Bags' Groove (album)

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Bags' groove
Studio album by Miles Davis

Publication
(s)

1957

Label (s) Prestige Records

Format (s)

CD, LP

Genre (s)

Modern jazz

running time

44:53

occupation

production

Bob Weinstock / Rudy Van Gelder

Studio (s)

new York

chronology
Walkin '
1954 		Bags' groove Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants
1954

Bags' Groove is a jazz album by Miles Davis that was recorded for Prestige Records on June 29 and December 24, 1954 , but was not released until 1957. For Allmusic it represents a cornerstone of modern jazz in the 1950s.

The album

Two months after the walkin ' session in April 1954, the trumpeter went back to the studio with his rhythm section and with the young tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins , who was now making records under his own name. They recorded three new Rollins compositions, some of which were only completed in the studio, Oleo , Doxy and Airegin, all of which became jazz standards . With the title Oleo Miles Davis introduced a new sound to jazz: he played with his Harmon damper directly into the microphone of a studio recording. This mute method created “a sound of breathless fullness in the low end and a floret-sharp penetration in the high registers. With this he achieves an expressive breadth from dreamy melancholy to hectic and manic fearfulness. ”Sonny Rollins achieved his artistic breakthrough with his dry, rough tone with these recordings. During this recording session, two "takes" of the Gershwin classic But Not for Me were made .

On Christmas Eve 1954 Miles Davis conducted a record session during which the title track of the album was recorded. In addition to his rhythm section, Prestige Records boss Bob Weinstock had hired Milt Jackson and Thelonious Monk . Most of the recordings appeared in 1958 on the LP Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants . During this recording session, there were also two "takes" of Jackson's Blues Bags' groove . Miles had made a stipulation during the studio appointment that Monk shouldn't accompany him on his solos. “The liberation from any piano accord gave Davis a new spatial dimension. Miles blows two solos - a long one at the beginning and a shorter one at the end - which drive the cult of pure sound, the sheer tonal beauty, to the absolute climax and surpass all his previous recordings (including the phenomenal "Walkin '"). "Monk offers a contrast in his solo interludes: “With particularly impressive dissonances and even longer pauses than usual, he hammers his alternative program to Miles on the piano. (…) Milt Jackson's improvisational interludes between Miles 'first solo and Monk's solo are in no way inferior to the others. ”For Max Harrison , however, Monk's solo to Bags' Groove is the highlight of the recording session. This is how the reviewer of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik saw it : “Monk's solo is an event in itself, economical and at the same time opening up a whole world of sounds and rhythms; it provides material for at least half a dozen hours of composition lessons. "

The titles

  1. Bags' Groove (take 1) (Milt Jackson) 11:12
  2. Bags' Groove (take 2) 9:20
  3. Airegin (Sonny Rollins) 4:57
  4. Oleo (Sonny Rollins) 5:10
  5. But Not for Me (take 2) ( George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin ) 4:34
  6. Doxy (Sonny Rollins) 4:51
  7. But Not for Me (take 1) 5:42

occupation

Bags' Groove (take 1 & 2)

Oleo, Doxy, Airegin, But Not For Me

Discographic note

  • Airegin was first released on a single (Prestige 45-413) with 'Round Midnight (1956). All recordings are included in chronological order in the compilation Miles Davis Chronicle - The Complete Prestige Recordings .

literature

  • Miles Davis: The Autobiography . Heyne, Munich 2000
  • Max Harrison , Eric Thacker, Stuart Nicholson : The Essential Jazz Records: Modernism to Postmodernism . Mansell, London, New York 2000, ISBN 0720118220
  • Erik Nisenson: Round About Midnight - A Portrait by Miles Davis . Hannibal, Vienna 1985
  • Peter Wießmüller: Miles Davis - his life, his music, his records . Gauting, Oreos (Collection Jazz), approx. 1985

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ cit. after Wießmüller, p. 100
  2. ↑ cit. after Wießmüller, p. 101
  3. ↑ M. Harrison et al. a. The Essential Jazz Records, p. 84, cf. also Chris Sheridan: Brilliant Corners: A bio-discography of Thelonious Monk. 2001, p. 51
  4. ^ Bags Groove (review), Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, vol. 130 (1969), p. 191
  5. ↑ cf. Miles Davis discography