1964 in Jazz (2)

The Miles Davis Quintet: Live at the Philharmonic (February 12, 1964)

This extraordinary concert first introduced the public to what would become "the Second Great Miles Davis Quintet," one of the greatest small jazz ensembles of all time. Here, Davis had his new rhythm section firmly in place: the brilliant young pianist and composer Herbie Hancock, the mind-boggling interactive bass playing of Ron Carter, and the 19-year-old by wonder, Tony Williams on drums. On tenor was a very fine saxophonist named George Coleman - but the entire group would not be complete until the addition of tenor-man/composer Wayne Shorter at the end of the year. This group would go on over the course of the rest of the decade not only to become the prototypical futuristic "post-bop" band, but indeed to produce some of the greatest music of the 20th century.

There were no new compositions played this evening in New York’s Lincoln Center concert hall, however. Instead, this new band took the stage and began performing Miles Davis’ traditional repertoire from the 1950s and early ‘60s with such a dynamic and elastic sense of freshness and fluidity that the music was hardly recognizable. A revolution was brewing before the audience’s eyes and ears. It wasn’t the first one that Miles Davis had brought to music, and it would not be the last. But it may have been, ultimately, the greatest and most profound.

Make no mistake, this was a coordinated decision on Miles’ part. Already (probably) the best-known and most successful artist of modern jazz, Davis, as always, was restless for change. He found the key to the next level of his extraordinary, always progressive 30-year career (not counting his 1980s comeback) in the astonishing revolutionary style of a new generation of jazz musicians. But at the age of nearly 38, it was Davis himself that demonstrated the most extraordinary extension of jazz expression and technique.

Miles Davis had been recognized as one of the greatest players of jazz for over a decade before this concert. But what he played this evening shocked and no doubt confused many listeners. By this point, Davis was such a master that he could almost literally play anything that came into his head - and make it sound like no one else. The combination of these young players merged perfectly with his absolute commitment to advance the implications of the music he represented. And he did so with such a casual, sophisticated air that it set minds reeling. He was no longer just playing "Miles Davis music," as great as that was. This was something new: nothing less than a futuristic abstraction of "Miles Davis music, bringing forth all of the implications that had been implied with his earlier work.

Miles did not play "themes" that night in the ordinary sense. Instead, he played "fragments," "implications," "elaborations." He took advantage of his new rhythm section and pushed meters forward without warning, or slowed them down until they almost stood still. Experimenting, live on stage - on such a big stage, too - Miles Davis unleashed the first flowerings of his most mature period as a trumpet player. His experiments, which would continue all throughout the next few years, introduced his audience to a new level of listening: a place where any and everything could be taken and examined endlessly: like stopping to examine the detailed coloring in the corner of a great painting.

No doubt Davis’ new approach was difficult for many of his old fans to follow. This was challenging, uncompromising music that demanded a total absorption not only of the forms and techniques of modern jazz that Miles himself had helped to pioneer, but the careful patience and undivided attention to focus and contemplate every nuance of what a composition and an improvisation could be.

And yes, Miles was driven by this incredible new rhythm section - by their youth, their openness and their boundless intelligence and creativity. But in the end, it is Miles who stands - as always - as the great innovator. This night he played songs he had played for years, songs that his audience knew by heart. But this night he played them in a way that they could hardly be recognized, could often escape the following of the most seasoned jazz fan. Onstage, at the Philharmonic, Miles Davis publicly and fearlessly re-invented himself in public. And if you couldn’t follow it, the hell with you. There was no looking back.

It is fascinating to take any of the recordings made that night and compare them to Davis’ performances of the same tunes 10 or more years earlier. They indeed are barely recognizable. But once they start coming into focus, they draw the listener in deeper into a place never quite traveled before. The band is amazing, the arrangements are revolutionary, but Miles is simply astonishing. He had perfected his craft so well that he could turn on a dime and take it any direction he wanted to. Often, it is almost impossible to determine exactly where in a composition Miles is playing, but he always knows. And what’s more, his band knows, and is willing to follow him and to challenge each other. This is music of a level of mastery that you will find almost nowhere else - and it’s just beginning!

The recording and release of the music at this concert has a strange and distorted history. Instead of releasing the entire concert as a double album, Columbia first put out an album entitled, My Funny Valentine in May of 1965 - 15 months after the concert and three months after the ground-breaking recording of E.S.P., the band playing all-new material with the addition of Wayne Shorter. Making things even more confusing, of the five pieces included, they were all ballads.

 

A second release compiled from the concert was released on January 17, 1966. Entitled 'Four' & More, it featured six uptempo numbers.

As good as the playing was on these issues, they dramatically misrepresented Miles Davis’ development as an artist to his audience, as it was both difficult to follow the chronological trajectory of his and his band’s development, and to receive a balanced picture of just what all the group was attempting to do at a specific moment of time.

Things would not be straightened out for the dedicated listener until 2004, with the release of the 7-disc box set, Seven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963-1964. On this essential document of Miles Davis in transition, discs 4 and 5 contain, finally, the complete two-set show of the February 12 concert at the Philharmonic from 1964, in chronological order. Although possessing this document is a blessing, for some reason Columbia still has not seen fit to release the concert as a 2-disc set, essentially forcing the collector to purchase the full, expensive 7-disc set or to remain in a fragmented state of limbo. Hopefully, the company will eventually will rectify this situation in the future. (Fortunately, however, the box set is available on Spotify, so anyone who has this service can easily access the entire concert.)

　

The complete concert, as it appears on the box set is as follows:

Disc 4
1. "Introduction by Mort Fega"
2. "Autumn Leaves"
3. "So What"
4. "Stella by Starlight"
5. "Walkin’"
6. "All of You"
7. "Go-Go (Theme and Announcement)"
Disc 5
1. "Introduction by Billy Taylor"
2. "All Blues"
3. "My Funny Valentine"
4. "Joshua"
5. "I Thought About You"
6. "Four"
7. "Seven Steps to Heaven"
8. "There Is No Greater Love"
9. "Go-Go (Theme and Re-Introduction)"

Rather than reviewing the entire concert, I would like to present selections from the performance and contrast them with earlier Miles Davis group recordings to drive home the difference precisely between the original conception of these numbers and the radical re-interpretation they were undergoing by February 12, 1964.
 

"So What"

This classic, that leads off Miles' 1959 masterpiece Kind of Blue demonstrates the reckless abandon that Davis was now willing to revisit and re-assess his legacy.

The famous composition is a perfect example of Miles' revolutionary "modal" writing of the late 1950s. The simple call-and-response theme is played over one chord (four times in each 8-bar section) for the first 16 bars, is merely repeated one half-step up for 8 bars, before returning to play the last 8 bars in the original key.

Thus, we get a classic 32-bar AABA structure that is very easy to follow, containing only two chords, the entire piece being structured in the Dorian mode. In the original recording, the elegant simplicity of the piece is designed to coax the maximum amount of melodic and emotional expression from each soloist:

Here, everything is based on balance and nuance to achieve a kind of "stillness" that is undeniably beautiful and expressive.

Now, contrast the performance given of the same piece at the 1964 concert, which originally appeared on the 'Four' & More album:

First of all, the piece is taken at a much faster tempo. (You can hear how long it takes for the audience to even recognize it.) At this speed, and with the kinetic interplay between Ron Carter and Tony Williams, the composition automatically becomes something more abstract, and it is difficult to hear the structure. You have to listen carefully to follow the AABA - in fact, the speed and action of the playing almost makes it sound "free," yet the musicians are still following the strict chord pattern and playing in the Dorian mode.

Miles, especially, takes this opportunity to turn his composition inside out on his solo. Whereas in his original conception, he was simplifying in order produce clean melodic lines, here he is streaking in the air, painting jagged lines like a deranged Jackson Pollock. But the compositional sense of the piece never leaves him, as he boldly creates melodic landscapes both inside and over the different sections. (Note for example, at 2:24, when he begins a long, snaking line that arches upward, seemingly ignoring the boundaries of the structure only to end precisely where he needs to.) Miles knows his music so well at this point, that he can take his improvisational thinking to an entirely new level, almost like playing three-dimensional chess.

"Stella by Starlight"

Here is a great example of how Miles is changing the way he approaches a ballad, always one of his great fortes. First, let's listen to Tony Bennett sing the song, to get acquainted with it. It is a classic 32-bar song format, with its 8-bar structure arranged as ABAB:

Now let's listen to Miles' 1958 interpretation of this beautiful melody with his "First Great Quintet." Davis takes it at a very slow tempo in order to draw out all the carefully crafted lines in his very pure melodic thinking. John Coltrane also gives a beautiful, straight-ahead solo here. Finally, Bill Evans plays the first AB section, and Miles returns to finish it off with the final AB. This is what you'd call "classic" Miles Davis balladry.

 

 

Now let's here how Miles handles this ballad at the 1964 concert:

 



 

If anything, the tempo is even slower here. As a matter of fact, as Miles begins the theme (open-voiced now), he is practically rubato, as Herbie Hancock (and later Ron Carter) have to listen very carefully to follow him with their accompaniment. This enormous open space gives Miles plenty of time to spell out all kinds of melodic ideas that are not only coherent in themselves, but connect together to spell out the whole melodic line. Time seems almost to have stopped as Davis follows one extraordinary idea with another, and the listener is challenged to tell exactly where in the tune he is playing. The first AB of the song lasts just over two minutes! At the beginning of the second A, however, Carter kicks into a faster, more defined beat, and the others quickly join him. Miles just takes off, soaring over this dramatic landscape, and you can hear the audience respond with awe-inspired applause. Just after the 3-minute point, however, everything dissolves back down to the almost "still-tempo" mood (near the end of the second B section). As Miles starts to repeat the theme, the rhythm section momentarily kicks back in (Tony Williams even starts playing emphatic off-beats) before it slows down to "stillness" in the middle of the first A, and remains there as Miles descends on the B section. Halfway through it though (at 4:14) Miles jumps up to the high register to bounce on one note over and over, which kick-starts the rhythm section again. Miles takes a final wild ride on a fast run, ending his solo right in the middle of the piece.

 

This is a totally different approach to playing ballads, Miles knowing and feeling every inch of space and controlling time like it’s elastic. It’s extraordinary to hear such complete command, as if he were a magician conjuring shapes in any form he chooses. Meanwhile, if a listener didn’t know the tune, they probably couldn’t follow him at all, but his individual figures and runs are so beautiful and fascinating that it wouldn’t matter: it’s kind of like slow-motion fireworks.

The band adopts a straight-ahead strategy for most of George Coleman's sax solo, though they do slow down a few times. When Hancock plays, they suddenly switch to a half-tempo, picking it up again just before Miles returns to close out the piece at an almost invisible pace. Such a strategy for exposition of materials is a revolutionary advance on traditional jazz practice, but it can only work with a brilliant, seasoned master like Miles Davis.

 

"Walkin’"

Miles’ trademark slow blues from 1954 is given a mind-boggling twist as well. Here’s the original, which is incredible of course. Note that it’s just basically a 12-bar blues (ABC) format:

 

 

 

Now compare it to the concert version that appeared on 'Four' & More:

 

 



 

Not content with merely speeding it up, the tune becomes a veritable whirlwind of furious activity. At first, I couldn't even follow that this was still a blues, let alone "Walkin'," but Davis has absorbed so much of this music internally by this point that he apparently doesn't even have to think about the changes or the time - he just plays. And, once again, his phrases start taking on an extra dimension as he treats entire 12-bar structures as if they were one section of a macro-construction that only he can see. This is just mind-boggling! (One again, an average listener might think that this is somehow just "free" blowing.)

 

"My Funny Valentine"



This song is of course one of Miles Davis' signature tunes. Let's go ahead and play the song as recorded by Frank Sinatra:

This song is very recognizable, of course, and it has a 36-bar AABA format, as the final A has four extra bars for a total of 12 bars. Listen to Miles' original version recorded with the "First Great Quintet" in 1955:

Even with all of Miles' beautiful embellishments, the simple clarity and beauty of the original melody shines through. (Red Garland's double-time piano solo is even easier to follow.) Now, look what Miles does with this tune in 1964:

(Move up to around the 1:40 point to skip the introductions.) The glacial pace at which Davis takes the song (he plays two complete choruses) allows him to turn the tune in a magnificent epic of shifting moods and observations. Who knew that all of this was laying latent in "My Funny Valentine"? This is jazz at its furthest extreme (so far) of abstraction, while still staying in the "rules" of common harmonic structure. (Although there are a few alternate chords taken for dramatic effect.)

Once again, the arrangement for George Colemen's solo is simplified, quicker more conventional. Herbie Hancock's solo could almost be a different composition, however.

This extraordinary unveiling of this new group and Miles Davis' dramatic new approach to soloing was just the beginning. With nearly a year ahead of them to experiment with the techniques employed here: the opening and collapsing of rhythms, polyrhythms and melodies, shifting accents, and most importantly, active listening and reacting to one another, this amazing group would ready itself for the future. Before the year was out, they would add the brilliant Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone and in January of 1965 they would commence their career of applying all these advanced techniques to unbelievably unique new types of musical structures. It would be a wild ride!