Miles Davis - Birth Of The Cool (1980 Japanese Capitol Mono Vinyl LP)

Miles Davis - Birth Of The Cool | Vinyl LP - 1980 Japanese Capitol Mono (ECJ-50050, Toshiba-EMI Ltd)

Miles Davis was twenty-two and lately out of Charlie Parker's quintet when he started turning up at Gil Evans's basement flat on West 55th Street, where a loose crew of modernists were working out a new idea. The plan was to shrink Claude Thornhill's big band down to nine pieces and keep its cool, blended sound. What they settled on was trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba, alto and baritone sax, piano, bass and drums, the French horn and tuba giving the group a soft, rounded weight nobody else had. Across three sessions in 1949 and 1950 the nonet cut twelve sides for Capitol. It was an arranger's band above all, with charts from Mulligan, Evans, Lewis and Carisi. Mulligan's "Jeru" and "Venus De Milo", Evans's "Boplicity", Lewis's "Move" and "Rouge", Carisi's blues "Israel", all of it bebop's harmony pulled back into something unhurried and exact. Lee Konitz's dry alto and Max Roach's drums do a lot of the talking.

None of it sold. The singles slipped out over the next couple of years to shrugs from critics, and Capitol let Davis go. It took until 1957, when the sides were finally gathered onto a single twelve-inch LP, for the shape of the thing to come clear, and the title Capitol hung on it, Birth of the Cool, is the name that stuck to a whole movement. The players scattered Mulligan to his quartet with Chet Baker, Lewis to the Modern Jazz Quartet, Evans back alongside Miles for Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain.

This is the 1980 Japanese pressing on Capitol's Jazz Great 1800 series, manufactured by Toshiba-EMI, in mono as the nonet was recorded, with the white obi, Swing Journal seal and Japanese insert. Liner notes are by Shoichi Yui.