Filles de Kilimanjaro

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Filles de Kilimanjaro
Studio album by Miles Davis

Publication
(s)

1969

Label (s) Columbia Records

Format (s)

CD, LP

Genre (s)

Fusion jazz

Title (number)

5 (+ 1 alternate take)

running time

56:17

occupation

production

Teo Macero

Studio (s)

Columbia 30th Street Studios, New York

chronology
Miles in the Sky
(1968) 		Filles de Kilimanjaro In a Silent Way
(1969)

Filles de Kilimanjaro (Eng: (The) Girls from Kilimanjaro ) is an album by Miles Davis that was recorded in June and September 1968 and released by Columbia Records the following year .

Prehistory of the album

After four studio albums - including ESP (1965) and Miles Smiles (1966) - all of which had been recorded with acoustic instruments, Miles Davis presented an innovation in his quintet in 1968: Herbie Hancock played keyboards as well as the pianos ; the quintet's music took on a completely new character thanks to its e-piano. Another new aspect were compositions such as Stuff (Davis) or Fall, Paraphernalia or Nefertiti (all Wayne Shorter ), which were designed as "endless melodies" (P. Wießmüller) that came close to those of the trumpeter Don Cherry . Already on the album Miles in the Sky (1968), Davis carefully introduced the tendency to include rudimentary rock sound moods. Electronic instruments such as the electric guitar, Fender bass and the electric piano appeared for the first time. “The rock aspects, especially the rhythmic ones, were not blatantly highlighted, but rather only hinted at; the electric instruments mix with the acoustic, ”wrote Eric Nisenson about the groundbreaking sessions in June and September 1968.

The jazz historian Arrigo Polillo quotes Joe Zawinul , who saw in Wayne Shorter the decisive person who moved Miles Davis to explore new musical territory; “And the pieces he wrote also had the effect of altering, to some extent, what Miles brought. It all started when Wayne wrote “Nefertiti” for the Miles Davis group. That was the beginning of a new world. ”In the run-up to the album, Davis listened to Jimi Hendrix's recordings with Gil Evans .

History of the album

In the June 1968 sessions, Wayne Shorter , saxophone, Herbie Hancock , electric piano, Ron Carter , bass and Tony Williams , drums played. The quintet's first studio appointment on May 21 was unsuccessful; the recordings of the piece Tout de Suite remained incomplete there. It took three studio appointments between June 19 and 21 to record the title track, the composition Toute de Suite and Petits Machins . At the recording session on September 24, 1968, Chick Corea replaced Hancock, who had suffered food poisoning on his honeymoon in Brazil , and Dave Holland (for Carter, who had studio appointments), so that the short-lived quintet (albeit still without drummer Jack DeJohnette ), with whom Davis was to go on tour in 1969.

Davis married Betty O. Mabry in September 1968 and named the play Mademoiselle Mabry (Miss Mabry) after her. The play was recorded in the month of the wedding. Betty Mabry Davis also appears on the album cover.

Filles de Kilimanjaro was recorded with the participation of Gil Evans, who designed the melody of the title track for Davis from the chords of Jimi Hendrix 's hit The Wind Cries Mary (he had already arranged and composed for important Davis albums between 1957 and 1963), too if this time his name was not mentioned. Evans, who was also in the studio, enjoyed working with Davis on this album.

The album was also re-released by Columbia as part of a 6-CD box, Miles Davis Quintet 1965-68: Complete Columbia Studio Recordings .

The music of the album

Filles de Kilimanjaro can be seen as a kind of transitional album between the acoustic recordings of Davis (up to Nefertiti 1967) with his second quintet and the rock jazz period that followed later (from In a Silent Way 1969). However, “the rock aspects , especially the rhythmic ones , are not blatantly highlighted, but rather only hinted at, the electric instruments mix with the acoustic ones in pieces whose mood, texture and rhythmic feeling often change. This can be heard particularly clearly in Mademoiselle Mabry . " Filles is part of a" permanent evolutionary process (of Davis' music), which is more closely related than before to acculturation on the part of Western art music and the music of the 'Third World' " , so the musicologist Franz Kerschbaumer on the style of Miles Davis.

The influence of Gil Evans is attributable to the fact that “a number of new original ideas and musical segments were reflected in the album. The focus was on the piano, which redefined the sound character and the colors of the ensemble sound. (...) The rhythmic and melodic density of the improvisations was generally reduced; simpler scales, blues scales and major-minor transitional harmonics come to the fore again. ”Evans composed the piece Petit Machines with Davis (later recorded by Evans, for example on Svengali , as Eleven ), but was not named as a co-author. The piece is based on an 11/4 meter . After the complex rhythm has been introduced, Davis plays a solo that revolves around the notes A or A-flat, G and F. In this solo he already plays the riff based on the fanfare-like theme , which is the basic theme of his later piece Jean Pierre ( We Want Miles ) .

Tout de Suite is a “dark fugue ” that gives the impression of being a suite with numerous themes. In fact, it is a very broad theme, 70 bars long. What is striking is how few notes the soloists play in their solos.

Filles de Kilimanjaro builds on the Jimi Hendrix piece The Wind Cries Mary and steers towards a polyrhythmic climax . Carter contributes ostinato figures on the electric bass . In Frelon Brun Williams plays a rock rhythm to the free flowing improvisation of the soloists.

Mademoiselle Mabry is the longest track on the album and reflects influences from soul music . Its introduction, although Davis is attributed, was developed by Evans from the Jimi Hendrix play The Wind Cries Mary and contains the reversal of its theme; parts of On Broadway by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were also used in this play . In Mademoiselle Mabry is a " Blues , like a afterhours radio over a permeable rock rhythm begins. The increasing intensity does not disturb neither the blues feeling nor the thoughtful improvisations of Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter. "

Title of the album

  • Original edition Columbia CS 9750 (or in the CD edition CK 86555)
  1. Frelon brun (Miles Davis) 5:37
  2. Tout de Suite (Miles Davis) 14:07
  3. Petits Machins (Little Stuff) (M. Davis / G. Evans) 8:04
  4. Filles de Kilimanjaro (Miles Davis) 12:01
  5. Mademoiselle Mabry (Miss Mabry) (Miles Davis) 16:33
  6. Toute de Suite ( alternate take ) 14:36.

Reception of the album

While the magazine Down Beat Filles de Kilimanjaro awarded the album the maximum number of five stars and the All Music Guide awarded the album 4½ (out of 5) stars, The Penguin Guide to Jazz only gave it 3 out of 4 stars.

It was voted 10th in the list of the best Miles Davis albums in 2006 by listeners to WDR Jazz Radio , after A Tribute to Jack Johnson and ahead of Miles Davis Live at Fillmore .

literature

  • Ian Carr : Miles Davis - The Definitive Biography . Revised edition 1998, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-6530265 .
  • Max Harrison , Eric Thacker, Stuart Nicholson : The Essential Jazz Records. Vol. 2: Modernism to Postmodernism . Mansell. London, New York 2000, ISBN 0720118220 .
  • Erik Nisenson: Round About Midnight - A Portrait of Miles Davis . Hannibal, Vienna 1985.
  • Arrigo Pollilo: Jazz. Piper, Munich 1981.
  • Keith Waters: The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68 . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011.
  • Peter Wießmüller: Miles Davis - his life, his music, his records . Oreos (Collection Jazz), Gauting 1985.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ cit. according to Wießmüller, p. 38
  2. ↑ on Miles in the Sky played by George Benson
  3. ↑ cit. after Nisenson, p. 161 f.
  4. ↑ Quoted from A. Polillo, p. 594.
  5. ↑ a b Stephanie Stein Crease: Gil Evans: Out of the Cool - His life and music. A Cappella Books / Chicago Review Press, Chicago 2002, pp. 267f.
  6. ^ Keith Waters The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68 , p. 244
  7. ↑ At first Davis thought of working with Miroslav Vitouš , but it didn't work. See Max Harrison, Eric Thacker, Stuart Nicholson The Essential Jazz Records , p. 585
  8. ↑ It was the first recordings where Corea and Holland played with Davis, with Davis insisting that Corea play the electric piano. See Scott Yanow Jazz On Records. The First Sixty Years . San Francisco 2003, p. 687
  9. ↑ a b c Paul Tingen: Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991 . Billboard Books, US, 2001, ISBN 0-823-08346-2 , p. 52.
  10. ↑ Miles Davis Autobiography, Campe Paperback, 1993, p. 348. At the time of recording he had separated from Cicely Tyson, his future third wife, and, as he himself wrote, was freshly in love with Betty Mabry.
  11. ↑ Szwed, p. 269
  12. ^ John Szwed: So What: The Life of Miles Davis , first ed. Edition, Simon & Schuster , New York 2002, ISBN 0-684-85982-3 , p. 273.
  13. ^ Dylan Jones: Why Miles Davis' Bitches Brew is such an extraordinary record. GQ - Gentlemen's Quarterly 2020, accessed May 10, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Evans commented on this collaboration: "The last one [Davis album] I really worked on was Filles de Kilimanjaro - I really should have a credit on that one." n. Stephanie Stein Crease: Gil Evans: Out of the Cool - His life and Music. Chicago, A Cappella Books / Chicago Review Press 2002., p. 267
  15. ↑ a b Nisenson, p. 162
  16. ↑ cit. According to Wießmüller from the monographic study Miles Davis - style-critical studies on the musical development of his personal style . Graz 1978
  17. ↑ cit. after Wießmüller, p. 152
  18. ↑ Keith Waters The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68 , pp. 257f.
  19. ^ M. Harrison, E. Thacker, St. Nicholson The Essential Jazz Records, p. 584
  20. ↑ a b Tout de Suite (short portrait) ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jazz.com
  21. ^ Keith Waters The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68 , p. 260
  22. ^ M. Harrison, E. Thacker, St. Nicholson The Essential Jazz Records , p. 585
  23. ↑ Evans is not named.
  24. ↑ The track Tout de Suite (alternate take) is added to the CD edition. Track 3 was recorded on June 19, 1968, tracks 2 and 6 on June 20, 1968 and track 4 on June 21. The remaining pieces were written on September 24th, with Corea and Holland replacing Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter, respectively. See Miles Davis Discography Project
  25. ↑ Frank Alkyer, John Ephland, Howard Mandel The Miles Davis Reader Hal Leonard Corporation 2007, p 305f.
  26. ↑ Filles de Kilimanjaro on Allmusic (English)
  27. ^ Listener voting at WDR-Jazzradio 2006