Jazz On Sunday: Miles Davis

Miles Davis (trumpet; b. 1926 - d. 1991)
The Columbia Years 1955-1985 (Columbia/Legacy)

So this is a short entry today. I had been thinking as we head into the holiday season and people start thinking about gifts to give others---why not think about what you want. You deserve it. Right? RIGHT!

An album I've been listening to a lot lately is Miles Davis: The Columbia Years 1955 - 1985. This four disc boxed set usually gets lost in the discussion of Miles' boxed sets and other multitudes of Miles Davis collections. The reason being, because all of the most recent boxed sets have been extremely focused on particular periods or styles of the great legend's music (e.g. Bitches Brew, John Coltrane and Miles Davis, Silent Way, etc.).

There has also been a very nicely curated The Essential Miles Davis (Legacy Recordings), a 2 disc set, that covers the most significant moments spanning his entire career with the labels OJC, Prestige, Fontana, Columbia and Warner Bros. While this is a perfect gift for any Miles newcomer or all around jazz newcomer, I think The Columbia Years still deserves a place on someone's shelves this year. If not as a gift, be stingy and get it for yourself.

The Columbia Years represents the best of Miles material and is pretty comprehensive in what was chosen for the set. You get one of the earliest tracks, "Generique" from a little known label Jazz Track (which also served as the soundtrack for French film Elevator To The Scaffold). The iconic "So What" from the best jazz album in history Kind Of Blue to "Flies Of Kilimanjaro," "Miles Runs The Voodoo Down," to "What It Is" from one of the later albums Decoy.

This definitely is a set covering an extensive amount of Miles material during his most prolific period and may be too much for some newcomers, but I think you may also be able to find this boxed set pretty cheaply now due to the aforementioned boxes being available now.

The Columbia Years boxed set is divided into five sections over four discs: 1) Blues based material. 2) Standards. 3) Miles' original material. 4) Mood or atmospherics and lastly 5) Electric Fusion.

The other significance of The Columbia Years was that this was the very first ever boxed set of Miles Davis material. It was released on vinyl, cassette (yes cassette) and CD. At this point in 1988 there were absolutely no boxed sets out for jazz artists so this was a big deal.

I, for some nostalgic reason, always gravitate to this box when I have company over or when I just want a nice long dose of Miles for a Sunday afternoon. So if you are thinking of being a greedy little pig this holiday season let me recommend Miles Davis: The Columbia Years 1955-1985 as something well worth your schilling. Enjoy...

Cedar Walton: Living Legend

Cedar Walton (piano; b. 1934)

Cedar Walton has quietly become one of the most influential and revered musicians in jazz. In my opinion, Cedar Walton along with Wynton Kelly are one of a handful of hard bop pianists who don't get the recognition they so greatly deserve. He was a session player for many years during the '50s and early '60s. Cedar Walton has worked with a wide array of artists including a Benny Golson, Curtis Fuller, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan among others. He is widely known as the first piano player for John Coltrane's Giant Steps sessions. But his true shinning moments are his own recordings of which there are many.
 
Walton's style is sophisticated, beautiful and intricate in the similar vein of Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. His choice of band members is always a sign of the intensity of recording session (especially live). Any album featuring legendary drummer, Billy Higgins is worth buying on the spot. The combination of Walton and Higgins is like Jagger and Richards, Lennon and McCartney or Monk and Rouse--you almost can't see one without the other. Walton's live performances of a thing of beauty. I have seen him countless times and I haven't experience one low-par show ever.
 

While all of his records I could easily recommend there is a highly strong and critically acclaimed period that saw Walton in his most inventive and prolific period. This was from 1975 - 1978 when he formed a band called Eastern Rebellion (named after the Irish rebel movement called Easter Rebellion). The band would also work off and on throughout the 80s and 90s but the majority of the material was during this three year stretch. The band consisted of mainstay Billy Higgins (drums), David Williams, Sam Jones (bass) and rotation of sax players including George Coleman, Bob Berg and Ralph Moore. The band originated out of a European tour that Cedar was headlining and he wanted to give his band an actual name and that's how Eastern Rebellion came about.

 

The albums are mixture of standards and Walton staples ("Bolivia", "Ojos de Rojo" and "The Maestro") with performances of the highest order. Most of the Eastern Rebellion albums were live so its the perfect way to hear Cedar Walton. There is a fantastic three disc set simply titled First Set, Second Set and Third Set (SteepleChase) which are probably the ones to start with. Bizarrely they are listed as The Cedar Walton Quartet records not Eastern Rebellion but that's nit-picky. The albums are a little hard to find but not out of print so they shouldn't cost that much. I have found them online and for download if you chose that route.

 
For those looking for some of Walton's newer material you should check The Promise Land (High Note) which features a host incredibly strong selections that anyone interested in jazz would love. The title track along with "Bermond's Blues" and "Thirty Degrees To The Wind" highlight an album of mostly Walton originals and is a real pleasure to listen to. A pianist with great skill and beauty--if you haven't experienced Cedar Walton you really should.
 
If you have a chance to see him live I highly recommend you buy ticket and see one of the few jazz legends still around and performing regularly. The perfomance below was recorded during one of Eastern Rebellion's European tours in '76.

Giant Steps: Why It's Important

John Coltrane (sax; b. 1926 - d. 1967)

Giant Steps (Atlantic; 1960)

This month celebrates the 50th anniversary of John Coltrane's Giant Steps (Atlantic) album. Giant Steps was recorded only a few weeks after Coltrane had recorded Kind Of Blue with Miles Davis. Coltrane once mentioned in an interview that he wanted to play "a more lyrical and beautiful sound" and while he obviously and modestly didn't acknowledge it at the time, Giant Steps was the album where he found the lyrical voice for which he was searching.

The album features unbelievable quartet works with Tommy Flanagan, Wynton Kelly, Cedar Walton (piano), Jimmy Cobb, Lex Humphries, Art Taylor (Drums) and Paul Chambers (bass) running through seven numbers that would all become classics and benchmarks for future jazz generations to come. The sessions are also historic for the inclusion of the same line up that recorded Miles' Kind Of Blue (Kelly, Cobb and Chambers) on the lovely "Naima". The title track is a fast paced firecracker of a number that sets the tone for the whole affair. The album is a bold statement of intent that Coltrane had indeed arrived.

While his material for Prestige and Blue Note, Soultrane and Blue Train, respectfully are definite markers of his early dominance and potential, Giant Steps to me is the signpost that solidifies his status as the most important saxophone player of his generation. On the potent journey that is Giant Steps, Coltrane rips through harmonic scales at a dazzling pace as heard throughout the short but surefire "Countdown", and then moves lovingly into the wonderful piece "Spiral." Nearing the end of Giant Steps, Coltrane finally brings the proceedings to a calmer tone with the absolutely beautiful "Niama," named after his first wife, and is highlighted by the magnificent playing of the truly underrated Wynton Kelly on piano. The closing number, "Mr. P.C." is named after the only constant in the two quartet set up, bassist, Paul Chambers. It is a hard hitting and perfectly fitting way to end the session.

Giant Steps was the album that saw John Coltrane finally let loose and express the emotion, structure and complexity he had developed over the previous 15 years in his associations with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and Red Garland. Of all the John Coltrane albums, Giant Steps arguably might be the one that universally says everything you need to know about the legendary musician. Along with Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue, Charles Mingus' Ah Um, Dave Brubecks' Time Out, Thelonious Monks' Brilliant Corners, John Coltane's Giant Steps is a must-have for any music fan. It is the document of a legend as well as a great jazz history lesson.

Below is a stellar version of "Naima" with one of Coltrane's later quartets featuring McCoy Tyner (piano), Gimmy Garrison (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums).