Miles of Cool

Thursday, September 19, 2024

Some compilation albums sound like a collection of tunes and are never satisfying. It is like a puzzle piece missing from the composition. But when I listen to Birth of the Cool, it feels like a consistent and complete album, initially released as a series of 78rpm 10’’ singles. Like Frank Sinatra's recordings, I look at Miles’s work not as individual tracks or songs but as an album. A story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. There are a lot of reflections by both artists, but it is not that different from reading Marcel Proust, where time is expanded, and details in the background become the forefront. Birth of the Cool is a fascinating work because of its time, and it sits between the BeBop and Big Band eras of Jazz.

Birth of the Cool bridges Miles Davis’s work with Charlie Parker and his later recordings for Columbia Records. I never saw (or heard) Miles’ music as a breaking tradition, but he pushed it on a chessboard to give it nuances. Parker and Dizzy together was like a BeBop version of The Ramones’s first album. Fast, savage, and complex, but through the arms and aural talent of Miles, he allows the music to expand in a slower mode, and he thinks about the whole picture of the work. Interestingly, he left the Parker band and chose to work with Gil Evans, a Jazz composer and arranger for the Cool Recordings. Miles takes BeBop but alters or thinks of it as classical chamber baroque music. He even has Tuba and French horn in the band.

It’s important to give full credit to this Miles band: Miles on trumpet, Gerry Mulligan on baritone sax, Lee Konitz on alto sax, John Lewis on piano, Al McKibbon on bass, Max Roach on the drums, Bill Barber on tuba, Junior Collins on french horn, and Mike Zwerin on trombone. Zwerin is interesting because he translated Boris Vian’s critical jazz reviews from French to English. There were others in this band and recording; nothing stands still. There is even a vocalist, Kenny Hagood, who sang with Dizzy and Charlie Parker and later was married to Alice McLeod (later known as Alice Coltrane). His grandniece is Joy Villa, who became a figure in the Donald Trump world, a supporter of Right Wing causes, and a believer in the QAnon world.

Move is a textured arrangement because one can hear the tuba, baritone sax, and other horns coming in and out of the piece. It’s jaunty, but it's an excellent introduction to the band because they all have their moment here. The song/arrangement doesn’t stretch out; it is all tightly organized by the clock/time. The horns come in like waves, and one can feel being dragged out back to the ocean. Moon Dreams is a work of sublime quietness/calm that rings loudly off this album.

I think Miles was wise to change direction, and even though I did read his remarkable memoir, I feel he planned his music career to always be on some edge or push oneself where you will not feel comfortable. Again, like Sinatra, he pushes himself into territories that may or may not be good, but he has to dip his toes into that world. As a listener, I have to push myself (in a good way) to hear Jazz, which is challenging for various reasons. For example, I want to build my concentration and focus on the present. There is something about this music that is about the present or the now; even if this is technically old music, it is works that make one focus here and now. I’m one of those who listen to music to know myself, and I feel the time spent with music is better than going to a therapist. I never met Miles, and Miles didn’t know me, but his music (and others) directly talked to me. It’s a non-verbal language, but the vocabulary is enormous.

Birth of Cool is one aspect of Miles Davis (and his music world), yet it fits perfectly in the puzzle piece that is his entire discography. Exploring artists like Miles or Scott Walker/Bowie is a worthy walk through a paradise of aural delights.