Birth of the Cool, and Horn in the Miles Davis Nonet

Yesterday I had some major dental work done which was not very fun but on the plus side among the CDs in the dentist office was Miles Davis Birth of the Cool. This 1957 album is considered one of the most influential jazz albums ever. It is a compilation of singles recorded over three sessions in 1940-50, the notable thing for us horn players being that the nonet included horn. This “video” (audio only) is one of several on YouTube of “Move,” recorded in New York City on January 21, 1949. Give it a listen.

The personnel on this cut is Miles Davis – trumpet, Kai Winding – trombone, Junior Collins – French horn, Bill Barber – tuba, Lee Konitz – alto sax, Gerry Mulligan – baritone sax, Al Haig – piano, Joe Schulman – bass, and Max Roach – drums. There is quite a bit online about this album, the Wikipedia article being an OK place to start reading. The cover image in this article is linked from the Wikipedia as well.

As to the horn players in the nonet sessions, three different hornists perform. Besides Junior Collins in the above cut on this album you can hear Sandy Siegelstein and Gunther Schuller perform, Schuller being by far the best known of the three. Amazing recordings, hard to believe they were done over 60 years ago.

Speaking of Miles Davis recordings, I noted with interest that hornist Pip Eastop recently played the trumpet on a concert performance of Kind of Blue, another great Miles Davis recording that is one of my favorite recordings to listen to of all time. His article on this project begins,

On May 20th there’s a concert at St. James’ Church, Piccadilly, London. It’s a live performance, or interpretation, of the album, “Kind of Blue” by Miles Davis. I think it’s going to be a sextet, but what I DO know is that I’m going to be the one playing the trumpet and thus, to some extent, trying to “be” Miles Davis. This is, of course, an impossible task …

But one that has got to be extremely interesting! Most of us are not fluent enough on jazz trumpet to play the lead but a lot of us could do a good job on horn in the nonet arrangements. These arrangements are actually published and available today and are a project I would love to play at some point, to relive these jazz classics from another place and time.