST album is another example of the gentle but kickass compositions by Herbie, where he combines solid rhythm with electronic orchestral arranging and superb solos by himself on Rhodes piano, and Benny Maupin on soprano (double tracked with the bass clarinet).

            You have to listen to Spank-a-Lee, also off THRUST,  in which the tenor and soprano solos by Benny Maupin, complete with wah-wah pedal, take the funk and jazz fusion thing to yet a higher quantum of energy. Exhausting. Inspiring!

            Enjoy this small but important sample from the generous body of work given to us by this master of jazz piano.