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Miles Davis

Birth of the Cool

Capitol

Album description

Many thought that Miles Davis's contributions to Charlie Parker's mid-1940s bebop quintet were insignificant if not disastrous, but his promise became clear on the 1949-50 nonet sides which were collected on LP in 1957 as Birth Of The Cool.

If bop's breakneck tempos had caught the young trumpeter unprepared, he flourished in the more relaxed environments of such as "Jeru" and "Israel", maximising the lyricism which became the hallmark of his style. The credit must be shared, however:

Miles was part of a group of young experimenters in which Gil Evans, previously noted for his impressionistic arrangements for Claude Thornhill, was a prominent voice. Hence flowing solos from Miles and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz are underpinned by detailed, multi-dimensional writing from Evans, Gerry Mulligan and John Carisi which is more intriguing than the improvisations. Kind Of Blue from 1959 is doubtless a Miles essential, but this set offers a broader sonic experience.

The group's nine instruments--unusually for the time including French horn and tuba--are deployed with great craft to create rich, mobile tapestries of tone, texture and harmony. No sound like this had been heard before in jazz, and the rarefied yet vigorous mood it set floated through the collective consciousness of jazz in the ensuing years.

There have been several CD editions of these sessions, but this is the first to be drawn from the original 78 tapes rather than the LP master. With transfers by Rudy Van Gelder, the result is a new freshness in music which in some respects still sounds like it could have been written yesterday.