Miles Davis

Birth of the Cool

European Tour '56

Yardbird Suite

Studio Sessions

1. Move - "Bebop Spoken Here"
2. Jeru - "78"
3. Moon Dreams - "Ballad Artistry Of & Evolution"
4. Venus De Milo - "Ballad Artistry"
5. Budo
6. Deception
7. Godchild - "78"
8. Boplicity- "Smithsonian Collection"
9. Rocker - "Evolution"
10. Israel - "Ballad Artistry & Bebop "
11. Rouge - "Ballad Artistry"
12. Darn that Dream

The Live Sessions

13. Move x2
14. Moon Dreams x2
15. Budo x2
16. Godchild
17. Why Do I Love You?
18. Darn That Dream
19. S'il Vous Plait

April 22, 1949

March 9, 1950

 LINER NOTES

IN THE SUMMER OF 1948, I was in New York on vacation from the University of Miami where I was majoring in sailing. No. Actually, 16 of us were on scholarship to play for dinner in the student cafeteria, which was cantilevered out over an artificial lake. When we played the way we wanted we sounded like Stan Kenton. It was sort of like sailing at that.

In those days I played my horn like a kid skiing down a slalom, with more courage than sense. Falling on my face never occurred to me. One night I climbed up to Minton's Playhouse, where bebop was born, in Harlem.

A lot of young cats considered Minton's too steep a slope, but I never imagined that somebody might not like me because I was white. I walked in, unpacked my horn and played "Walkin'". The bandleader was Art Blakey, then known as Abdullah Buhaina, a fearsome cat I was to learn later. When I noticed Miles Davis standing in a dark corner, I tried harder because Miles was playing with Bird. Miles always seemed to be standing in dark corners. He came over as I packed up around three. I slunk into a cool slouch. I used to practice cool slouches. We were both wearing shades. No eyes to be seen.

"You got eyes to make a rehearsal tomorrow?" Miles asked me. "I guess so." I acted as though I didn't give one shit for his stupid rehearsal. "Nola's. Four." Miles made it absolutely clear that he could not care less if I showed up or not.

Driving back over the Triborough Bridge to my parent's home, next to the tennis courts in Forest Hills, I felt like a bat-boy who had just been offered a tryout with the team.

At four I found myself with a band that would come to be called The Birth Of The Cool. Gerry Mulligan, Max Roach, John Lewis, Lee Konitz, Junior Collins. Bill Barber and Al McKibbon were playing arrangements by Mulligan and musical director Gil Evans.

Miles was ... cool. Pleasant, relaxed, diffident. It was his first time as leader, he relied on Gil. He must have picked up his famous salty act sometime later because he was sweet then.

It did not seem historic or legendary. A good jazz gig, yes; but there were others. I worked at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem with a big hand with Al Killian on lead trumpet and Mel Lewis on drums earlier that same summer, and, believe it or not, at the time working with Al Killian was a credit not far removed from Miles.

Who imagined that those three weeks with Miles in a Broadway joint called the Royal Roost would give birth to an entire style? And that we'd still be talking about it half a century later?

But, it, was fun being on a championship team. My position was right next to Max Roach's high-hat. When Gene Krupa's entire trumpet section took a front table to hear us I was proud. One of my strongest memories is when we played opposite Count Basic with Wardell Gray on tenor saxophone. For the first time Basie had a tenor player who could be mentioned in the same breath as Pres. Like a later summer spent listening to Trane with Monk at the Five Spot, Wardell with Basie is a sound that has never left my ears.

I was in love with music. She was my obsession. I could not see straight for the love of her. But if music was, as Duke Ellington put it, my mistress, we have had a stormy relationship. I cheated on her, lied to, neglected and beat her. On the other hand, she was too demanding. When she nagged I left her and when I neglected her she left me. I was to spend my time under too many hats, between too may stools. It would be a stormy affair.

I sometimes wonder how my life would have changed had I stayed in New York after the summer of 1948 instead of going back to college and then into my father's business, like a "good boy." Marlon Brando's line "I coulda been a contenda" in On The Waterfront made me think of myself. In October of that year, Miles made the "real" Birth Of The Cool record with Kai Winding on trombone and I became a footnote to jazz history. There is an asterisk next to my name, like Roger Maris.

Over the years, after I started to write words for a living., I interviewed Miles many times. He always greeted me with a hug. Some of it must have been nostalgia, it was his first band. Later, much later, shortly before he died, we were sitting in his penthouse suite in the Concorde Lafayette Hotel in Paris and I got up the nerve to ask him: "Miles, why did you hire me?" "I liked your sound," he said, with his famous rasp. That was good enough.

Mile's version of my role in his story goes something like this. . .
J.J. was busy so we got this white cat.

- Mike Zwerin 1998

THE ROYAL ROOST, aka The Metropolitan Bopera House, was at 1580 Broadway in New York City's borough of Manhattan. It was a very important nightclub in the late 1940s. Unlike the more famous Birdland., which opened later in December of 1949. The Royal Roost was not named for Charlie Parker. It was a chicken restaurant which added a big name big band policy to lure in customers. Music as enticement largely flopped at the spacious Roost until Monte Kay convinced the ownership to promote the new jazz, bebop. Thereafter The Royal Roost really flew.

A Big Apple AM radio station, WMCA, broadcasting at 570 kilocycles - "WMCA first on your dial"- broadcast live from The Royal Roost once a week, carrying the late sets each Friday night. These broadcasts were incorporated into disc jockey Symphony Sid's (Sidney Tarnapol, later Torin b. 11/25/09 - d. 9/14/84) All Night, All Frantic Jazz show. On Fridays, his program switched from records to live performance at 3:03 AM, occasionally., for instance on a New Year's Eve broadcast, they added an hour of music, hitting at 2:03 AM. Once live from The Roost's bandstand, Sid's show would shift back and forth to the studio, usually to allow the next, band to set-up. Back in the studio, Bob Garritv would handle the news, most commercials, and other announcements. The live broadcast ended at four in the morning.

The original source material is on acetate disc. It resides in the incredible music archives of Boris Rose. Although Mr. Rose is known to have recorded live music off the air and to have hired others to do so, I don't believe the Roost recordings to be genuine airchecks - an actual recording of the airwaves. I think they were recorded on location. The good audio quality of the music from these late 1940s AM radio broadcasts could cause such a suspicion, but I came to my conclusion because of the other components of the, broadcasts. If these are truly airchecks, then why, does Bob Garritv in the studio sound so dull in comparison to Symphony Sid on the bandstand, or the musicians and their performance? I believe that the initial recording was made by the technicians at The Royal Roost. They are recording Sid and the music at the spot, while the studio portion was fed into their mix on a phone line or, perhaps,, from a radio. Somehow Boris Rose obtained copies from these professional location recordings, or perhaps he got the originals. They became the cornerstone of his amazing collection, a collection that would be greatly expanded over time with real airchecks, often from Birdland.

Regardless of whether I'm right or wrong, that I could form such an opinion is due to the fact that I had copies of the full broadcasts. As with some of you, I went to Boris Rose and obtained dubs cut directly to disc at his shop. This is the way this music began circulating among collectors roughly a half century ago. This is why we have live performances by this Miles Davis Orchestra, a nonet known as the Birth Of The Cool. That "organization" with its "'impressions in modern music" debuted at The Royal Boost in the late summer of 1948. They were heard live on the air, performances that were recorded. The broadcasts precede the, three Capitol sessions. I have known for some time about the extra "'Move," a Birth Of The Cool band theme, and Sid's patter over the home stretch of the first 'Budo" [and it"s BUD-0 not BOOd-0. BUD Powell., you dig.] or "Hallucinations" as it was then known because of my copies. I was disappointed to discover in remastering that my earlier, more complete sources for these broadcasts had inferior sound quality to many bootleg releases. The lesser audio on my full-broadcast copies will be particularly audible where the rare end of that first "Budo" aka - "Hallucination" is attached to my superior sounding source of the first part. I hope somedav access to the original acetates will allow even and clearer sound for all of the "Birth Of The Cool" broadcast material.

There were three live broadcasts on two dates with one set of personnel. Broadcast One and Broadcast Two were on Saturday September 4, 1948. Although Friday night presentations, the late hit - no earlier than 2:03 AM. a starting time that may be the case on this Labor Day Weekend broadcast - has led discographers to use the post-midnight Saturday dating. Charlie Parker, guesting, opened the live portion of Symphony Sid's program. The Miles Davis unit followed. At the end of the live portion of Sid's September 4, 1948 broadcast, Davis' Birth Of The Cool ensemble returned for a second set. Two weeks later came Broadcast Three on September 18, 1948.

Airchecks exist with separate announcements by Sid giving the same personnel. This has led discographers to cite the same personnel for both dates. My research, however, proves that both live-from-stage personnel announcements are from September 4. Nevertheless, I believe that the players are the same on both dates. Furthermore, the suggestions of other musicians seem to come from the late Gerry Mulligan; beginning, perhaps, with the information and notes he provided for the 1971 LP release of the complete Capitol studio dates. Mulligan was certainly consistent about his suggestions as he stuck to them in numerous interviews including several with me. Particularly troubling, was Mulligan's insistence that Art Blakev is on drums on one of these recordings. Sorry Gerry, I can't believe it. For this project I reinterviewed Lee Konitz, John Lewis, and Bill Barber who are unanimous that Blakey is not on any of the music issued here. Of them, only Lewis will allow the possibility that Art Blakey might have intersected with this band in some way at some time.

Speaking of John Lewis, it is he who wrote the extra tune, "S'il Vous Plait", not known on the studio sides. This is a blues with a bridge. Its existence lessens the impact, of Johnny Carisi's "Israel" in bringing The blues to this band's advanced approach. (This does not lessen the impact of Johnny"s masterpiece.) While Lewis's "S'il Vous Plait" is an earlier illustration of blues played by Davis' nonet than Carisi's "Israel." John Lewis's "Rouge" done at the second Capitol date is a blueprint to "The Queen's Fancy" done later by Lewis with the MJQ. George Wallington's "Godchild," leans on "Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea" for its harmony. This is particularly clear in the bridge. Finally, the extra material allows us the revelation that Gil Evans wrote more than the charts to "Moon Dreams" (a masterwork) and "Boplicity." Gil Evans wrote "The Birth Of The Cool theme." It is an adaptation of Gil's arrangement of "Anthropology" done for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. How appropriate that this find is a direct musical illustration of the connection of that band to the Miles Davis Birth Of The Cool Orchestra.

- PHIL SCHAAP 1998

IN JAZZ, as in other music, some things are of their time, some ahead of it, while others simply know no time at all. The music produced by the Miles Davis nonet, whose entire recorded output is contained in this album, is all of these and more. Not only was it the product of a specific time and place - and the special grouping of musicians involved in its creation - but it was demonstrably ahead of its time, having influenced a number of jazz developments that followed and took their lead from it. Then too, as listening will make immediately apparent, it's also timeless, as most perfect things are.

Many things flowed from this seminal source - subsequent developments in Davis's own music and in those of various of its participants, notably Gerry Mulligan, Gil Evans and John Lewis; much small group jazz of the '50s and .60s which drew upon various of its elements as well as its underlying philosophy; the whole West Coast jazz movement, and so on. All of which is even more remarkable when one considers how little the nonet recorded or, more important, performed in public. (The latter generally is the best indication of how musical advances are perceived and received by the listening public.)

Still, while jazz audiences of the late 1940s may have been indifferent to the music of the nonet, at least to the extent of supporting its New York club dates, jazz players of the time evinced no such resistance but, rather were quick to recognize the beauty and creative audacity of its music, the quietly revolutionary character of its approach to the small jazz ensemble, and the potential for further development implicit in it. Musicians in fact were, the first to respond to what was signaled in the nonet's recordings, and they did so almost immediately. Within two years of the groups final recording session Gerry Mulligan had incorporated various of the nonet's musical receipts in the formation of his celebrated pianoless quartet with Chet Baker and was enjoying great success. Trumpeter-arranger Shorty Rogers assimilated its lessons, first into the arrangements he was doing for the Stan Kenton Orchestra and, from 1951 on, even more fully for his small group. The Giants from which so much that was viable in the then emerging West Coast jazz idiom took its lead. John Lewis, another nonet member, had formed and set the musical direction for the Modern Jazz Quartet based largely on his experiences with the Davis group.

Throughout jazz, in fact, the most forward-looking younger musicians studied the nonet's recording with the closest interest and translated whatever they could to their own music. Nor did its influence end with these and like activities of the '50s but in the four decades that have elapsed since the nonet made its first recordings, it has colored the very fabric of small group and, through the further collaborations of Davis and Evans' which grew from their work for the nonet, orchestral jazz as well. Hindsight has shown, and only too clearly, that these are among the landmark recordings of modern jazz, the implications of which continue to resonate in ways large and small through the music even today.

While it would be stretching the truth to say that the Davis nonet came about through happenstance, there was a certain amount of the fortuitous to it. And like many things labeled revolutionary after the fact, the nonet's music actually evolved gradually, through a steady process of development and experimentation in which its approach was defined, refined and given final shape.

Its beginnings can be traced to the small group of musicians who from mid-1947 on had taken to gathering at the New York apartment of veteran arranger Gil Evans who they greatly admired for the series of brilliant venturesome orchestrations of bop masterworks-"Anthropolgy," "Thrivin' On A Riff," etc. - he had been devising for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra. Almost a generation older than those for whom he acted as musical mentor, sage and all-around spiritual advisor. Evans had been serving as something of a conduit for many of the advanced musical theories then charging jazz with such excitement and vitality when Miles Davis entered the picture and brought matters to a head.

At the time a member of the Charlie Parker Quintet, Davis was directly involved in shaping some of the concepts Evans and his circle were investigating in their periodic sessions. While the experience was of inestimable value to the trumpeter's musical development, the challenges posed by performing nightly alongside such a brilliant prodigiously inventive soloist as Parker ultimately proved somewhat daunting perhaps even frustrating to the younger musician. Then too, Davis was chafing at the relatively simple arrangements and playing formats used in most small bop groups, such as Parker's which struck the trumpeter as being limited when contrasted with the potentialities suggested by the music itself. He had been drawn to Evans' unorthodox writing for the Thornhill band as a possible alternative to conventional ensemble arrangements.

The two met when Evans approached Davis with a request to allow him to arrange the latter's "Donna Lee" for Thornhill. Davis asked that he be permitted to study Evans' charts and thus was brought into the arranger's circle. This took place towards the end of 1947, as the Thornhill band recorded "Donna Lee" in November of that year. It was not long before the trumpeter, as Gerry Mulligan recalled, took the initiative, and put the theories to work. He called the rehearsals, hired the halls, called the players, and generally. cracked the whip. "Under Davis" catalyzing influence the informal discussions and ad hoc sessions soon developed into something quite different, and ideas that until then had been little more than vague theoretical possibilities soon were being tested and were taking shape in the crucible of regular rehearsals.

In its music the nonet sought to realize a number of interlocking goals. Foremost of these was the development of an approach to ensemble writing that would retain the freshness and immediacy of improvised music and in which would be fused elements from bop, and Parker's music in particular, with a number of jazz practices such as a light, vibratoless tonality and a more subtle approach to rhythm that the boppers largely had eschewed, as well as an attempt at achieving the broadened coloristic and textural palette of the large orchestra while using a relatively small number of instruments. A corollary goal was the production of a balanced, more seamless integration between the music's written and improvised elements than was characteristic of bop, the arrangement in effect, leading and anchoring the soloist who was, in turn, expected to return his improvisation and resolve it in reference to the written segment that followed.

Rehearsals took place through much of the ensuing year during which it experimented with varying instrumental combinations from the pool of players available; the core group from Evans's circle occasionally supplemented by friends and associates. A number were drawn from the ranks of the Thornhill Orchestra, at least when it wasn't touring - alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, clarinetist Danny Polo, French horn player Sandy Siegelstein, bassist Joe Shulman, tuba player Bill Barber, drummer Billy Exiner and even arranger George Russell - while other players came from several of the bop groups then active in the city - trombonist J.J. Johnson, pianists Lewis and Al Haig, bassists Nelson Boyd and Al McKibbon, and drummers Max Roach and Kenny Clarke. As a result of these experiments, it was determined that a basic instrumentation of six horns and three rhythm - trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba., alto and baritone saxophones, piano, bass and drums - provided the fullest potentials for expressing the range of tonal colors desired. And it was for the grouping that arrangements soon were being devised.

In September of 1948 Monte Kay secured the group its first playing engagement, a two-week stand at The Royal Roost where it alternated with the Count Basic Orchestra. Personnel for this date comprised of Davis, trombonist Mike Zwerin; Junior Collins, French horn; Barber; Konitz; Mulligan; Lewis; McKibbon; Roach and vocalist Kenny Hagood. Reaction to its music was at best mixed. While a number of critics and musicians, Basie included, reacted with great enthusiasm, club patrons largely were indifferent to the nonet's experiments. The group did not perform in public again until the following year when it played a brief engagement at The Clique Club.

Fortunately for us, however, Davis had managed to secure a contract with Capitol Records for which he was engaged to record twelve sides. This in itself was something of a small miracle for as it turns out there was no great enthusiasm for the nonet's music among Capitol's recording executives at the time. The firm's three chief staff producers, Lee Gillette; Voyule Gilmore and Dave Dexter, the latter an avowed jazz aficionado, not only failed to recognize its innovative character, but were wholly indifferent to it, not surprising given their predilection for big bands, Swing and popular jazz-inflected vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and Nat Cole. None was interested or actively involved in modern jazz developments such as bop, its offshoots or later developments - at least to the extent of recording them.

What is surprising is that the nonet was recorded at all. Credit for this falls to Walter Rivers, a relative of songwriter and Capitol Records cofounder Johnny Mercer who was briefly employed by the label during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was Rivers who, based in Capitol's New York offices, arranged for and supervised the nonet's recordings. And for this we are in his debt.

Several years after they had been released as singles, eight of the nonet's recordings were collected onto a 10" LP (H- 59) as part of Capitol's "Classics In Jazz" album series. Three years later, in February of 1957, with the addition of the tracks "Move," "Budo" and "Boplicity" omitted from the earlier album, all 11 of the nonet's instrumental performances were released on a 12" LP (T-762) under the title by which they've been known ever since- "The Birth Of The Cool." The title apparently was coined by Pete Rugolo.

Let's reaffirm something here: catchy album title notwithstanding, the music of the Miles Davis nonet was, is anything but cool. Controlled, lucid, tightly focused, succinct, yes. It's all these and more, but cool in the sense of being dispassionate or otherwise lacking in the fundamental emotional character one always associates with the best jazz, no! As anyone familiar with the nonet's music can attest, it possesses an abundance of focused emotional power all the more effective for being so low-keyed, so apparently subdued in character.

This resulted directly from Davis' and Evans' desire not only for a lighter-textured and rhythmically subtle music but for one possessing a total coherence of design among all its elements - presentation of its thematic materials and development ofimplications through the ordered succession of written and improvised parts in interestingly nuanced arrangements devised by their writers for a specific grouping of players whose capabilities and special qualities were well-known to them. In this they succeeded brilliantly. Among these 12 performances is to be found some of the most arresting, resourceful, richly textured and abidingly creative small-ensemble writing in all of jazz history as well as an abundance of powerful, focused, assured soloing, much of it of classic stature.

chief of the soloists was leader Davis himself who, in Martin Williams' estimation of these recordings, "was finding a superb and individual solo voice, partly by acknowledging his technical limitations and working within them, and also through an ability to imply bop rhythms in his time without stating them directly; Lee Konitz was breaking away from the rigid lessons of his teacher, (Lennie) Tristano; and J.J. Johnson was continuing to show himself an exceptional and inventive instrumentalist." He concluded, "by themselves, the solos on these recordings might make them classics."

Still, excellence of the solos notwithstanding, what most distinguishes the work of the nonet is the meaningful form achieved in its music, the result of the thoughtful, disciplined integration of the written and the improvised, the prearranged and the spontaneous. The balance struck and maintained between these sometimes opposing forces, and the poised, artful ways in which it was brought about are tributes to the sensitivity of the music's arrangers. Five of those involved with the nonet are represented in the recordings made for Capitol. With four of the total 12, pride of place falls to Gerry Mulligan who was responsible for "Godchild," a George Wallington composition, the originals "Venus De Milo" and "Rocker," and the ballad "Darn That Dream," a feature for vocalist Kenny Hagood. Pianist John Lewis arranged "Move" a piece written by drummer Denzil Best when he was a member of the George Shearing Quintet. Davis' and Bud Powell's "Budo" (also recorded by Powell as "Hallucinations"), and the oriental "Rouge." Johnny Carisi orchestrated his own original blues "Israel," as did Davis on his "Deception." Gil Evans is responsible for "Boplicity" a piece he and Davis had composed (and for which Evans had taken the name of the trumpeter's mother, Cleo Henry, as a writing pseudonym) and the languid "'Moon Dreams."

There can be little doubt that the Miles Davis nonet, through the example of its disciplined, lucid, quietly audacious music, introduced to jazz a refreshing new musical sensibility which helped set it on a new course of development. The implications of the approach signaled in its recordings have carried jazz through several decades of sustained growth and creative discovery, influenced countless groups, musicians and arrangers and altered the verv fabric of the music itself. Nor can it be assumed that even after 40 vears its influence is ended or its potentialities for further elaboration exhausted. Every generation of musicians since its time has been stimulated, enriched by and found ample food for thought in its music, nor is this likely to change much in coming years. This music, which breathes the spirit and dedication of all involved in its creation, has touched and transfigured all who have heard it and will continue to do so long into the future.

- PETE WELDIN (original liner notes)

I WAS LUCKY to be in the right place at the right time to be part of Miles' band. I'd been on the road a couple of years with various bands by that time, but with Gil's encouragement I decided to stay in New York. With all the great bands that were around then, big and little, it was an exciting time musically. And everybody seemed to gravitate to Gil's place. Everybody influenced everybody and Bird was the No. 1 influence on us all.

Gil lived in a room in a basement on 55th Street near 5th Avenue. Actually it was behind a Chinese laundry and had all the pipes for the building as well as a sink, a bed, a piano, a hot-plate, and no heat. Some of the more-or-less regulars at Gil's I remember:

John Carisi almost as hot-headed in an argument as I am. Anyone who writes a piece like "Israel" can't be all bad, right? John Lewis, our resident classicist.
George Russell, our resident innovator. (Wrote a couple of fine, interesting charts for Claude Thornhill's band that I suppose there's no trace of now.)
John Benson Brooks, our dreamer of impossible dreams.
Dave Lambert, our itinerant practical Yankee.
Billy Exiner, drummer with Thornhill and our home philosopher, with his beautiful attitude toward life and music.
Joe Shulman, bassist with Thornhill, he believed Count Basie had the only rhythm section.
Barry Galbraith, the Freddy Greene of the Thornhill rhythm section and an altogether beautiful musician.
Specs Goldberg, blithe spirit. A fantastic intuitive musician who had a tough time trying to channel his free-wheeling imagination.
Sylvia Goldberg (no relation) piano student and whirlwind.
Blossom Dearie. blossom is blossom.
And Miles, the bandleader. He took the initiative and put the theories to work. He called the rehearsals, hired the halls, called the players, and generally cracked the whip.
Max Roach, genius. I can't say enough about his playing, with the band. His melodic approach to my charts was a revelation to me. He was fantastic and for me the perfect drummer for the band. (No small statement in view of the fact that Miles brought in Art Blakey and Kenny Clarke on later dates.)
Lee Konitz, genius. Lee had joined Claude's band in Chicago and knocked us all out (including Bird) with his originality.
For the rest of the band, J.J. and Kai alternated on trombone.
It wasn't too easy to find French horn players who were trying to play jazz phraseology but among those at our rehearsals were Sandy Siegelstein (from Thornhill), Junior Collins (who could play some good blues) and probably Jim Buffington.
And Bill Barber on tuba. He used to transcribe Lester Young tenor choruses and play them on tuba. What a great player.
As I recall, Gil and I also wanted Danny Polo on clarinet but he was out with Claude's band all the time and there was nobody to take his place. Not long before Danny died I we had some jam sessions at which he played the best modern clarinet jazz I've ever heard.

As I said at the beginning, I consider myself fortunate to be there and I thank whatever lucky stars responsible for placing me there. There's a kind of perfection about those recordings and I'm pleased that all the material is finally being released on one set. And without electronic "stereo." To paraphrase another American innovator, Gertrude Stein: a band is a band is a great band.

GERRY MULLIGAN May 1971

EVOLUTION OF A GENIUS

MILES DEWEY DAVIS, Jr.

Trumpet, flugelhorn, composer.

1926 - Born on May 25, of a well-to-do family in Alton, Illinois. His father was a dentist, a landowner and livestock breeder.

1927 - His family moved to East Saint Louis.

1939 - On his 13th birthday, he was given a trumpet by his father and began to take lessons from a trumpeter called Buchanan.

1941 - He signed for Eddie Randall's "Blue Devils". He had to join the Musician's Union in order to be able to play in the clubs.

He became a friend of Clark Terry.

1942 - He married very young. His wife's name was Irene.

1943 - He met the pianist Gil Coggins. His daughter Cheryl was born.

1944 - In July he played beside Parker and Gillespie in Billy Eckstine's band, which was passing through St. Louis. In Autumn, with the permission of his father, who still supported him financially, he moved to New York to study at the Juillard School of Music. He frequented the clubs on 52nd Street in the hope of meeting Charlie Parker. He was fascinated by the new music known as "be-bop".

1945 - He made his first recording with the Herbie Fields Sextet. He met the trumpeter Freddy Webster, who gave him lots of advice. He played with Coleman Hawkins and finally with Parker at the "Three Deuces". He left Juillard School to devote himself entirely to jazz. On November 26, Parker offered him the great opportunity of recording with GiIlespie and Roach for Savoy (Now's the Time with Dizzy Gillespie on piano).

1946 - He recorded with Parker, Lucky Thompson and Dodo Marmarosa for Dial. His friendship with Parker grew stronger and was to produce many great works. He recorded with the bands of Benny Carter and Billy Eckstine. He won the "Down Beat" award for the best new trumpet player.

1947 - A lucky year! In March he played with Illinois Jacquet's band, with Fats Navarro; in May he recorded with Parker, Bud Powell, Tommy Potter and Max Roach (Donna Lee); in June he recorded with Coleman Hawkins and in August he led a recording group which included Charlie Parker on tenor sax, John Lewis at the piano and, as usual, Max Roach on drums (Milestones -Half Nelson). From October to December he recorded again with Parker's quintet and sextet.

1948 - He continued to record with Charlie Parker, but was attracted by new musical experiments: he knew that he was at a turning-point in his artistic career, made possible by his friendship with the "intellectuals" of jazz: Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz and John Lewis.

1949 - On January 3, he recorded for Metronome, with Navarro, Gillespie, J.J. Johnson, Kai Winding and other stars. He also recorded with the "Tuba Band", with arrangements by Evans, Mulligan, Lewis and Carisi (Godchild, Jeru, Boplicity). In May he went on a tour to Paris. When he came back to the States he started to take drugs.

1950 - He recorded with Stan Getz and Sarah Vaughan.

1951 - In January he recorded with Parker and Sonny Rollins, and in March with Lee Konitz (Ezz-thetic).

1952-53 - Despite the fact that he was ruining his health with drugs and had very little opportunity to work, Davis was voted into first place in the Metronome polls of 1951-53. Courageously he decided to give up drugs and he chose the hardest possible way: he shut himself up alone in his room for 12 days and did the "cold turkey".

1954 - Now in good health again, he soon returned to the height of success. He recorded with Horace Silver, J.J. Johnson, Lucky Thompson, Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson and Thelonious Monk.

1955 - He formed a famous quintet with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. In July he took part in the Newport Jazz Festival: it was the final consecration. He also made recordings with Oscar Pettiford and Charlie Mingus.

1956 - The quintet continued to record and perform in concerts. John Coltrane left the band for a while due to intoxication from drugs.

1957 - In May he began again to work closely and profitably with Gil Evans. In December he composed and recorded the music for the sound track of the film "Ascenseur pour I'echafaud".

1958 - On April 2 he formed the famous sextet with Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, John Coltrane, Red Garland and Philly Joe Jones. In May he signed Bill Evans on piano. He recorded with the orchestra of Michel Legrand and with the band led and arranged by Gil Evans.

1959 - The year of the "Concerto at Aranjuez", one of the great successes from the team of Davis-Evans.

1960-69 - During this period, Davis, still searching for new forms, made recordings, gave concerts and helped young musicians, often helping them to become established, as with George Coleman, Chick Corea, Keith Jarret and AI Foster, to name but a few. Occasionally he wad forced to rest on account of a serious bone disease.

1970-79 - Although his illness got worse. Davis continued to work. He was a famous figure for his music, his sports cars, his strange habits, his cantankerous personality and, most of all, for his latest musical tastes, rock and electronic music.

1980-87 - After a long illness, he began to perform again in the United States, Japan and Europe. He is now, quite rightly, a legendary figure.

from "Cool Boppin "

The young Miles Davis of the late 1940's, although first and foremost a jazz instrumentalist and ascending trumpet star, nurtured many unfulfilled musical ambitions and actively sought other horizons. (He'd become so exasperated by Charlie Parker's unreliable behaviour that he and Max Roach had quit Bird's quintet to form their own combo.) In fact Davis was dissatisfied with the whole current jazz scene generally, and keen to experiment with a nine-piece band, the result of his burgeoning friendship with Gil Evans. The band that finally emerged was unusual in that it included a French horn as well as a tuba, hence it became referred to as the "tuba" band. The basic intention was to express the harmonic and tonal range of the Claude Thornhill big band, for whom Evans had done arrangements, but using a minimum instrumentation. The musicians involved were keen to get their teeth into something absorbing and stimulating, the big band scene having virtually collapsed around them, and the nonet's debut at the Royal Roost was acclaimed by critics and musicians alike. Even the acerbic Eddie London admitted to being impressed, while Count Basle was quoted as saying: "Those slow things sounded strange and good. I didn't always know what they were doing, but I listened and liked it. "The young Miles Davis of the late 1940's, although first and foremost a jazz instrumentalist and ascending trumpet star, nurtured many unfulfilled musical ambitions and actively sought other horizons. (He'd become so exasperated by Charlie Parker's unreliable behaviour that he and Max Roach had quit Bird's quintet to form their own combo.) In fact Davis was dissatisfied with the whole current jazz scene generally, and keen to experiment with a nine-piece band, the result of his burgeoning friendship with Gil Evans. The band that finally emerged was unusual in that it included a French horn as well as a tuba, hence it became referred to as the "tuba" band. The basic intention was to express the harmonic and tonal range of the Claude Thornhill big band, for whom Evans had done arrangements, but using a minimum instrumentation. The musicians involved were keen to get their teeth into something absorbing and stimulating, the big band scene having virtually collapsed around them, and the nonet's debut at the Royal Roost was acclaimed by critics and musicians alike. Even the acerbic Eddie London admitted to being impressed, while Count Basle was quoted as saying: "Those slow things sounded strange and good. I didn't always know what they were doing, but I listened and liked it. "

Miles' own playing was undergoing a change at this time in that he wanted to play less notes and pare everything down to essentials, while using a lighter sound. "Lightness" in fact was the key word. The music was highly arranged, and Miles even went so far as to give billing to the arrangers' names outside the club, a hitherto unheard-of practice. It read: "Miles Davis Band. Arrangements by Gerry Mulligan, Gil Evans and John Lewis". During the two weeks at the club the band made at least two broadcasts, and the first nine tracks contained here stem from those. Miles' trumpet dominates the proceedings, for not only did he have to play a strong lead in the ensemble passages, he was also the most featured soloist. After the opening written ensemble theme statement he would have to move straight into his solo, then perhaps back again into the ensemble, all of which required brilliant musicianship on his part. A pleasing thickly-textured overall sound was produced, with the Evans arrangement of "Moondreams" a perfect example. The rhythm section swung effectively in the bebop manner on the faster themes, creating a stimulating tension with the horns - while the music moved from "cool" to "hot" and back again. In their solo statements it's Miles that provides the "hot" and Lee Konitz the "cool".

Bernie Newman.

"Smithsonian Collection"

This ensemble began as a rehearsal band. It had one public engagement, made a few recordings, and disappeared. But its influence was widespread and sustained.

The "cool jazz" of the 1950s was chiefly the work of this group, Tristano's work, Konitz's subsequent work, Gerry Mulligan's work, and that of a group of tenor saxophonists, all of whom in various ways were indebted to Lester Young-and the most prominent of whom was Stan Getz.

"Boplicity" was an early collaboration of Davis and arranger Gil Evans. Evans's abilities in giving properly sonorous settings to the trumpeter's glowingly detached, yet paradoxically forceful, style were exceptional. Here, the interplay between Davis and the group is excellently planned and executed. Davis subsequently expressed dissatisfaction with the melody of Boplicity, but not with its harmonic structure nor with Evans's treatment.

Andre Hodeir in "Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence" discusses that treatment in some detail, particularly for the way Evans has effectively broken down the eight-bar phrases of song form. The performance contains two AABA choruses, but the first chorus ends on an A of nine and one-half bars, and the bridge of the second chorus is a deceptively fluent four plus two plus four bars. The above-listed Capitol recording collects all of the Davis Nonet selections composed and/or arranged by Evans, Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, Johnny Carisi (the minor blues, "Israel"), and Davis himself.

1. Hot Lips - on "Yardbird Suite"
2. Lover's Theme - on "Yardbird Suite"
3. Mr. Lucky - on both

circa 1948

1. Hackensack
2. Around Midnight
3. Now's The Time

Newport Jazz Festival - July 17, 1955