Nine of
Miles Davis' earliest albums on Columbia Records, encompassing music that he
recorded for the label in monaural sound from 1956 to 1961 (and released from
1957 to 1964), will be issued together on CD for the first time as Miles Davis:
The Original Mono Recordings.
This box
set, comprising nine CDs in mini-LP replica jackets, will be available
everywhere November 12, 2013. On November 29th in celebration of Record Store
Day, Columbia/Legacy will follow up with vinyl mono editions of Kind Of Blue,
Miles & Monk At Newport, and Jazz Track—capping a series of recently
released mono LPs including 'Round About Midnight, Miles Ahead, Milestones,
Porgy and Bess, Sketches of Spain, and Someday My Prince Will Come.
Miles
Davis: The Original Mono Recordings is a true landmark collection, with every
album newly remastered in 2012-13, from the original analog master tapes. CD consumers will be able to hear Miles'
early music in mono, the way virtually all popular music was recorded, marketed
and intended to be heard in the 1950s and early 1960s. Mono was the norm before the home, broadcast
and film stereo era began to develop fully in the mid-'60s, leading to stereo's
all-encompassing takeover by the early '70s.
The Original
Mono Recordings by Miles Davis includes:
•The six
albums that trace the development of Miles' "first great quintet" at
Columbia, all notably featuring John Coltrane, namely 'Round About Midnight,
Milestones, Jazz Track, Kind Of Blue (at 4-times RIAA platinum, the greatest
selling jazz album of all time), Someday My Prince Will Come, and Miles And
Monk At Newport; and
•The
three albums that placed Miles (and various group members) in sophisticated
orchestral settings at Columbia, all notably arranged and conducted by Gil
Evans, namely Miles Ahead, Porgy And Bess, and Sketches Of Spain.
Two of
the albums included in The Original Mono Recordings are exciting rare editions
that have never appeared in any Miles Davis CD collection in the U.S., and have
not been generally available for many years:
•Jazz
Track, presenting 10 improvised tracks that Miles recorded in Paris with
European musicians in 1957, for director Louis Malle's film Ascenseur pour
l'echafaud (Elevator To the Gallows), combined with three tracks by Miles' own
sextet in New York—featuring Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill
Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb—from their only other studio recordings of
1958, prior to the Kind Of Blue sessions in '59; and
•Miles
And Monk At Newport, featuring four jazz classics recorded live by the Miles
Davis Sextet at the jazz festival in 1958, followed by two classics recorded at
the festival in 1963 by Columbia's newly-signed Thelonious Monk Quartet.
The
Original Mono Recordings will be housed in a slipcase similar to Bob Dylan's
The Original Mono Recordings box released in 2012. The new box will contain a fully-annotated
40-page booklet with complete discographic information including personnel and production
details, plus a 2,000-word essay by author and Wall Street Journal writer Marc
Myers. The liner notes add in-depth,
album-by-album comments on the new remastering processes, as told to Myers by
three-time Grammy Award®-winning mastering engineer Mark Wilder.
Over the
course of these nine albums, whose principal recording spanned barely a half
decade (from June 1956 to March 1961), The Original Mono Recordings presents a
clear vision of Miles' evolution as musician and bandleader, and as a composer
graduating from hardbop to modal creations.
He was famously signed to Columbia Records by George Avakian in the
summer of 1955, after the A&R staff producer witnessed Miles' showstopping
solo on a jam session of "'Round Midnight" at the Newport Jazz
Festival. Jazz critics acclaimed the performance
as the "return of Miles," who was considered a difficult artist to
work with, who did not even have a regular working group at the time.
Taking
Avakian seriously, Miles assembled a group around bassist Paul Chambers and
drummer "Philly" Joe Jones, with Red Garland on piano and, after
several early contenders (Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley), Philadelphian John
Coltrane on tenor saxophone. This lineup
cut four LPs' worth of material in late '55 and '56 to satisfy Miles'
contractual obligations to Prestige Records.
They also began to record the first Columbia LP, 'Round About Midnight,
named for the paraphrased Monk title tune.
The LP, produced by Avakian, consisted of jazz and popular standards
done in Miles' inimitable style.
Most
significantly, in terms of The Original Mono Recordings, Myers writes,
"the word 'mono' did not appear on the cover. Instead, the jacket announced that the music
inside was '360ยบ Sound, Guaranteed High Fidelity.' Stereo technology wouldn't be in place at
Columbia until 1958, so there was no need to add the word 'mono' to delineate a
difference. 'Mono has always been truer to the studio sound and the original
intent,' said Avakian. 'Mono featured
less audio trickery and fewer audio distractions, so you can actually hear the
musical conversation between Miles and the other musicians as it occurred in
the studio.'"
For the
second album, Avakian realized his intention to feature Miles in the presence
of a jazz orchestra: horns, trumpets, trombones, bass trombone, tuba, alto sax,
bass clarinet, flutes, and clarinets, along with bassist Chambers and drummer
Art Taylor. Most significantly, Miles
Ahead by Miles Davis + 19 reunited Miles with his late-1940s Birth of the Cool
collaborator, arranger Gil Evans. With
the exception of the title track, composed by Miles and Evans, the program
again consisted of jazz and popular standards done Miles' way.
Although
the third album, Milestones, was recorded in two productive days of sessions in
February and March 1958, it proved to be Avakian's final LP with Miles. It reintroduced the quintet (Coltrane,
Garland, Chambers, Jones) along with a new member from Florida, former
schoolteacher Julian "Cannonball" Adderley on alto sax. Some of Miles' most iconic music is heard on
Milestones: the quintet (sextet's) versions of Jackie McLean's "Dr.
Jekyll," Dizzy Gillespie's "Two Bass Hit," and Monk's closing
"Straight, No Chaser." At the
same time, the album upped the ante of Miles' originals with two,
"Miles" and the 13-minute "Sid's Ahead," which hinted at
things to come from the inspired young (32-year old) artist.
Two
months after the Milestones sessions, the quintet (sextet) was back in the
studio for a day of recording with a new Columbia staff producer, Cal
Lampley. The session yielded four
classics, three of which, due to length, made Side B of Jazz Track: Miles'
original "Fran-Dance," and two American Songbook standards, "On
Green Dolphin Street" and "Stella by Starlight." (The fourth,
"Love for Sale," running over 11 minutes, is included on
Columbia/Legacy's Kind Of Blue 50th Anniversary sets.) The year before (December 1957), Miles had
temporarily disbanded his group and gone to Paris to perform. There he was hired to create a soundtrack for
French film director Louis Malle's suspenseful murder mystery Ascenseur pour
l'echafaud (Elevator To the Gallows in the U.S.). Miles and several European jazz musicians
improvised the music while seeing the film on a screen. The music, barely 25 minutes, was issued on
LP in France in 1958, and was subsequently coupled with the three Lampley
tracks on Columbia as the cleverly titled Jazz Track, one of Miles' most
elusive and collectible LPs.
In
between, Miles got back together with Gil Evans in July and August 1958, for
the jazz orchestral masterpiece, the Gershwins' Porgy And Bess, the final LP
with Lampley. The scene was then set for
the March-April 1959 Kind Of Blue sessions, with Columbia's Irving Townsend
historically attributed as having overseen the recording, with a slightly
revamped quintet (sextet) lineup, as Jones was replaced by Jimmy Cobb on drums,
and Garland was replaced on piano by Bill Evans (on "So What,"
"Blue In Green," "All Blues," and "Flamenco
Sketches") and by Wynton Kelly ("Freddie Freeloader"). The impact of Kind Of Blue, not only on jazz
but on popular (even classical) music in general, continues to
reverberate. It is part of the Library
Of Congress National Recording Registry, it is #12 on the Rolling Stone list of
the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and it was even honored by the U.S. House
of Representatives in 2009, the album's 50th anniversary.
Kind Of
Blue's closing track, "Flamenco Sketches," might have hinted at the
next project, the jazz orchestral Latin-tinged modal masterwork, Sketches Of
Spain, the third of Miles' collaborations with Gil Evans. Under Columbia's staff producer Teo Macero (who
would remain Miles' exclusive producer at Columbia through the 1980s), two
standards of the Spanish national repertoire, Rodrigo's "Concierto de
Aranjuez" and de Falla's Will o' the Wisp (from "El amor brujo")
were juxtaposed with three Evans originals, "The Pan Piper,"
"Saeta" and "Solea."
Myers characterizes the conceptual framework as, "Davis' piercing,
crying solos supported by Evans' sighing, sophisticated orchestrations that
both provoked and mirrored Davis' lines."
The
quintet lineup was again fine-tuned in 1961 for Someday My Prince Will Come,
Coltrane's final Columbia recording with Miles (on the opening title track,
from Disney's Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, and a Miles original,
"Teo"). Tenor saxophonist Hank
Mobley actually doubles with Trane on the title track, but has the tenor chair
to himself on the other tracks, Miles originals ("Pfrancing,"
"Drad-Dog"), and American Songbook staples "Old Folks" and
Johnny Mercer's closing "I Thought About You."
Though
separated in time by five summers, the Newport Jazz Festival performances by
Miles' sextet in 1958 (Adderley, Coltrane, Evans, Chambers, Cobb), and
Thelonious Monk's quartet in 1963, as heard on Miles And Monk At Newport, are
remarkably seamless. As Mark Wilder told
Myers, "I originally assumed that this album was going to need the most
work to capture the original mono sound.
After all, the Davis cuts were recorded in 1958, Monk's in 1963, and
both were recorded outdoors.
Surprisingly, though, the master tapes were exactly like the original LP
pressing and needed no fine-tuning."
"For
the producers and engineers who toiled on Davis' albums between 1955 and 1963,
mono was considered the purest and most unadulterated recorded expression of
the trumpeter's genius," Myers writes. "Stereo versions of Davis' albums weren't
made available until Kind of Blue in August 1959, and even then mono continued
to be a priority since stereo LPs were marketed initially only to the small
number of upscale consumers with stereo systems."
The Original
Mono Recordings follows in the tradition of the eight-time Grammy
Award®-winning Miles Davis Series of multiple-CD box sets that began in
1996. The series culminated in the 2009
box set of 52 mini-LP replica jacketed albums, The Complete Miles Davis
Columbia Album Collection, whose contents were all heard in stereo.
The
Original Mono Recordings was produced for release by multiple Grammy
Award®-winners Steve Berkowitz and mastering engineer Mark Wilder, who have
overseen the Miles Davis Series since its inception more than 18 years ago, and
the Miles Davis Bootleg Series since it was introduced in 2011.
The
Original Mono Recordings by Miles Davis:
Disc
One:
'Round
About Midnight by The Miles Davis Quintet (originally issued March 4, 1957, as
Columbia CL 949) Selections: 1. 'Round Midnight (recorded 9/10/56) * 2.
Ah-Leu-Cha (10/27/55) * 3. All of You (9/10/56) * 4. Bye Bye Blackbird (6/5/56)
* 5. Tadd's Delight (6/5/56) * 6. Dear Old Stockholm (6/5/56).
Disc
Two:
Miles
Ahead by Miles Davis + 19 (originally issued October 14, 1957, as Columbia CL
1041) Selections: 1. Springsville (recorded 5/23/57) * 2. The
Maids of Cadiz (5/6/57) * 3. The Duke (5/6/57) * 4. My Ship (5/10/57, from the
Broadway musical, Lady in the Dark) * 5. Miles Ahead (5/10/57) * 6. Blues for
Pablo (5/23/57) * 7. New Rhumba (5/23/57) * 8. The Meaning of the Blues
(5/27/57) * 9. Lament (5/27/57) * 10. I Don't Wanna Be Kissed (By Anyone But
You) (5/27/57).
Disc
Three:
Milestones
by Miles Davis (originally issued December 1, 1958, as Columbia CL 1193) Selections:
1. Dr. Jekyll (recorded 3/4/58) * 2. Sid's Ahead (3/4/58) * 3. Two Bass
Hit (2/4/58) * 4. Miles (2/4/58) * 5. Billy Boy (2/4/58) * 6. Straight, No
Chaser (2/4/58).
Disc
Four:
Jazz
Track by Miles Davis (originally issued October 19, 1959, as Columbia CL
1268) Selections: 1. Generique * 2. L'assassinat de Carala * 3.
Sur l'autoroute * 4. Julien dans l'ascenseur * 5. Florence sur les
Champs-Elysees * 6. Diner au motel * 7. Evasion de Julien * 8. Visite du vigile
* 9. Au bar du Petit-Bac * 10. Chez le photographe du motel * 11. On Green
Dolphin Street (recorded 5/26/58) * 12. Fran-Dance (5/26/58) * 13. Stella By
Starlight (5/26/58). (Tracks 1-10, music
from the Louis Malle film, Ascenseur pour l'echafaud, recorded in Paris, 12/4
& 5/57.)
Disc
Five:
Porgy
And Bess by Miles Davis (originally issued March 9, 1959, as Columbia CL
1274) Selections: 1. The Buzzard Song (recorded 8/4/58) * 2.
Bess You Is My Woman Now (7/29/58) * 3. Gone (7/22/58) * 4. Gone, Gone, Gone
(7/22/58) * 5. Summertime (8/18/58) * 6. Bess, Oh Where's My Bess (8/4/58) * 7.
Prayer (Oh, Doctor Jesus) (8/4/58) * 8. Fishermen, Strawberry and Devil Crab
(7/29/58) * 9. My Man's Gone Now (7/22/58) * 10. It Ain't Necessarily So (7/29/58)
* 11. Here Come de Honey Man (7/29/58) * 12. I Loves You, Porgy (8/18/58) * 13.
There's a Boat That's Leaving Soon for New York (8/18/58).
Disc
Six:
Kind Of
Blue by Miles Davis (originally issued August 17, 1959, as Columbia CL
1355) Selections: 1. So What (recorded 3/2/59) * 2. Freddie
Freeloader (3/2/59) * 3. Blue In Green (3/2/59) * 4. All Blues (3/2/59) * 5.
Flamenco Sketches (4/22/59).
Disc Seven:
Sketches
Of Spain by Miles Davis (originally issued July 18, 1960, as Columbia CL
1480) Selections: 1. Concierto de Aranjuez (recorded 11/20/59)
* 2. Will o' the Wisp (3/11/60, from "El amor brujo") * 3. The Pan
Piper (3/10/60) * 4. Saeta (3/11/60) * 5. Solea (3/11/60).
Disc
Eight:
Someday
My Prince Will Come by Miles Davis (originally issued December 11, 1961, as
Columbia CL 1656) Selections: 1. Someday My Prince Will Come (recorded
3/20/61, from the Walt Disney film, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs) * 2. Old
Folks (3/20/61) * 3. Pfrancing (3/7/61) * 4. Drad-Dog (3/7/61) * 5. Teo
(3/21/61) * 6. I Thought About You (3/21/61).
Disc
Nine:
Miles
And Monk At Newport (originally issued May 11, 1964, as Columbia CL 2178) Selections:
1. Ah-Leu-Cha * 2. Straight, No Chaser * 3. Fran-Dance * 4. Two Bass Hit
(tracks 1-4 by the Miles Davis Sextet, recorded 7/4/58) * 5. Nutty * 6. Blue
Monk (tracks 5-6 by the Thelonious Monk Quartet, recorded 7/4/63).
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