Show #163: Before the Birth of Cool (Miles Davis)

This is what I hope to be the first of a series of shows featuring guest posters who have knowledge of genres and musicians where mine is lacking. Please welcome Kellen Yamanaka who knows a lot more about jazz than I ever will.

Trumpeter Miles Davis's discography as a leader officially begins with Birth of the Cool, which was recorded in a few sessions from 1949 to 1950. Those sessions captured Miles's signature sound -- that cool, plaintive tone, hip, bluesy, and emotive -- in its earliest stages. And even though it was his first album as a leader, it wasn't his first breakthrough as an artist. In fact, he came to fame a few years before this, debuting on record in 1945 and even winning the critics' polls in Esquire and Down Beat as early as 1947, playing bebop and learning from its forefathers, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker (a.k.a. "Bird") and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

Miles joined Bird's band in the fall of 1945 at a mere 19 years old. He was enamored with Parker's music but was also hesitant joining the group since he was essentially filling the rather large shoes of Gillespie. Dizzy's brassy, explosive, nimble, high-register sound was what listeners expected to hear in bebop, so Miles struggled to distinguish himself with his own voice. In his autobiography, he recounts actually talking about this with Diz:

I asked Dizzy one day, "Man, why can't I play like you?" He said, "You do play like me, but you play it down an octave lower. You play the chords." Dizzy is self-taught, but he knows everything about music. So when he told me that I heard everything down lower, in the middle register, it just made sense to me, because I didn't hear anything up, you know?

And Miles's early recordings reflect this. He used mainly the middle register of his trumpet, even while playing bebop, which was generally some pretty high-octane (and high-register) music, giving his sound a more vocal quality. He also avoided using vibrato, a technique he favored in his high school years but later considered it to be an overly "white," Harry James-style gimmick. So, even if the musical language he was using was borrowed, he was beginning to speak with his own voice.


(Photo by William Gottlieb.)

Fast-forward a few years. Miles officially left Bird's band (though he did play with him on a handful of later occasions), and the second recording ban (a.k.a. Petrillo Ban) was lifted on January 1, 1949. The jazz periodical Metronome gathered a group of all-star players for a recording session to commemorate the occasion, featuring Miles with Diz and Fats Navarro on trumpets, trombonists J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding, clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, Bird on alto sax, pianist Lennie Tristano, and drummer Shelly Manne. A mere two weeks later, some of these players reconvened for a broadcast on WPIX, which Up the Downstair is showcasing here. Metronome must have been in high-gear promoting themselves between the aforementioned recording session, this all-star group broadcast, the awards (mentioned in the introduction), and the editor appearing as a guest on the show. At any rate, it was a great day for bebop's debut on WPIX; all the names here are well-loved by bop aficionados.

A bit about the tunes and players:

Trombonist Kai Winding isn't as famous as his peer J.J. Johnson, but Davis apparently had enough faith in his talent to bring him in for the first Birth of the Cool session ony five days after this broadcast. He and Miles also played together a handful of times in pianist Tadd Dameron's band later that year, and "The Squirrel" is actually a tune of Dameron's. Miles's brief but potent solo illustrates how he was coming from bebop but also searching for his own style. Buddy DeFranco was already an experienced big band reed player, but he excelled in small groups and was committed to adapting the bebop language to the clarinet (he sold his alto sax in 1947). Bird was his main influence, so it's fitting that DeFranco should be here. Check out his incredibly hot solo on "Anthropology."

Al Haig and Oscar Pettiford were two of a small cadre of rhythm sections players who could be trusted both to anchor and drive the group in a bebop setting. Haig first encountered Miles in Bird's band, replacing Duke Jordan on piano. Miles claimed in his autobiography that he never liked Haig's style (or Jordan's, for that matter), but Haig was still hired for the first of the three Birth of the Cool sessions less than a week later. Pettiford was fresh out of Duke Ellington's orchestra and one of the first to unleash the bass's melodic potential in the bebop idiom.

Today, drummer Shelly Manne's name is most frequently associated with West Coast jazz, but he was originally a New Yorker, and this recording was done before he settled in Los Angeles. Speaking of which, Miles's own trip to LA was how he got tight with Lucky Thompson. Thompson was his host and "main man" when the trumpeter headed out to California in 1946 to play with Bird's band and Benny Carter's band, as well.

Miles sits out on a couple tunes here. "Body and Soul" gets a rather unusual treatment as a baritone sax feature with a faster tempo for the solo choruses. Charlie Ventura was a tenor saxophonist and bandleader in his own right, but he plays a very convincing baritone sax here with a hearty, powerful tone. According to the liner notes in my copy of this broadcast, "Fine and Dandy" is actually performed by pianist Teddy Wilson's trio (bassist and drummer unknown). Already a veteran player at the time, he had come into his own during the Swing Era. It's a wonder he isn't better known: his deft stride approach to "Dandy" has all the sparkle and soul of Art Tatum or Oscar Peterson.

This is an interesting recording not just because of its rarity but also because it captures Miles at something of an artistic crossroads. He was playing bebop, the music of his mentors, but was also about to create more forward-looking music with Birth of the Cool that year (and only about five years later, he'd be recording his first session with John Coltrane). It's a revelation to hear an icon like this in such a formative period.


(Photo found here.)

I'll close with another telling excerpt from Miles's autobiography where he recalls a 1946 recording session in LA:

I remember playing with a mute on that date so I would sound less like Dizzy. But even with a mute I still sounded like him. I was mad with myself, because I wanted to sound like myself. I still felt that I was close to getting to the place where I would have my own voice on trumpet. I was anxious to be myself even then, and I was only nineteen.

He was only 22 at the time of this recording, but he was about to turn an artistic corner (one of many in his career). Curious fans who want to dig back even earlier should check out his recordings with Charlie Parker (I recommend the Yardbird Suite compilation) as well as Miles , his autobiography. But be sure to spend some time with the performance that Up the Downstair has graciously furnished here.

WPIX Studios
17 January 1949

Setlist:

The Squirrel
Fine and Dandy
Anthropology
Body and Soul
How High the Moon

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Miles Davis

Kellen Yamanaka is a writer and producer for Talkin' Jazz with Scott Willis and the Contemporary Jazz programmer for Slacker Radio. His blog is Song With Orange.