Miles Davis and Horns

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Miles Davis and Horns
Studio album by Miles Davis

Publication
(s)

1956

Label (s) Prestige Records , Original Jazz Classics

Format (s)

EP, LP, CD

Genre (s)

Jazz , cool jazz , bebop

Title (number)

8, later 9

running time

33:12

occupation


production

Bob Weinstock

Studio (s)

Apex Studio, New York City (1951); Beltone Studio, NYC (1953)

chronology
Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet
(1956) 		Miles Davis and Horns Miles Davis and Milt Jackson Quintet / Sextet
(1956)

Miles Davis and Horns is a jazz album by Miles Davis on Prestige Records , recorded in two different line-ups on January 17, 1951 and February 19, 1953 in New York . The January 1951 recordings were released first as singles, then on an EP, and finally as a 12 "LP in 1956, along with recordings from 1953 as Miles Davis and Horns . The January session was Davis' first recording session for the prestigious young label and also the record debut of the twenty year old Sonny Rollins .

The album

Around Christmas 1950, Bob Weinstock , who had just founded his jazz label Prestige Records , rummaged through Miles Davis in Chicago , where he was accompanying Billie Holiday at the Hi-Note Club, and signed a recording deal with him that was to begin in January 1951. In late 1950, Miles was voted into Metronome All-Stars by readers of Metronome magazine . Charlie Parker asked him if he would like to work on Verve records in January . On the morning of January 17th, the titles Au Privave , She Rote , KC Blues and Star Eyes were created . In the afternoon of the same day, Miles Davis recorded pieces under his own name for Prestige for the first time - ten months since his last Birth of the Cool recordings in 1950. (The recordings with the Metronome All-Stars took place just a few days later, on January 23, in the New York studio of Capitol Records .)

For this session, the arranger of which was presumably John Lewis, Davis had put together a session band; he played here with trombonist Bennie Green , pianist John Lewis , bassist Percy Heath and drummer Roy Haynes . The young tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins was also there ; it was Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins' first studio meeting , culminating in the recordings of Doxy , Oleo and Airegin in 1954 . Weinstock initially considered the then twenty-year-old Rollins to be too inexperienced, but after the session was over he was persuaded to produce Rollins' first single ( I Know ), which was to be the beginning of his recording career.

Sonny Rollins (2008)

The first title of the January session, Morpheus is of the composition and instrumentation of Lewis forth pure cool jazz , but the solos by Miles Davis, Rollins and Lewis and the breaks of Green and Haynes in Bop - Idiom held. Down is an original 24-measure composition by Miles Davis; it reflects the mood of the title. The soloists here are the three wind instruments, with Rollins playing the most aggressively and Davis the most thoughtful. The two takes of Blue Room differ in the cast; Green fails in both; Rollins is only present in the first take; his solo can be understood “as an example of his early style”, according to the critic Dan Morgenstern in 1980. Davis is in a wistful mood in both versions and has problems starting , especially with the quartet . With Whispering Davis falls back on the harmonious foundation of the bop classic Groovin 'High ; After a piano introduction in the Count Basies style, his interpretation contains two solos by Davis, a short one by Rollins and an impressive improvisation by Bennie Green.

The song I Know , created during this session, was the first single to be released under Sonny Rollins' own name and is one of the rare opportunities to see trumpeter Miles Davis as a pianist. Lewis had to leave the studio after the previous recordings; Davis then took his place; he played a short introduction, but then held back a lot with solo contributions. Although the piece bears the name Miles Davis' composition, it has three Rollins choruses based on chord changes from Charlie Parker's composition Confirmation .

The January 1951 recordings for the 12 "album released by Prestige in 1956 were coupled with recordings by Miles Davis with the band of Al Cohn and Zoot Sims . The tracks, all compositions by Al Cohn, are in A laid-back mood dominated by Al Cohn's arrangements, with Miles Davis occasionally adding highlights, along with Sonny Truitt , John Lewis, Leonard Gaskin and Kenny Clarke .

Rating of the album

In the opinion of Davis biographer Peter Wießmüller, the trumpeter's early recordings for Prestige Records were greatly affected by his heroin addiction at the time; they are documents of an artistic stagnation phase that would last until his legendary Walkin ' album in 1954. Despite the good work of the rhythm section Heath / Haynes, the titles of the first Prestige Session suffer from a “stylistic inconsistency”; “For example, the rather cool composition“ Morpheus ”by John Lewis is simply superimposed with a bop feeling, while conversely the blues “ Down ”suffers from having little fire.” With Blue Room and Whispering , technical handicaps also affected by Davis and Rollins the result of the recordings.

Al Cohn

According to Peter Wießmüller , the Al-Cohn arrangements created two years later are characterized by “a certain clumsiness”; the consonance of the Al Cohn / Zoot Sims tandem “soon leaves boredom. Miles Davis 'light-footed, originally playful solos alone add color to this otherwise unexciting music. ”The critics Richard Cook & Brian Morton only give Miles Davis' first prestige album two and a half stars in the Penguin Guide to Jazz .

The titles of the 12 "LP 1956

Miles Davis and Horns (Prestige P 7025)

  1. Morpheus ( John Lewis ) (2:21)
  2. Down (Miles Davis) (2:51)
  3. Blue Room (Take 2) ( Richard Rodgers , Lorenz Hart ) (3:00)
  4. Whispering (John and Malvin Schonberger, Richard Coburn, Vincent Rose ) (3:03)
  5. Tasty Pudding ( Al Cohn ) (3:20)
  6. Willie the Wailer (Cohn) (4:26)
  7. Floppy (Cohn) (6:00)
  8. For Adults Only (Cohn) (5:33)
  9. Blue Room (Take 1) ( Rodgers, Hart ) (2:47) only added on re-releases (see below).

In the following publications, the session sequence was partially or completely reversed.

The titles of the session on January 17, 1951

Percy Heath; 1977
  1. Morpheus ( John Lewis ) (2:21)
  2. Down (Miles Davis) (2:51)
  3. Blue Room (Take 1) ( Rodgers, Hart ) (2:47)
  4. Blue Room (Take 2) (Rodgers, Hart) (3:00)
  5. Whispering (Schonberger, Schonberger, Coburn, Rose) (3:03)
  6. I Know ( Sonny Rollins ) (2:30) published on Sonny Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet (P 7029)

The titles of the February 19, 1953 session

  1. Tasty Pudding ( Al Cohn ) (3:20)
  2. Willie the Wailer (Cohn) (4:26)
  3. Floppy (Cohn) (6:00)
  4. For Adults Only (Cohn) (5:33)

Editorial notes

The recordings of the album Miles Davis and Horns (Prestige PRLP 7025; Fantasy OJC 053, OJCCD 053-2) were initially released as 10 "singles (78 min − 1) Miles Davis - Morpheus / Blue Room (Prestige SP 734) or Miles Davis - Down / Whispering (Prestige SP 742). The four pieces appeared together on the 7 "EP (45 min − 1) Miles Davis Sextet (Prestige PREP 1320).

The recording combination by Miles Davis and Horns was also released under the titles Early Miles 1951 & 1953 (Prestige PRLP 7168) and Early Miles (Prestige PR 7674). The latter was extended by the first take of Blue Room , which also appeared with two longer tracks from the second session with Sonny Rollins from October of the same year on the 10 "-LP (33⅓ min − 1) Blue Period (Prestige PRLP 140), so as with later re-editions of Miles Davis and Horns . With the session on October 5th, the Prestige released in full as Dig (10 "-LP, Prestige PRLP 7012), this name was also linked to the recordings from January as 12" - LP reissued (Prestige P 24054).

All of the recordings listed appeared on the so far only complete edition of all Davis recordings for Prestige, Chronicle - The Complete Prestige Recordings from 1980 (box with 14 LPs, Prestige P 012), which has been reissued several times since 1987 with 8 CDs (8PCD-012 -2) and is also offered as a download from Fantasy Records .

literature

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Miles Davis - Morpheus / Blue Room (Prestige SP 734) and Miles Davis - Down / Whispering (Prestige SP 742)
  2. ↑ Miles Davis Sextet (Prestige PREP 1320)
  3. ↑ See recording chronology by Peter Losin
  4. ↑ See Dan Morgenstern, Liner Notes
  5. ↑ See Nisenson, p. 66.
  6. ↑ See Morgenstern.
  7. ↑ See references.
  8. ↑ Cf. Dan Morgenstern
  9. ↑ Quoted from Peter Wießmüller, p. 93.
  10. ↑ Quoted from Peter Wießmüller, p. 93 f.
  11. ^ Miles Davis Chronicle - The Complete Prestige Recordings at Allmusic . Retrieved August 22, 2012.