How to Build a Jazz Collection: Part Two
Last month I began
discussing Miles Davis and some of his most influential work, in hopes of helping GoodSound!
readers build their own jazz libraries and have a better understanding of the genre. This
month we continue with Miles, beginning with Miles Ahead.
Miles Ahead
 When Miles Davis signed
with Columbia Records in the late 1950s, there was a desire for him by Columbia to branch
out from the classic quintet setting he’d been using. The reason for this was both
artistic (Davis was always developing his art) and financial (a new recording would have
to compete with his older titles; the more distinct it could be made, the better). This
branching out led to a series of projects on which Davis collaborated with his old friend,
orchestrator Gil Evans. These discs are landmarks in the history of orchestral jazz; some
argue that they have been as influential in that genre as was the Duke Ellington
orchestra. The first three albums to result from the Davis-Evans collaboration were Miles
Ahead [Columbia CK 65121], Porgy and Bess [CK 65141], and Sketches of Spain [CK
65142]. You can’t go wrong with any of them, but I recommend starting with Miles
Ahead.
The first thing you’re likely to notice are the
stylistic connections this music has with Birth of the Cool, which Evans also
arranged. Moving from the nonet setting to a larger ensemble, Evans is able to further
develop his arrangements and present a wider sonic canvas than in the earlier recordings.
Davis is the only musician to solo on the later recordings, which makes them great places
to become familiar with his techniques. But far from writing mere backing arrangements for
Davis’s solos, Evans gives his ensembles intricate, complex music to play. We again
see the interplay of determinism and spontaneity that large-ensemble jazz is so capable of
delivering.
Miles Smiles
 The second great Miles
Davis quintet comprised Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron
Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. The musical talents of this group are
breathtaking. Shorter and Hancock have proven to be not only great players, but also two
of the finest composers that the jazz world has produced. The near-omnipresent Carter has
appeared on more than a thousand albums (no joke!). His bass playing is superb; you can
hear on the recordings with the Davis quintet how Carter is able to anchor the music even
as the level and intensity of improvisation expand. Williams, a prodigy on drums who
joined the quintet while still a teenager, also displayed an adventurous compositional
talent.
Picking a single disc to represent this period of
Davis’s career is like picking a single person to represent New York City: while
there may be much in common, each is unique, and no single disc can represent all that is
great about them. I’ve decided to cheat, then, and recommend one studio album, Miles
Smiles [CK 65682], and one live album, Highlights from Live at the Plugged Nickel [CK
67377]. My justification is that Davis at times seems to be pursuing two distinct paths:
concentrating in the studio on new compositions from members of the group, and in concert
on playing standards that the band seems to deconstruct while remaining respectful of the
original compositions.
Miles Smiles displays the exemplary compositions of
Shorter and Hancock and, in "Orbits," gives us one of the great piano solos in
jazz. (Writing of this solo, Bob Belden likens it to a concerto in structure.) The music
has moved further away from pop music, and has a sense of heightened complexity. The live
CD is merely some highlights from an eight-CD set, but it gives a good picture of the band
performing live and working out their new approach to music.
Bitches Brew
 Davis’s use of
electronic instruments began with his In a Silent Way [CK 86556], and while I
prefer that album to Bitches Brew [CK 65774], I think I would be remiss in not
suggesting the latter. It is hard to underestimate the extent to which Davis’s
recordings at this time have influenced later musicians, both within and outside of jazz.
Contemporary downtempo electronica, for example, owes much to albums such as In a
Silent Way, and all rock-jazz fusion collaborations and crossovers stem from albums
such as Bitches Brew. Having grown up on a steady diet of punk and industrial
records, I was amazed at how much of certain strains of industrial music seemed to be
prefigured in or derived from Bitches Brew.
Davis’s band was expanded on this album to include
even more musicians who would become important artists in their own rights: Joe Zawinul,
Chick Corea, and Dave Holland. Here, Davis seems to abandon traditional song form
altogether and replace it with long, abstract compositions, each track spliced together
from several takes. Listeners who are more familiar with Davis’s quintet work or
traditional jazz may be surprised and put off at first, but I urge you to listen at least
a couple of times to Bitches Brew. Once you’ve become familiar with it,
you’ll be able to hear the beauty within it.
Looking ahead
The six albums I’ve suggested you start with not only
chart the progress of Miles Davis as a musician, but in many ways chart the history of
jazz over the middle decades of the 20th century. If you’re still not sure whether to
dive in, I suggest you get your feet wet with the recent Essential Miles Davis [C2K
85475] collection. But be warned: you’ll be back for the full albums sooner rather
than later.
In these first two essays we have concentrated on the
career of Miles Davis as group leader. This exploration took us through the worlds of cool
jazz, hard bop, orchestral jazz, and fusion. In the next installment, we look at the work
of John Coltrane in Miles Davis’s group of the late 1950s, Davis’s "first
great quintet" -- one of the greatest jazz ensembles of all time, and which gave us
many fine albums. Having been involved in that group alone may have marked each of its
members as a giant of the music; exploring their work outside of this group, we will come
to see just how musically gifted they were.
I’ve been greatly helped in writing this by the
annotations of Bob Belden from the Columbia/Legacy boxed sets The Complete Miles Davis
with John Coltrane (1955-1961) [CK 65833] and The Complete Columbia Studio
Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet: January 1965 to June 1968 [C6K 067398], and the
annotations of Bill Kirchner and Bob Belden from the boxed set The Complete Miles Davis
& Gil Evans (1957-1968) [CK 67397].
...Eric Hetherington
|
