My Funny Valentine (1964)

Here’s Miles Davis playing his version of My Funny Valentine in Milano, 1964. He is accompanied by Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums:

Kind of Blue

taken from Miles-Davis.com:

Miles & ‘Trane – Kind Of Blue Period (1955-1961)
The Collaboration That Created the Greatest Jazz Album of All Time

Miles debuted on Columbia Records with ‘Round About Midnight, which established his classic first quintet and defined hard bop. As a result of Miles’ exposure John Coltrane began to develop a reputation amongst musicians as a major voice. Milestones was Davis’ first use of modes and joined by Cannonball Adderly the band became a powerful sextet. The ‘58 Sessions introduced Bill Evans to the world of Miles Davis and Evans’ influence was apparent from these initial sessions.

Miles’ attitude became more focused and romantic and resulted in the Kind Of Blue recording, which many consider to be one of Jazz Music’s great recordings.

What I like about Miles Davis is that he’s not afraid to try new things. He notices how time changes, how the world evolves, and when a new door opens to him, he doesn’t hesitate to come in and discover a new world. That is exactly what happened when he began playing with John Coltrane and Bill Evans. Part of why these two musicians were discovered and are loved today is because Miles didn’t hesitate to listen to the talent that these two great musicians have to offer.

In fact, he even learned from them, and that is why I think Miles is continually evolving. Even his music does, long after it has been put on record. You listen to it and every time, there’s a new feeling there somewhere, tucked in between the notes.

Snippets from an interview in National Public Radio:

MURRAY HORWITZ: This record is everything that jazz should be and it’s everything America should be. You can hear each individual — and the character of each individual musician — as he tells his story. And then the group character as they all work together. It’s everything that we all want to be. It’s incredibly hip and cool and admirable. It’s humorous. It’s very intelligent. It’s courageous. It’s all those things.

…

A.B. SPELLMAN: There’s great depth to this record, too, I believe. And I know that every time that I listen to it I find some real bottom to it, something to ruminate over.

HORWITZ: It’s true. The emotional range as well as the intellectual range of the music being played is phenomenal. There’s a poignancy about the record, but you go from incredibly poignant to very joyous and playful, and sometimes in just a few notes.

…

SPELLMAN: There’s a unique and specific sound to this ensemble, I think, that adds to the depth and the color of it.

HORWITZ: You know people have asked recently, especially since we’ve been doing this Basic Jazz Record Library, A.B., “Are there some more albums like Kind of Blue. I mean, if we like Kind of Blue, what are some albums like that?” And you’re right, with just the sheer sonic texture of this, there really aren’t. It’s mostly, I think, the collaboration among the players that just makes a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts.

So What (1959)

Part of why jazz is close to my heart is because of Miles Davis. Whenever I listen to him play, I experience a range of emotions even when I’m just sitting, listening, tapping my foot.

taken from MilesDavis.com:

Miles Davis was one of the greatest visionaries and most important figures in jazz history…He invented a more subtle, yet still challenging style that became known as “cool jazz.” This style influenced a large group of musicians who played primarily on the west coast and further explored this style.

And to demonstrate the real epitome of cool, here’s a recording of Miles in 1959, playing one of his most famous songs, So What.

This is actually one of my favorite jazz pieces of all time – it’s also a great collaboration – no, not even – a great fusion of pianist Bill Evans and Miles Davis, which have brought jazz to another new height of music history. You won’t see Evans in this video, but you sure do get a look at John Coltrane, as he dishes it out with Miles:

This track also appears in the album, My Kind of Blue.

taken from Oxford University Press blog:

…’So What’…actually opens the completed album. It is far and away the most famous piece on the record – the most famous piece of music Miles Davis was ever involved with. Structurally, there is nothing very radical about the piece. The track opens deceptively, with Evans seemingly noodling through a few chords, as if warming up at the piano, with Chambers behind him. They play a unison figure before a couple more piano phrases, a bass arpeggio; then Chambers suddenly picks up the melody line which introduces the tune proper. The eight-note figure is answered by a two-note tag, an ‘amen’ sound, played at first by the piano alone; then on the second eight bars Evans is joined by the horns. The bridge repeats the trick, but this time it is played up a semitone, landing on the D flat major scale; then on the final eight bars they revert to the tonality (a C major scale) they began with. That is basically all ‘So What’ is concerned with. It broods on for a little over nine minutes, taking in solos from each of the horns as well as Evans before going back to the original theme. So we have a thirty-two-bar AABA format -an invincible part of standard songwriting – which obliges the musicians to fashion statements from a field which is constructed out of two simple scales.

The mystery of the piece is its air of elusive, almost secretive possibility. One feels that the solos could go anywhere, could follow any path, could drift on without stopping, and not feel ‘wrong’. It is a definition piece of jazz, if one identifies that music as something played by intuition and living on its instincts. For once, there seems to be no contrast in the solos played by Davis, Coltrane and Adderley: they move seamlessly together, as if each man were playing his part in a predetermined plan. Evans’s accompaniments are handsomely shaded, although one has to strain to follow him: the ear is drawn irresistibly to the horns and what they are saying. On his own solo, which features some surprisingly dissonant voicings that he plays on the bridge, the horns riff behind him. In the end, the music drifts back towards Chambers and his ostinato melody, Jimmy Cobb ticking impassively at his ride cymbal, Evans playing the so-what tag, and the entire piece fading away into silence.