Birth of the Cool

Davis (right center) playing in Charlie Parker's quintet, 1947.

From 1944 to 1948, Miles Davis played in Charlie Parker's quintet. Davis recorded several albums worth of material with Parker during this period, including Parker's Sessions for the Savoy and Dial labels. Davis' first records released under his own name were recorded with Parker's band, in 1947, and were more arranged and rehearsed than Parker's usual approach to recording.[5] By 1948, Davis had three years of bebop playing under his belt, but he struggled to match the speed and ranges of the likes of Gillespie and Parker, choosing instead to play in the mid range of his instrument.[6] In 1948, Davis, becoming increasingly concerned about growing tensions within the Parker quintet, left the group and began looking for a new band to work with.[7]

At the same time, arranger Gil Evans began hosting gatherings of like-minded, forward-looking musicians at his small basement apartment, located on 55th Street in Manhattan, three blocks away from the jazz nightclubs of 52nd Street. Evans had gained a reputation in the jazz world for his orchestration of bebop tunes for the Claude Thornhill orchestra in the mid-1940s. Keeping an open door policy, Evans' apartment came to host many of the young jazz artists of late-1940s New York. The participants engaged in discussions about the future of jazz, including a proposed group with a new sound. According to jazz historian Ted Gioia:

[The participants] were developing a range of tools that would change the sound of contemporary music. In their work together, they relied on a rich palette of harmonies, many of them drawn from European impressionist composers. They explored new instrumental textures, preferring to blend the voices of the horns like a choir rather than pit them against each other as the big bands had traditionally done with their thrusting and parrying sections. They brought down the tempos of their music ... they adopted a more lyrical approach to improvisation ...[8]

Pete Rugolo produced the sessions for Birth of the Cool.[9]

The nonet recorded twelve tracks for Capitol during three sessions over the course of nearly a year and a half. Davis, Konitz, Mulligan and Barber were the only musicians who played on all three sessions, though the instrumental lineup was constant (excepting the omission of piano on a few songs and the addition of Hagood on "Darn That Dream"). The first session occurred on January 21, 1949, recording four tracks: Mulligan's "Jeru" and "Godchild" as well as Lewis's "Move" and "Budo". Jazz critic Richard Cook hypothesizes that Capitol, wanting to get a good start, recorded these numbers first because they were the most catchy tunes in the nonet's small repertoire.[10] That date Kai Winding replaced Zwerin on trombone, Al Haig replaced Lewis on piano, and Joe Shulman replaced McKibbon on bass.

The second recording date came three months later on April 22, 1949 with Davis filling in for Fats Navarro in Tadd Dameron's band with Charlie Parker during the interim. The band returned to the studio with five substitutions in personnel: J. J. Johnson on trombone, Sandy Siegelstein on French horn, Nelson Boyd on bass, and Kenny Clarke on drums, and John Lewis returning to piano. At this session, the nonet recorded Mulligan's "Venus de Milo", Lewis's "Rouge", Carisi's "Israel", and "Boplicity", a collaboration between Davis and Evans, credited to the pseudonym "Cleo Henry".[11]

The band did not return to the studio again until March 9, 1950. Davis did not call the band for any rehearsals or live performances between the second and third recording dates. The March 1950 date featured Mulligan's "Darn That Dream", "Rocker", and "Deception", and Evans's arrangement of Chummy MacGregor's "Moon Dreams", which had been released in a jazz arrangement by Glenn Miller and the AAF Band in 1944 on V-Disc. The band saw more substitutions, with Gunther Schuller on French horn and Al McKibbon on bass. Kenny Hagood returned for vocals on "Darn That Dream".

Classics in Jazz: Miles Davis
Compilation album by Miles Davis
Released	1954
Label	Capitol
Miles Davis 10" LP chronology
Miles Davis All Star Sextet (1954) Classics in Jazz: Miles Davis (1954) Miles Davis Quintet (1954)

The tracks from the January 1949 session were released soon after recording as two pairs of singles. From the April 1949 date, "Israel" and "Boplicity" were doubled together on a 78 and released as well. Of the twelve tracks recorded, Capitol released relatively few. In 1954, after persuasion from Rugolo, Capitol released eight of the tracks on a 10" record titled Classics in Jazz—Miles Davis (H-459). In 1957 eleven of the tracks (all except for "Darn That Dream") were released by Capitol as Birth of the Cool. The final track, "Darn That Dream" (the only song with vocals, by Hagood), was included with the other eleven on a 1972 LP Capitol Jazz Classics, Vol. 1: The Complete Birth Of The Cool (M-11026). Subsequent releases have been based on this last arrangement. The album has since been reissued many times in various formats.[23] The recordings of the nonet from its time at the Royal Roost were released as Cool Boppin.[24] In 1998, Capitol Records released The Complete Birth of the Cool, which was remastered by Mark Levinson and collected the nonet's live and studio tracks onto a single CD.

Note from the 2000 Capitol CD reissue producer Michael Cuscuna:

All previous reissues of this material have been derived from the 1957 12-inch LP master, which turns out to be second or third generation. The original tapes of each tune were filed individually and sound considerably better. Rudy Van Gelder returned to these masters, transferred them in 24-bit to digital and worked his sonic magic. The result is a clearer and more present sound than ever before on these classic recordings.[25]

Retrospective professional reviews

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[26]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[27]
The Great Rock Discography	9/10[27]
MusicHound Jazz	5/5[27]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz	[27]
Q	[28]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[27]
Tom Hull – on the Web	B[29]

The band's debut performance at the Royal Roost received positive, but reserved reactions.[30] Count Basie, the Roost's headliner during the Nonet's brief tenure, however, was more open to the group's sound, saying, "Those slow things sounded strange and good. I didn't always know what they were doing, but I listened, and I liked it."[31] Winthrop Sargeant, classical music critic at The New Yorker, compared the band's sound to the work of an "impressionist composer with a great sense of aural poetry and a very fastidious feeling for tone color... The music sounds more like that of a new Maurice Ravel than it does like jazz ... it is not really jazz."[32] Though he did not recognize the record as jazz, Sargeant acknowledged that he found the record "charming and exciting".[32] In the short term the reaction to the band was little to none,[32] but in the long term the recordings' effects have been great and lasting. They have been credited with starting the cool jazz movement[33] as well as creating a new and viable alternative to bebop.[34]

In 1957, after the release of Birth of the Cool, Down Beat magazine wrote that Birth of the Cool "[influenced] deeply one important direction of modern chamber jazz."[35] Several tunes from the album, such as Carisi's "Israel", have gone on to become jazz standards.[36] The album was included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[37] Birth of the Cool was voted number 349 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000). [38]

Many members of the Miles Davis Nonet went on to have successful careers in cool jazz, notably Gerry Mulligan, John Lewis, and Lee Konitz. Mulligan moved to California and joined forces with trumpeter Chet Baker in a piano-less quartet, before creating his Concert Jazz Band.[39] Lewis would become music director of the Modern Jazz Quartet, which would become one of the most influential cool jazz groups.[40] Evans would go on to collaborate with Davis again on the Davis albums Miles Ahead and Sketches of Spain.[41] Capitol Records were at the time disappointed with the sales of the nonet recordings, and did not offer Davis more work. Instead, Davis signed with the new jazz specialty record label, Prestige, for whom he would record his first album in 1951.[42]

Arrangements by the composer unless otherwise noted.

January 21, 1949 – "Jeru", "Move", "Godchild", "Budo" (matrix numbers: 3395, 3396, 3397, 3398)

• Miles Davis – trumpet
• Kai Winding – trombone
• Junior Collins – French horn
• Bill Barber – tuba
• Lee Konitz – alto saxophone
• Gerry Mulligan – baritone saxophone
• Al Haig – piano
• Joe Shulman – bass
• Max Roach – drums

April 22, 1949 – "Venus De Milo", "Rouge", "Boplicity", "Israel" (matrix numbers: 3764, 3765, 3766, 3767)

• Miles Davis – trumpet
• J. J. Johnson – trombone
• Sandy Siegelstein – French horn
• Bill Barber – tuba
• Lee Konitz – alto saxophone
• Gerry Mulligan – baritone saxophone
• John Lewis – piano
• Nelson Boyd – bass
• Kenny Clarke – drums

March 9, 1950 – "Deception", "Rocker", "Moon Dreams", "Darn That Dream" (matrix numbers: 4346, 4347, 4348, 4349)

• Miles Davis – trumpet
• J. J. Johnson – trombone
• Gunther Schuller – French horn
• Bill Barber – tuba
• Lee Konitz – alto saxophone
• Gerry Mulligan – baritone saxophone
• John Lewis – piano
• Al McKibbon – bass
• Max Roach – drums
• Kenny Hagood – vocal (on "Darn That Dream" only)

All tracks recorded at WOR Studios, New York, New York

The Complete Birth of the Cool: The Live Sessions

• Miles Davis – trumpet
• Mike Zwerin – trombone
• Junior Collins – French horn
• Bill Barber – tuba
• Lee Konitz – alto saxophone
• Gerry Mulligan – baritone saxophone
• John Lewis – piano
• Al McKibbon – bass
• Max Roach – drums
• Kenny Hagood – vocal (on "Why Do I Love You?" and "Darn That Dream" only)

Sources

• Berrett, Joshua and Louis G. Bourgois. The Musical World of J.J. Johnson. Scarecrow Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0-8108-3648-8.
• Chambers, Jack. Milestones 1: The Music and Times of Miles Davis to 1960. New York: Beach Tree Books, 1983. ISBN 978-0-688-02635-6.
• Cook, Richard. It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-532266-8.
• Crease, Stephanie. "Gil Evans: Forever Cool." Down Beat, May 2012. p. 33-35.
• Davis, Miles. Miles Davis-Birth of the Cool: Scores from the Original Parts. Ed. Jeff B. Sultanof. Milwaukee, WI.: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002. ISBN 978-0-634-00682-1.
• Fordham, John. "50 Great Moments in Jazz: Birth of the Cool", The Guardian. Posted November 2, 2009. Retrieved April 24, 2012.
• Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-19-512653-2.
• Gioia, Ted. "Miles Davis's Memorable Nonet." Jazz.com. Posted September 3, 2008.
• Gioia, Ted. The Birth (and Death) of the Cool. Golden, Colo.: Speck Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-933108-31-5.
• Gridley, Mark C. Jazz Styles. Tenth Edition. Prentice Hall, 2009.
• Hamilton, Andy. Lee Konitz, Conversations on the Improviser's Art. Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-472-03217-4.
• Hentoff, Nat. "The Birth of the Cool." Down Beat, May 2, 1957: 15–16. Print.
• Kernfeld, Barry. "Miles Davis." Grove Music Online. Web. Apr 24, 2012.
• Klinkowitz, Jerome. Listen: Gerry Mulligan. An Aural Narrative in Jazz. New York: Schirmer Books, 1991. ISBN 978-0-02-871265-9.
• Sultanof, Jeff. "The Dozens: The Birth of the Cool." Jazz.com. (No date, prbl. 1998).

• Davis, Miles; Troupe, Quincy, Miles, the autobiography, Simon and Schuster, 1990. ISBN 978-0-671-72582-2. Cf. pp.117–118

• Birth of the Cool at Discogs