Two years before releasing his debut LP, Miles Davis
participated in the first of three sessions that would ultimately be compiled
onto Birth of the Cool in 1957. These
sessions were groundbreaking both because they featured Davis at such an early
stage of his career and because of the way his nonet (which included such
luminaries as Max Roach, Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, and John Lewis)
reimagined bop with the kind of classically-tinged polyphony that would be key
to Davis’s work moving forward. A big-band sensibility that would not always be
evident in that extremely varied work is also apparent.
The recordings still sound like the product of a
fully-realized, completely seasoned, utterly forward thinking artist. Davis’s
signature, smoldering sunset sound that would beat in the heart of future
projects such as Porgy and Bess and Sketches in Spain is already evident in
pieces such as “Moon Dreams” and “Darn That Dream” (featuring vocalist Kenny
Hagood). That Davis was just 22 when these sessions began is unimaginable.
Before the 1957 release of the eleven-track Birth of the Cool, eight numbers from
the nonet’s sessions were released as 78rpm singles and then on a 10” LP called
Classics in Jazz: Miles Davis in
1954. In 1998, Capitol further expanded the 1957 album with thirteen live
numbers from a couple of gigs at NYC’s Royal Roost recorded for radio broadcast
in September 1948 with primitive audio quality but somewhat hotter playing than
the sublimely cool and controlled studio sessions. 21 years later, that
double-CD set is making its double-vinyl debut via Universal Music with excellent liner notes and nice sound culled from the original session tapes.
