Miles Davis, Miles Ahead

As an eccentric kid, Frank Sinatra used to stumble around Hoboken muttering about listening in to the “music of the spheres.” No wonder he and Miles Davis were such fans of each others work. They were admirers, but not friends, as Gil Evans would fill that position for the majority of Miles’ life. The tense, tortured trumpeter and the kind, relaxed Canadian were different in so many ways but their collaborations resulted in heavenly music of the spheres. Their second collaboration, Miles Ahead, is a good place to start.

One of the reasons Miles Davis remains so popular today is that he was a lyrical horn player. He’s the only featured soloist on Miles Ahead yet he is always thinking about the emotional direction of the tunes, not wowing you with the dexterity of his playing. As Paul Weller points out in this overview of rockers picking favorite Miles records, Davis’s solos were different from many other boppers: “It’s so controlled and it’s not any of that ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ bollocks that a lot of the jazzers do; it’s very melodic and vocal and very well thought out as well.” While a more technically gifted trumpeter, like Freddy Hubbard, may resort to “that ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ bollocks” by tearing through some flashy, but emotionally empty, chords during their turn in the spotlight, classic Miles Davis solos are about the narrative arc of the song.

Miles Ahead is a showcase for Davis as a method actor being directed by Gil Evans, a brilliant arranger who creates epic landscapes for his old friend to perform, and travel around, in. Fusion-era Miles is more popular today with scenesters — his electric playing can be choppier, more starkly rhythmically focused and more repetitious  and you can connect the dots to electro, ambient, and hip-hop. But, during the 1950s and ’60s it was the collaborations with Gil Evans that were his biggest sellers, dwarfing even Kind of Blue, at the time. Today, ironically, Miles & Evans are harder for younger listeners who grew up on slamming beats instead of French impressionism to get into. Give this music a chance though and it is endlessly rewarding.

Back Story.

In the late 1940s, Miles, Gil Evans and an amazing bunch of like-minded musicians collaborated on The Birth of the Cool. Not initially successful, the sessions were hugely influential and would help define the floating, small-big band Cool jazz sound of the 1950’s. Gil Evans, using a sound template he helped devise with Claude Thornhill’s arty swing band, wrote airy, atmospheric charts that fit the moody Miles to a tee. Columbia, the biggest label of the pre-Beatles era, knew that Miles Davis could be a prestigious recording star for them. And, they correctly felt that Gil Evans was a big part of the equation, helping to reunite the duo on this 1957 masterwork.

Cover Art.

Just like Blues And The Abstract Truth, there were two official cover for Miles Ahead. One features an elegant lady and a kid on a schooner and one presents a tight shot of Miles playing his horn.

I’m in the minority here but I don’t have any issues with the original cover art. Its dreamy but poised, almost studio posed but out in nature. Miles Ahead is a jazz album, like Sketches of Spain, that makes me picture blue skies and green vistas more than the city at night or a windowless recording studio or a smokey night club.

There isn’t a photo credit on the original issue of the LP but both covers may have been shot by Bob Parent, who was successful as both a jazz and Life magazine photographer. That said, the image reminds me more of the good life jazz-beach LP covers William Claxton was doing over on the West Coast at the same time. My guess is that Columbia were going for a look that was along the lines of the Cool jazz scene, which was hot during most of the 1950s.

The second album sleeve is nowhere near as iconic as the best Davis LP cover portraits but it still has an element of Classic Cool Miles mystery and menace to it. My mono copy of Miles Ahead with the boat-lady sounds better than the faked-stereophonic one so I usually listen to that. Speaking of sound, Columbia did not give credit to their recording engineers so they’ve never really received the recognition they deserve since sessions for the label sound vivid, bright, and warm. I believe Harold Chapman handled most vocal and jazz recordings for Columbia in general and Miles Davis in particular.

 The Music

Gil Evans arranged the set for twenty musicians and connected the songs as if they were part of a suite, making it a perfect candidate for a 12′ LP release.Davis is the featured soloist throughout, playing a flugelhorn which, even in classical music, is often selected over the trumpet for more lyrical, melodic playing.

Things start off in an upbeat, swinging fashion with “Springsville” before taking a pre-Sketches of Spain turn with the achingly pretty “Maids of Cadiz.” Dave Brubeck’s sly salute to “The Duke”lets Evans show off a good-humored, but not silly, side of himself which leads to Kurt Weill’s”My Ship.” Sporting a sublime melody, this number also shows how Evans uses Ellington’s orchestral ballad colors as a starting point for his own, even more impressionistic style.The title track ends the first side with a firm central spotlight centered on Miles’ horn work. He plays beautifully throughout; harmonizing on the melody instead of repeating ideas by thinking in patterns.

The second side kicks off with Gil Evans’ lush and aching “Blues For Pablo,” alternately a celebration of the Iberian spirit and a lament to the fallen who battled fascists during the Spanish Civil War. Along with “My Ship” this jazz bolero is my favorite cut on the album. A cover of Ahmad Jamal’s “New Rhumba” begins like a hopped-up jazz barnstormer from a 1950s crime flick before settling in to a mood-lightening medium tempo groove. Miles had to have discovered “The Meaning Of The Blues” on a Julie London album as it was not widely recorded at the time (he was a big fan of vocalists). Written by the undervalued Bobby Troup, it showcases both Miles’ warm yet emotionally pained soloing and Evans’ genius at penning orchestrations that are essentially counter melodies for the soloist to break away from and return to, causing additional friction in the music. The album is so brilliantly arranged that I often don’t notice the transitions from certain songs, as when “The Meaning Of The Blues” melds into J.J. Johnson’s “Lament.” Often, albums leave the best for last. Not here, where a perky, bouncy reading of the old kind-of standard “I Don’t Want To Be Kissed (By Anyone But You)” ends things on a high that doesn’t quite have the emotional depths of the other tunes. Think of Casablanca ending with Rick and Ilsa happy in each others arms.   Just because we all want a happy ending doesn’t mean its better to always get one.

It just struck me right now that Herbie Hancock’s Speak Like A Child, which I wrote about here, has a lot in common with Miles Ahead. Both are arranged albums with a single featured soloist. Evans’ arrangements are a lot more complicated than Hancock’s distillation of his ideas but each album seems to be about the search for truth and beauty.

The world could use a little of both right now.

— Nick Dedina