The Time of the Barracudas
The Time of the Barracudas , commissioned for stage music, is a suite by Miles Davis and Gil Evans written in the idiom of modern jazz in 1963.
On the origin of the incidental music Time of the Barracudas
The components of the music, which were published under the title Time of the Barracudas , are the result of the collaboration of trumpeter Miles Davis with orchestra conductor, composer and arranger Gil Evans in the fall of 1963. a. Davis' then band members Herbie Hancock , Tony Williams and Ron Carter . The twelve-minute motifs with the character of a suite , first published in 1996 in the edition Miles Davis and Gil Evans - The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings under the title "The Time Of The Barracudas" , were the result of the penultimate studio collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans based on her album Quiet Nights . In 1968 they met one last time to record Falling Water .
The incidental music, conceived together in September 1963, was intended as a commission for a play of the same title by Peter Barnes in which the actor Lawrence Harvey , a fan of Davis, was to play the leading role. The premiere for the piece was scheduled in San Francisco; later it should go to Los Angeles and New York. Gil Evans and Davis stayed at Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood in preparation for the project ; this happened in a comparatively unproductive phase of the two artists. Irving Townsend from Columbia Records supported the project in the hope of another successful Davis / Evans album after Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain and made two studio appointments possible.
A total of ten musical fragments were created, which resulted in twelve minutes and 45 seconds of music. Davis and Evans had written some of these tracks before they were commissioned to compose the Barracudas , such as the central theme Time of the Barracudas , a modal piece in 6/8 time. Evans had composed Hotel Me based on a riff by blues pianist Otis Spann . The other short fragments were sound abstractions, which, according to Stephanie Stein Crease, should give an outlook on future developments of the two artists at the end of the 1960s.
In the theater, the recorded music was played back from the tape. The play failed the first staging; According to Ralph Gleason , the music was "the best part of the piece". The musicians' union in Los Angeles spoke out against playing the stage music from the tape and demanded that the music be performed live. The planned resumption in Los Angeles and the intended production on Broadway ultimately did not materialize.
The history of the recording sessions in 1963 and 1964
Miles Davis had returned from the Antibes Jazz Festival in late summer with his new quintet and stayed for a while in California to perform with the quintet at the Monterey Jazz Festival . For the rehearsals of the theater music, Gil Evans put together an ensemble with - except for the flautist Paul Horn - 14 relatively unknown studio musicians. Some of them came from Henry Mancini's orchestra. After rehearsals together, the pieces of the Barracudas Suite were recorded on October 10; the following day, Davis recorded with his new quartet of Herbie Hancock , Ron Carter, and Tony Williams . The recordings of the Barracudas Suite were initially not published, but only used for the theater performance.
Gil Evans then recorded the two main themes of the collaboration from the summer of 1963 under his own name a year later for his Verve album The Individualism of Gil Evans , namely the two jointly composed titles Time of the Barracudas (previously General Assembly ) and Hotel Me (das Evans later also recorded as Jelly Rolls on the album Where Flamingos Fly ). In the first version from 1963, these are still in the form of snippets of session material, an as yet unformed medley of fragments in which Miles Davis occasionally appears as a soloist, according to Jack Chambers in his 1997 review.
The main soloist in the version of the title recorded by Gil Evans on July 9, 1964 was saxophonist Wayne Shorter , accompanied by a rhythm section made up of Kenny Burrell , Elvin Jones and Gary Peacock ; in the ensemble play - in which no trumpeter took part - are u. a. the trombonist Frank Rehak , the tuba player Bill Barber and the horn player Julius Watkins . In Hotel Me, on the other hand, trumpeters Johnny Coles and Bernie Glow take part in the ensemble play.
These later versions, in Mel Martin's view, indicate how a final version of the Barracuda suite by Evans and Davis could have been shaped. In 1996 the trumpeter Ingrid Jensen interpreted the title on her Enja album Here on Earth , accompanied by Gary Bartz , George Colligan and Bill Stewart .
The cast and takes of the 1963 Barracudas session
- Gil Evans (comp / arr), Miles Davis (tp, comp), Hollywood, October 10, 1963, length 12:45
with Dick Leith (b-trb), Richard 'Dick' Perissi (early), William 'Bill' Hinshaw (early), Arthur Maebe (early), Paul Horn (fl, alto-fl, ts), Gene Cipriano (alto-fl, ts, obo), Fred Dutton (fg), Marjorie Call (harp), Herbie Hancock (p ), Ron Carter (b) and Tony Williams (dr).
- 0.00 - Introduction of the suite by the rhythm section : Ron Carter and Tony Williams set a march theme, which Herbie Hancock enters; he plays abstract solo motifs.
- 1:39 - Miles Davis plays a fragmentary theme with mute, framed by the brass ensemble.
- 2:00 - First take of the actual Time of the Barracudas theme ("General Assembly"), recognizable as a raw version of the later Individualism version. After a brief introduction by Ron Carter, the ensemble first plays; Miles Davis sets in after an introduction by the flutists and bassoon players and plays his solo in front of the wind ensemble, followed by ensemble playing that ends until only Tony Williams can be heard.
- 5:22 - short second take with the beginning of the barracudas theme (ensemble only)
- 5:43 - short take - ensemble and Miles Davis ( march theme)
- 6:16 - slow ensemble play, then Miles Davis with a short solo, ensemble remains in the background, Tony Williams and Ron Carter set the tone
- 6:58 - First take of the later Hotel Me theme, introduction given by the ensemble, finally Miles Davis starts playing the Hotel Me theme.
- 10:04 - short Mood ensemble play with harp, Miles as soloist
- 11:03 am - Fast-paced ensemble theme (riff), Miles as the featured soloist
- 12:13 - End with slow ensemble play in Miles Ahead fashion
Web links / sources
- Jack Chambers 1997 in Coda, Sketches of Miles Davis and Gil Evans
- Mel Martin: The Remastering of Miles Davis and Gil Evans
literature
- Bielefeld catalog 2001
- Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe : The Autobiography . Heyne, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-453-17177-2 .
- Stephanie Stein Crease: Gil Evans: Out of the Cool - His life and music. 2002, Chicago, A Cappella Books / Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-55652-493-6 .