.... tidings of comfort and joy innit

[Quarky]

I will be tooning in to Radio Calum this Christmas....

[Tom Audustus]

Did you realise that you can play the chorus of Jingle Bells over the changes to the A Section of Bird's Confirmation?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

and on the day after that

[Jazzrook]

Merry Xmas boredees!

'IO' from George Coleman's overlooked 1987 album 'At Yoshi's':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJwE7hgQiMs

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

and on the fourth

[Ian Thumwood]

Happy Christmas, everyone.

I love Charlie Parker but never understood why the sound quality of these recordings made on Savoy are so poor. It was a shame that Bird never fell in to Blue Notes lap and I wonder whether the care and attention that they gave to their artists would have made Charlie Parker's records even better. Parker always seems to rein supreme on these records yet there is an ad hoc quality about them that always makes me wish he had been treated better as an artist or better served by recording companies. The stuff made with Granz always seems to have more polish even if not always sympathetic.

[antongould]

Many best wishes Calum and thanks for everything....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Many best wishes Calum and thanks for everything....

[Ian Thumwood]

Only one CD for Christmas this year and that was Miles Davis' "Milestones" which was one of the most high profile records missing from my collection. It has always seemed to have been a bizarre record for me as I had only ever heard the title track and "Billy Boy" before with everything else being unfamiliar. Hearing "Milestones" on JRR the other week made me want to hear the rest of it and my sister kindly bought it for me. (Along with a model of a Gloster Gladiator and a shirt - I also have a fascination for biplanes.)

I have to admit that "Milestones" is a perplexing album. Whereas "Seven steps to heaven" seemed to represent the old and the new with two , different groups, this manages to do the same with a consistent line up even though Garland had walked out on "Sid's ahead." The most staggering thing about the record is that the most impressive and modern sounding soloist on this record is Cannonball Adderley. On "Two bass hit" he totally dominates the track which actually was only about 12 years old when the recording was made yet already creaking at the joints because of the way jazz was evolving so quickly. It is a power house performance but, to be honest, Adderely is imperious on the whole of this record.

The whole band is pretty impressive and it works like a well-oiled machine apart from a few instances where I think Jones is a fraction out on some of the drum breaks. This is probably the point in the studio recordings where Davis started to progress towards something more contemporary and , once again, re-set the jazz agenda. I love the fact that Coltrane seems far more harmonically adventurous on this record as I find some of his early work a bit awkward in comparison with his later performances. The pursuit of modernity was not without it's casualty and I wasn't surprised that Garland stormed out of the studio and absent on one track and not featured as a soloist on some of the other tunes. "Billy Boy" is the anomaly on the disc being the sole trio performance. It is a record which is effervescent and the whole performance fizzes and sparkles, largely due to Jones' snappy drumming. This is a tour de force for Garland yet very much a last hurrah for him with Davis as the premise of the best small group in the 1950's was had started to come undone. To my ears, Cannonball and Coltrane represented the "new" whereas Garland / Chambers / Jones' were no longer quite as hip . Garland is particularly curious as I've always felt he was a wonderful player but maybe the most "old-fashioned" soloist Davis employed . Even the fully -formed Hank Mobley was not quite so old hat in comparison if you consider that Davis was searching towards the second, great quintet when he employed the Blue Note cult figure. At least Mobley was the master of his oeuvre when Davis employed him even if not as progressive as River, Shorter or even George Coleman. Garland, however, seems rooted in that proto-bop style and, if he was such a snappy and swinging soloist, there is almost an element of cocktail music in his use of block chords. The pianist does sound very much if the 1940's to my ears but a modernist of that time rather like Nat "King" Cole. Garland was a wonderful musician yet I'd never realised that "Milestones" was quite so significant in the way with which the first quintet came to a conclusion. I think the addition of Adderley and the return of Coltrane from Monk really revitalised this band and perhaps reminded Davis that it was time to look for something new.

I find Davis' studio output to be fascinating and something of an anomaly. What fascinates me is the perception of the tow "classic" quintets led by Davis and how one evolved in to the other. Those albums in between are often said to be "transitional" yet I know of no other musician who made so many genuinely classic albums with "transitional" bands, "Kind of blue", "Milestones" and "Seven steps to heaven" are all fantastic records and compare favourably with everything the fist quintet produces and maybe are only excelled by the records "Sorcerer" "Nefertiti" and "Miles Smiles." "Seven steps " is often considered the most transitional of all the records largely because the West Coast quintet was essentially a pick up band but I think "Milestones" is a fascinating record that splits the sextet in to two halves with the horn players all continuing to develop musically whereas the rhythm section musicians , not helped by drugs, became forever associated with the epitome of great 1950's jazz and fizzled out as significant forces in the next decade. I'd also have to say that "Milestones" features one of the strongest statements by a Miles' sideman in Cannonball Adderley. It has always annoyed me that Cannonball was slated as being "popularist" as these performances demonstrate someone soloing with intelligence. To my ears, Cannonball was a 1960's equivalent of a contemporary favourite, Kenny Garrett yet hearing him with Miles very much put me in mind of Greg Osby.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

that album featured on a juke box in a coffee bar in the Fulham Road in the early 60s Ian .... loved it ever since!

the opening of this track blew our teenage heads off and then Adderley's opening ....

this is a tremedous album:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/sophisticated-swing-the-emarcy-small-group-sessions-mw0000179939

[Tenor Freak]

Aha, I love Milestones - easily the best track being "Sid's Ahead" because instead of Red Garland's lush backing the horns had to make do with Miles' own "sparse" (it says here) backing where he emphasises the upper harmonics of each chord - from memory the raised 11ths and flat 13ths.

I thought the reason why Red wasn't there was because he "forgot" to get to the session as he was on the skag.

However I also love their version of "Straight No Chaser".

The sound quality on this recording is not the best. Not sure if Teo was involved - it doesn't sound like it.

[Ian Thumwood]

Bruce

Totally agree about Miles' harmony of "Sid's ahead" but the title track seems to me the most perfect track on the set although "Two bass hit" does have that brilliant Cannonball solo. The Monk tune is odd as it just sounds like a normal blues and the Thelonious influence to wholly absent. it's amazing to hjear Garland recreate Miles' solo from 2Now the time" on this track and to bolster it with block chords - a staggering bit of technique even if not spontaneous. The weakest track is the opening one where the theme is rushed and seems a bit intense - rather like "The Fox" on the classic Harold Land album. I think both tracks are probably at odds with the rest of the performances. Amazing to hear just how rooted Miles was in Be-bop at this point. Maybe covering standards on other albums masked this trait ? Definitely in a Miles Davis mood at the moment and have been snapping up a lot of his discs of late that I had previously missed. You can now pick them up from Columbia for peanuts. (There are some dodgy version around but missing some tracks, I note.) "Some day my prince" is winging it's way through the post.....

On the subject of Miles, I've just been watching a Joey DeFrancesco DVD with some Canadian musicians where they play a lot of the Davis repertoire including a blistering version of "Walkin'."

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Sids Ahead" is pretty much the same tune as "Weirdo" which Miles cut for Bluenote in 54 with Horace Silver. Very stark also...

One account I read of Miles/Garland was that Red got so pissed with Miles putting his hands on Garland's piano at that session to "demonstrate" that he snapped and said, "Fk you! So you play, I'm outa here!" Didn't Miles sit on Herbie's left hand during Miles Smiles? Didn't he initially stand behind Jimmy Cobb and say "Sht....You're no Philly Joe"? Same to Art Taylor...

That Miles eh? He should have gone on a modern management course..


BN.

[Ian Thumwood]

"Sids Ahead" is pretty much the same tune as "Weirdo" which Miles cut for Bluenote in 54 with Horace Silver. Very stark also...

One account I read of Miles/Garland was that Red got so pissed with Miles putting his hands on Garland's piano at that session to "demonstrate" that he snapped and said, "Fk you! So you play, I'm outa here!" Didn't Miles sit on Herbie's left hand during Miles Smiles? Didn't he initially stand behind Jimmy Cobb and say "Sht....You're no Philly Joe"? Same to Art Taylor...

That Miles eh? He should have gone on a modern management course..


BN.

I'm beginning to get the impression that by the late 50's Miles had realised that the old quintet had had it's day and was hearing something else but couldn't find the musicians to express what he was hearing. The liner notes on "Seven steps" are really fascinating because it appears that Miles was missing gigs and wasn't too fussed with his bands. I think there are a number of line ups, such as the one with Frank Strozier and J J Johnson, which never made it to the recording studio. Tracks like "Milestones" seem progressive whereas others hark back to earlier times such as "Two bass hit." I'm beginning to think that "Milestones " is more transitional than "Seven steps" where the music seems on the brink if newer things simply because it features two line ups. The session on the West Coast includes some brilliant ballads but Miles is the star (despite some great piano from Feldman) but again, you can hear the "old" in Frank Butler's laid-back West coast groove and Tony William's bristling approach. It's weird but, if you take the two quintets as the apogees of Miles' career you exclude a wealth of seminal albums, all made by seemingly transitional bands. I'd love "KoB" more is it wasn't so familiar. It was a revelation when I first heard the record as a 17 y.o. but it's so ingrained in my head, I don't feel the need to listen to it as great and important as it is.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I still find KoB remarkable even after all these years. I don't tend to play it a lot but when I do catch it ...Sketches of Spain I don't think has worn so well.

Miles hired a few players in that "flux" period. Buddy Montgomery (Wes's brother) for a while on vibes. App he freaked out as they were just about tour Europe as he had a severe flight phobia. I wish the band with Sam Rivers had recorded more.

BN.