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Miles Davis: Miles Davis Live
by Douglas Payne
This fairly well-recorded concert captures the very electric Miles Davis octet live in the South of France sometime during the summer of 1988. It's hard to say if this is a legitimate release. But the quality of the recording and the performance places it above any of Mile's post- Pangaea “live" releases (pending Warner Brothers' choice to release any of its tapes from concerts Miles did in France during July 1986).This fifty-minute, five-song program, like most of Miles's ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis: The Complete Birth of the Cool
by C. Michael Bailey
Addendum. Alex Henderson reviewed this re-release in the June issue of AAJ, succinctly honoring it as an important re- release of some of the most essential jazz music produced. I wholeheartedly agree. I always prefer to offer context and that is what I want to add to Mr. Henderson's fine review. Move. The first time I ever heard Denzil Best's “Move" was on Art Pepper + 11: Modern Jazz Classics. I thought it was just groovin.' It was ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis: The Complete Birth Of The Cool
by AAJ Staff
Since the late 1940s, the term “cool jazz" has been used to describe post-swing jazz that is played with subtlety and restraint rather than aggression. One could argue that “cool jazz" started when Lester Young presented a soft, relaxed alternative to Coleman Hawkins-and to be sure, the seminal Prez was the blueprint for Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Paul Quinichette and many others in the “Cool School." If Prez had played “cool swing," one of the most important moments in the ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis: Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall
by C. Michael Bailey
Pilgrimage Back to Miles. Miles Davis is the single most important figure in jazz music history. There. I said it. I have read a truck load of music criticism addressing a collection of the most influential jazz musicians, but no critic has ever gone out on a limb to name the single most important figure. So, I gladly throw down the gauntlet. I am not trying to discount other musician?s contributions. I am only trying to reveal the true significance ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis: Birth Of The Cool
by Jim Santella
As Miles Davis has indicated in his autobiography, he was breaking away from Bird and bebop, and finding his own voice, when he formed the nonet. Davis was attempting to take the sound of an orchestra (such as Duke Ellington's or Claude Thornhill's) and produce the same sound with only nine instruments: trumpet, alto sax, baritone sax, French horn, trombone, tuba, piano, bass, and drums. Gil Evans' basement apartment on 55th Street in New York City was a gathering place ...
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