'Round About Midnight

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'Round About Midnight
Studio album by Miles Davis

Publication
(s)

1957

Label (s) Columbia Records

Format (s)

CD, LP

Genre (s)

jazz

running time

38:47

occupation

production

George Avakian

Studio (s)

New York City

chronology
Birth of the Cool
(LP, 1957) 		'Round About Midnight Cookin 'with the Miles Davis Quintet
1957

'Round About Midnight is a jazz - album by Miles Davis , recorded in three recording sessions in 1955 and 1956, published by Columbia Records on March 18, 1957th

prehistory

Miles Davis in the mid-1950s

At the Newport Jazz Festival in the summer of 1955 Miles Davis played the Thelonious Monk classic " Round Midnight " at an all-star jam session and was played by Monk himself, as well as Connie Kay and Percy Heath of the Modern Jazz Quartet , Zoot Sims and Gerry Mulligan accompanied. Davis' trumpet solo was cheered frenetically by the audience. Miles' response to the public reaction was typically laconic: “I don't know what they're all talking about. I just played the way I always play ”. George Avakian of Columbia Records was in the audience, and his brother Aram advised him to sign a record deal with Miles Davis. Due to the success with jazz albums, especially by Dave Brubeck , Columbia was looking for young talent. At that time Davis was still under contract with the jazz label Prestige Records ; it was agreed, however, that his new quintet would be able to record material for Columbia during the prestige contract.

album

Under the pressure of the success at the Newport Jazz Festival , Miles Davis had the pianist Red Garland and the drummer Philly Joe Jones , with whom he had recorded the album The Musings of Miles in 1955, the only 19-year-old bassist Paul Chambers and the tenor saxophonist John Coltrane , who was hired by Davis on Garlands and Jones' advice, put together his legendary "first quintet". The first recording session for Columbia Records took place on October 27, 1955 in Studio D, where the band recorded the bebop numbers "A-Leu-Cha", "Budo" and "Two Bass Hit". It was not until the summer of 1956, during the Prestige "marathon sessions," when the members of the quintet fulfilled their contractual obligations by recording albums like Relaxin 'with the Miles Davis Quintet , that they recorded again for Columbia Records .

The tracks "Tadd's Delight", composed by Tadd Dameron , with whom Davis worked in 1949, " Dear Old Stockholm ", an old Swedish folk song arranged by Stan Getz , and the later jazz standard " Bye Bye Blackbird " were released on June 5th recorded. The remaining tracks - like the title track 'Round Midnight and "All of You" - for the first Columbia album were created on September 10th in Columbia's 30th Street studio.

reception

When 'Round About Midnight' came out , the jazz world got a lot of feedback. The jazz critic of the “New Yorker” wrote under the impression of the album: “Davis is capable of considerable distillation and prefers this to a list of the melodic possibilities; in fact, what comes out of his horn seems to be the wonderfully lightning-quick version of a much more rambling melody in his head ”. Today's reactions are a bit more cautious: Ralph Berton (The Record Changer) describes the music as "orthodox, middle-of-the-road conservative progressive jazz." Richard Cook and Brain Morton name 'Round About Midnight' a "footnote" to the Prestige sessions created at the same time .

John Coltrane became an icon of jazz history through his play in the Miles Davis Quintet. However, his continued alcohol and heroin problems led Davis to part ways with Coltrane and Philly Joe Jones in April 1957. Davis broke up the band and turned to other projects that year, such as recordings with Gil Evans ( Miles Ahead ) and, in Paris, the music for Louis Malles Nouvelle Vague film Elevator to the Scaffold , released as Davis album Ascenseur pour l ' échafaud .

Rolling Stone magazine voted the album at number 38 in its 2013 list of The 100 Best Jazz Albums .

Edition history

In 2001 Columbia Records released the original album supplemented by four bonus tracks . All alternates takes are included in the box set The Complete Miles Davis with John Coltrane . A “Legacy Edition” (2005) complements the edition with a CD of the Newport performance entitled “Round Midnight” as well as quintet concert recordings from 1956 (with the pieces “Chance It”, “Walkin '”, “It Never Entered My Mind "," Woody 'n' You "and" Salt Peanuts ").

Track list

  • The Original Album (Columbia PC 8649)
  1. " 'Round Midnight " ( Bernie Hanighen , Thelonious Monk , Cootie Williams ) - 6:00
  2. "Ah-Leu-Cha" ( Charlie Parker ) - 5:55
  3. "All of You" ( Cole Porter ) - 7:05
  4. " Bye Bye Blackbird " (Mort Dixon, Ray Henderson ) - 7:59
  5. "Tadd's Delight" ( Tadd Dameron ) - 4:33
  6. " Dear Old Stockholm " (Traditional, Arrangement Stan Getz ) - 7:55
  • Bonus tracks of the "Columbia Legacy" edition (2001):
  1. "Two Bass Hit" ( Dizzy Gillespie , John Lewis ) - 3:47 (October 1955 session)
  2. "Little Melonae" ( Jackie McLean ) - 7:24 (October 1955 session)
  3. "Budo" (Miles Davis, Bud Powell ) - 4:17 (October 1955 session)
  4. " Sweet Sue, Just You " (Will Harris, Victor Young ) - 3:39 (September 1956 session)
  • Bonus tracks from the second compact disc of the Columbia Legacy Edition (2005), (all but the first tracks recorded live at the Pacific Jazz Festival in February 1956)
  1. "'Round Midnight" - 6:00 (live at Newport Jazz Festival 1955)
  2. Introduction by Gene Norman - 1:35
  3. "Chance It (Max Making Wax)" ( Oscar Pettiford ) - 4:33
  4. "Walkin '" (Richard Carpenter) - 10:02
  5. Dialogue Gene Norman and Miles Davis - 0:27
  6. "It Never Entered My Mind" ( Richard Rodgers , Lorenz Hart ) - 5:17
  7. "Woody 'n' You" (Dizzy Gillespie) - 5:45
  8. "Salt Peanuts" (Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Clarke ) - 4:33
  9. "Closing Theme" (Davis) - 0:27

The cover design of the original album was done by S. Neil Fujita .

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ cit. after Nisenson, p. 84.
  2. ↑ The last two tracks did not appear on the album "'Round About Midnight". "Budo" was first released by Columbia Records on the LP "Basic Miles" or on the LP "Facets"; "Two Bass Hit" in the 1970s on the double LP "Circle in the Round".
  3. ↑ "'Round Midnight" was released by Columbia as a single in a shortened version (with the Coltrane solo in the middle of the title). This abridged version is also circulating as a CD on various Miles Davis compilations from the Columbia label.
  4. ↑ cit. after Nisenson, p. 98.
  5. ↑ "... fail to cast quite the consistent spell which the Prestige recordings do."
  6. ↑ Rolling Stone: The 100 Best Jazz Albums . Retrieved November 16, 2016.
  7. ^ Obituary 2010