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Porgy And Bess
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Miles Davis
Porgy And Bess
Columbia/Legacy
CK 65141
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1. Buzzard Song 4:07
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb)
Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
2. Bess, You Is My Woman Now 5:10
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg, tp-l)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 29, 1958
3. Gone 3:37
(G. Evans)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Philly Joe Jones: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 22, 1958
4. Gone, Gone, Gone 2:03
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Philly Joe Jones: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 22, 1958
5. Summertime 3:17
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
6. Oh Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess 4:28
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
7. Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus) 4:39
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
8. Fisherman, Strawberry and Devil Crab 4:06
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg, tp-l)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 29, 1958
9. My Man’s Gone Now 6:14
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Philly Joe Jones: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico 30th Street Studio, NYC, July 22, 1958
10. It Ain’t Necessarily So 4:23
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg, tp-l)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl) Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 29, 1958
11. Here Comes De Honey Man 1:18
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg, tp-l)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 29, 1958
12. I Loves You, Porgy 3:39
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 18, 1958
13. There’s a Boat That’s Leaving Soon
For New York 3:23
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg) Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
*14. I Loves You, Porgy
(take 1, second version) 4:14
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 18, 1958
*15. Gone (take 4) 3:40
(G. Evans)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Philly Joe Jones: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 22, 1958
*Bonus tracks not on original LP
All compositions except “Gone” from the original Porgy And Bess opera. All compositions except “Gone” under license from George Gershwin® Music (ASCAP), Ira Gershwin® Music (ASCAP) & DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund Publishing (ASCAP), all rights administered by WB Music Corp (ASCAP) “Gone” under license from Bopper Spock Suns Music (BMI)
Note:
The original tapes are starting to show their age. Other than an occasional dropout, the Porgy And Bess originals were cut-up (heavily edited) while in production. Many trial edits and experiments in spliced takes were created. Not all of the pieces were saved, nor were the uncut safety reels kept. Even previously issued material contains scars and gaps from this process.
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“The great music of the past,” wrote George Gershwin at the time he was working on Porgy and Bess, “…has always been built on folk music. This is the strongest source of musical fecundity…Jazz I regard as American folk music, not the only one but a very beautiful one which is in the blood and feeling of the American people.”
It was with particular attention to the blues-jazz inspiration inherent in Porgy And Bess that Miles Davis and Gil Evans approached the vocal score. As they worked out plans for the set – and Miles worked with Gil when it was still at the discussion stage – it occurred to Gil that not only were Miles and himself contributing to an interpretation of the score in terms of orchestral jazz but Gershwin himself was creating anew as jazz ideas, always latent in his scores (as well as expressed), came to life. Gil said, “The three of us, it seems to me, collaborated on the album).
In the late 1940s, when Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan helped Miles set up an historic nine-piece band that played briefly at New York’s Royal Roost, the idea of “the new thing” (as some musicians called modern jazz) having more accommodation than that of a “hitch-hike” in a swing band had barely been thought of. Though it was to be almost a decade before Gil Evans became well known to the jazz public, his original approach to jazz orchestration was an immediate sensation amongst musicians. In his more personal work Gil – whose arranging stints with Claude Thornhill had already won him respect – was preoccupied with providing an adequate orchestral setting for the new sounds of jazz. He did this not merely in introducing new instruments (such as French horns) and adding new colors to the orchestral palette but in freeing modern jazz from big-band swing that, even when meritorious in its own right, often had a restrictive influence on the projection of the new tonal and rhythmic concepts.
This album is not merely a jazz treatment – with Porgy And Bess marking the blast-off area – it is an orchestral approach to the score. Perhaps the most suggestive comparison would be some of Ellington’s work. But that by no means tells the whole story. Gil’s originality in orchestral jazz and Miles Davis’ powerful talent (that is buttressed by an increased grasp of complex musical problems) suggest that when these two collaborate successfully, the wail will be heard ‘round the world!
Thus, the album involves a distinguished jazz arranger who was largely self-taught, an honored composer who worked as a song-plugger in Tin Pan Alley and a dynamic artist in jazz who wrote Charlie Parker phrases on matchbook covers. And just to fatten it up, there’s the lyric writer, brother Ira – the piano in the Gershwin home was meant for him but George was the one who used it – and the “book” about life on Catfish Row by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward. Though there were no vocals in this presentation, these last are important because Miles and Gil do not merely flirt with show music tunes, they do a job on this greatest of operettas related to Negro folk music and jazz. In working from the vocal score, Gil was aware of both literary and musical relationships. On “Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)” he sensed the seriousness with which Gershwin had approached the theme, and in his “healing” prayer, in which the “amens” etc., are given to the orchestra, there is an urgency, a suppliance of sound. Then there is the use made of “I Got Plenty Of Nothin’” as the opening release of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and the evocative strain in “My Man’s Gone Now” that sounds almost like a reprise of “Summertime.”
Porgy And Bess, it is generally conceded, represents the culmination of Gershwin’s artistry. On “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” – as, indeed, throughout the score – many passages carry the Gershwin signature. One of the great melodic writers of our time, Gershwin’s work had both variety and vitality – even in the pop tunes he ground out in the shank of the night, a cigar clamped to his jaw – yet there was usually a distinctiveness, something immediately recognizable in it. The infusion of blues-jazz elements throughout his music made him, from the beginning, immensely popular with jazzman. Walter Damrosch – in 1925, when “Concerto In F” had its premiere – opined that, in effect, Gershwin had made a lady out of jazz. But the following year, to the arbiters of our cultural mores, she was still a tramp; even “The Etude” which hedged in a painful effort to be fair-minded, discussed “The Jazz Problem,” giving it the solemnity due a momentous moral issue!
However, we are concerned not merely with the young Gershwin whose “Concerto In F” was such a memorable contribution to American music, but with the still younger Gershwin who cut piano rolls in the same shop as James P. Johnson, the old master of Harlem piano, and with the composer who later on listened to Bessie Smith and the blues. At the time the “Rhapsody In Blue” was orchestrated, jazz orchestral writing as we know it today was unheard of. Gershwin himself did not orchestrate it, being unskilled in that sphere, but perhaps this was not so much of a lack as he himself thought at that time. The classically trained men of those days – even those hardy souls who were willing – were quite unable to interpret jazz scores. Jazzman, on the other hand, were usually incapable of symphonic reading of professional caliber. Nowadays, many men have equal facility in both fields.
Yet in the present decade, jazz orchestration remains more than ever a special field. Perhaps this is why it seems to find expression best, as a rule, through its own writers. In a recent conversation, Gil mentioned Miles’ beautifully deliberate – controlled, yet suspenseful – rhythmic style on slow tempos, reminding me of Bill Russo’s statement (in The New Yearbook Of Jazz Horizon) that “the melodic curve, the organic structure, and the continuity of a Miles Davis solo…cannot be perceived very easily by a classically trained musician.” But some of the men in his band, such as Gunther Schuller, have had classical training and are examples of what I referred to in a magazine piece as “a new breed of cats.”
Though he can particularize with regard to the innumerable facets of orchestral writing, Gil thinks of the music in its entirety, as a painter thinks of a canvas. Indeed, when he speaks of depth or density of sound, impingement of instrumental tone, the dynamics of structure and the particular requirements of each theme, the resemblance to descriptions of pictorial art is striking. And when one recalls Picasso’s dictum that a painting is alive, the parallel is complete.
Gil first met Miles when the latter was playing with Charlie Parker on 52nd Street and their respect for each other, often expressed in print, is testified to in the excellence of their collaborative efforts such as Miles Ahead (Columbia CL 1041). “I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variations,” Miles told Nat Hentoff in a recent interview (The Jazz Review, December 1958). He also made this interesting statement, “When Gil wrote the arrangement of ‘I Loves You, Porgy,’ he only wrote a scale for me to lay. No chords. And that other passage with just two chords gives you a lot more freedom and space to hear things.” (In this set, incidentally, the trumpet passages by Miles are usually played with mute, the flugelhorn open.)
In these days of stepped-up jazz production, the good things, like the good men, are still a rarity. Especially so are deeply moving performances such as these that seem infused with an inner fire that cannot be simulated. Miles’ beauty and variety of tone, his versatile manipulation of horns, is put to excellent use here as he – with the orchestral projections of Gil’s arrangements – produces incomparable renderings of Porgy And Bess. In speaking of certain of Miles’ solo passages, Gil remarked, “Miles can be hot in the true meaning of the word.”
Every piece has its own interest, orchestrally speaking, e.g., the grainy pungent harmony on “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” the utilization of brasses, tuba and brooding French Horns of “The Buzzard Song.” On the latter one notes how sureness and strength give sinew to the lovely tone of Miles’ horn. “Gone” is a holiday for jazzmen, especially for Miles, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, who are gone for several choruses. This is not from the score but relates to “Gone, Gone, Gone,” a beautifully harmonized spiritual, pulsed by a slow graceful rhythm. As for the previous track, taken at a fast tempo, Gil said, “This is my improvisation of the spiritual. In the middle of it Miles, Paul and Joe improvise on the improvisation!”
With a slow chop of drums and a faint swish of cymbals, Miles states the theme of an unusually beautiful “Summertime.” In his solo passages he places tone in rhythm like a painter who uses color knowingly, aware of composition in advance. One of the loveliest Gershwin melodies “Summertime” is based on a blues motif. It is followed by the lament, “Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess,” a sweet poignance cradled in rhythm no quiescent, now faster and more agitated in tempo.
After “Prayer,” mentioned above, Gil combines “Fishermen” (a song) and the calls of the Strawberry Woman and Devil Crab peddler. Gershwin heard music in street cries and in the matrix of Gil’s sensitive background writing. Miles’ hauntingly imaginative interpretations are completely devoid of easy artistry. “My Man’s Gone Now” is like a tone poem in its evocation of a pathos that gives to commonplace grief a deep and human dignity. On “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” horns surround and support Miles in a phenomenal series of choruses. The rhythm, which is very good throughout this demanding set, has an exuberant jazz quality and the manner in which Gil employs short phrases to accent Miles’ chorus is in itself masterly.
After a sweet interlude – an engaging bit of writing and playing (“Here Comes De Honey Man”) - there is the superbly played “I Loves You, Porgy.” Then everyone has a ball on “There’s A Boat That’s Leaving Soon For New York.” This is a happy voicing of instruments, using flutes to advantage – the subtle use of instruments throughout this set is fascinating in itself – and as an example of Miles’ craftsmanship, note how he feeds the other horns. There are plenty of drums, plenty Paul Chambers, plenty everything. (The listener need hardly be reminded that this is a band made up of top-ranking jazzman.) This bright and happy theme is given a full of exuberant performance, right down last drum beat.
Porgy And Bess – a folk opera that has humor, pathos, the sweetness of the last bit of honey in the comb, and moments of musical greatness – moves like a dance. Miles and Gil have given it a superb performance in a new idiom.
Note:
The Gershwin quotation is form his article, Relation Of Jazz To American Music: American Composers On American Music, ed. Henry Cowell (Palo Alto, 1933).
Mr. Smith is co-editor of "Jazzmen" (Harcourt, Brace) and a contributor to "The Jazz Makers" (Rinehart).
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Excerpt of Bill Kirchner’s Liner Notes from the 6-CD box set -
Miles Davis and Gil Evans:
The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings.
In this century’s American music, three partnerships have been most influential:
Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn,
Frank Sinatra/Nelson Riddle,
and Miles Davis/Gil Evans.
Of these, the Davis/Evans relationship lasted the longest – from 1947 until Evan’s death in 1988 – and perhaps was the most interesting from the standpoint of personalities. “Modern music’s Mutt and Jeff,” as journalist Marc Crawford dubbed them, were indeed a contrasting pair: “the scholarly, soft-spoken Evans,” again in Crawford’s words, “and the sometimes volatile and always hard-spoken Miles Davis.”
But whatever their outward dissimilarities, the rapport between the two men was unique and deeply felt. Evans was Davis’ best friend, mentor, and musical alter-ego. He was one of the first musicians who recognized Davis’ unique gifts and was perhaps the only one who could match the trumpeter’s insatiable need for change and growth. In turn, Evan’s found in David his ideal interpreter, an artist whose strengths served as a focus for Evans most profound musical statements. Without underestimating in the least the recordings that Evans made on his own or with others, his work with Davis – beginning with the 1948 – 50 Birth Of The Cool nonet and climaxing (though not concluding) with the Miles Ahead, Porgy And Bess, and Sketches Of Spain recordings – is clearly the music for which he will be best remembered.
The musical, commercial and critical success of Miles Ahead made future Davis/Evans ventures a virtual certainty, and the next came a year later. At that time, a Samuel Goldwyn film production of the George Gershwin/DuBose Hayward/Ira Gershwin opera Porgy And Bess was underway, ultimately being released in June of 1959. The advance publicity of the film was considerable, and with the late ‘50s vogue for recorded “jazz versions of…” being what it was, it’s not surprising that a rash of Porgy And Bess jazz interpretations hit the market. These ranged from an all-star big band version arranged and conducted by Bill Potts to one by Bob Crosby And The Bobcats. Most were soon forgotten, the Miles Davis/Gil Evans version was not.
In fact, Davis’ recording of Porgy And Bess became one of his all-time best-sellers. But it is neither a particularly “commercial” project, nor is it faithful to the order of songs as they appeared in the opera. As Jack Chambers observes, “it is a new score, with its own integrity, order and action.” And it has a gripping emotional depth of its own.
On “Buzzard Song,” note how ingeniously Evans spotlights Bill Barber’s tuba in unison with Paul Chambers’ bass. And on “Prayer,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” and “I Loves You, Porgy” hear how effectively Davis and Evans use a modal framework for Davis’ improvisations. (We should bear in mind that Porgy And Bess was recorded halfway between the groundbreaking Milestones and Kind Of Blue dates where Davis featured a scalar approach.)
“Gone” is a Gil Evans original, his own improvisation on the spiritual “Gone, Gone, Gone.” It features some of the most difficult scoring on the album, and hearing two takes of it is engrossing, for Davis’ solos (all on a G minor blues). Philly Joe’s drum work, and the ensembles, the latter ragged at times but never unspirited. On “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” “Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess,” “My Man’s Gone Now,” and “I Loves You, Porgy,” we hear Davis at his most poignant, notice on the rehearsal take of “I Loves You, Porgy,” he begins with open horn and ten inserts a harmon mute.
What instruments did David use on Porgy And Bess? The original Liner Notes tell us that “…the trumpet passages by Miles are usually played with [harmon] mute, the flugelhorn open.” My own guess is that of his open-horn passages, about half are on trumpet and half on flugelhorn, but it’s almost impossible to know for sure. Miles at that time was developing an increasingly dark, rich, flugel-like sound on trumpet, and by the early ‘6s he had abandoned the flugelhorn altogether, he had reached appoint where he could play everything he wanted on trumpet.
The personnel for the Miles Ahead and Porgy And Bess sessions have many names in common. Evans definitely had a list of preferred players, and he often wrote with their specific sounds in mind. According to Joe Bennett, much of the lead trumpet playing was assigned to Bernie Glow, but at times – sometimes within the same piece – Evans would write the lead lines on Ernie Royal’s or Louis Mucci’s part, depending on the sound he was seeking. The same was true of the trombone section.
The woodwind personnel listing for the original release of Porgy And Bess was not completely clear or accurate. Woodwind player Danny Bank related that Cannonball Adderly played alto saxophone exclusively, and that Bank, Romeo Penque and Phil Bodner (or his replacement, Jerome Richardson, on some sessions) all played alto flutes. The lead alto flute parts were played by Bank, so the opening solo on “Fisherman, Strawberry And Devil Crab” is probably he. Sometimes three alto flutes were playing at once, as (I think) on parts of “Buzzard Song” and “Summertime.” Bank also played bass clarinet, and Penque and Bodner doubled on flutes and clarinets. For an excellent example of a Thornhill-like clarinet choir, listen to “Prayer.”
To these ears, the highlights of this work on the exchanges between the Reverend Davis and his “congregation” on “Prayer,” the ingenious and musical use of recording technology on “Here Some De Honey Man,” the irresistible joy of “There’s A Boat That’s Leaving Soon For New York,” and most of all, the arrangement and performance of “Summertime.” Evans’ unforgettable countermelody and simple-but-striking use of French horns and flutes, along with Davis’ perfectly understated ruminations, give this archetypal American song one of its most memorable renditions.
Comments on the additional material by Phil Schaap:
We intentionally looked to full takes for bonus tracks. Our decision, among other things, prevented us from introducing any edited or hybrid takes. The alternate of “I Loves You, Porgy,” while unedited, is a partial take. There is no opening melody, but it does play to a genuine ending. On the original issue, the song faded in Miles’ solo, which was edited and shortened.
“I Loves You, Porgy” was recorded in two full sections. Take one provided a satisfactory statement of the melody. Two versions of the balance of the tune, largely Davis’ solo, were then recorded. The difficult decision of which one to pick was delayed until the mastering of the LP.
The choice to use the first solo obviously troubled somebody at Columbia back then because a second master was prepared using the unissued solo for 45-rpm release. It’s extremely unlikely that this 45 ever came out.
Take 1 on “Gone” was for a moment considered the master. At the end of the session of July 22, 1958 – the only session with Philly Joe Jones – there was time to return to “Gone.” That end date performance became the choice take for “Gone,” albeit with the cleaner last note from take 4 spliced on.
Since several hours had passed between the two versions of “Gone,” there is more difference between takes than is normal. Philly Joe Jones, although he never got to hear this alternate again, stated consistently that for him this earlier take was the better one.
The tune “Gone” is the “ringer” in this version of Gershwin’s Porgy And Bess. It’s really by Gil Evans. Gil is, of course, using George Gershwin’s “Gone, Gone, Gone” as the key strain of his “Gone,” but Evans’ chart is, in fact, a work of it’s own. It is also the only time we get a soloist other than Miles Davis, the aforementioned Philly Joe Jones on drums.
Original Recordings Produced by: Cal Lampley
Reissue Produced by: Phil Schaap
Project Director: Seth Rothstein
Columbia Jazz Reissue Series: Steve Berkowitz and Kevin Gore
Original Design: Teresa Alfieri
Cover Photograph: Roy De Carava
Remastering: Phil Schaap and Mark Wilder
Restoration and Editing: Phil Schaap and Mark Wilder
Masters Prepared by: Mark Wilder
Additional Engineering: Tom “Curly” Ruff
Liner Photography: Don Hunstein
Reissue Art Direction: Cozbi Sanchez-Cabrera
Reissue Design: Randall Martin
Production Assistance: Rene Arsenault
Packaging Manager: Jennifer Ebert
A&R Coordination: Patti Matheny
Miles Davis
Porgy And Bess
Columbia/Legacy
CK 65141
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1. Buzzard Song 4:07
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb)
Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
2. Bess, You Is My Woman Now 5:10
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg, tp-l)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 29, 1958
3. Gone 3:37
(G. Evans)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Philly Joe Jones: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 22, 1958
4. Gone, Gone, Gone 2:03
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Philly Joe Jones: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 22, 1958
5. Summertime 3:17
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
6. Oh Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess 4:28
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
7. Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus) 4:39
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
8. Fisherman, Strawberry and Devil Crab 4:06
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg, tp-l)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 29, 1958
9. My Man’s Gone Now 6:14
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Philly Joe Jones: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico 30th Street Studio, NYC, July 22, 1958
10. It Ain’t Necessarily So 4:23
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg, tp-l)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl) Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 29, 1958
11. Here Comes De Honey Man 1:18
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg, tp-l)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 29, 1958
12. I Loves You, Porgy 3:39
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 18, 1958
13. There’s a Boat That’s Leaving Soon
For New York 3:23
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg) Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tr)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 4, 1958
*14. I Loves You, Porgy
(take 1, second version) 4:14
(G. Gershwin/I. Gershwin/D. Heyward)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Jerome Richardson, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Jimmy Cobb: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, August 18, 1958
*15. Gone (take 4) 3:40
(G. Evans)
Miles Davis: (flg)
Gil Evans (arr., cond)
Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, Johnny Coles, Bernie Glow: (tp)
Dick Hixon, Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joe Bennett: (tb) Willie Ruff, Julius Watkins, Gunther Schuller: (Fr h)
Bill Barber: (tu)
Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque: (fl, alto fl, cl)
Cannonball Adderly: (as)
Danny Bank: (alto fl, b cl)
Paul Chambers: (b)
Philly Joe Jones: (d)
Produced by: Cal Lampley
Recording Engineer: Frank Laico
30th Street Studio, NYC, July 22, 1958
*Bonus tracks not on original LP
All compositions except “Gone” from the original Porgy And Bess opera. All compositions except “Gone” under license from George Gershwin® Music (ASCAP), Ira Gershwin® Music (ASCAP) & DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund Publishing (ASCAP), all rights administered by WB Music Corp (ASCAP) “Gone” under license from Bopper Spock Suns Music (BMI)
Note:
The original tapes are starting to show their age. Other than an occasional dropout, the Porgy And Bess originals were cut-up (heavily edited) while in production. Many trial edits and experiments in spliced takes were created. Not all of the pieces were saved, nor were the uncut safety reels kept. Even previously issued material contains scars and gaps from this process.
– Phil Schaap
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Gershwin and the Sounds of Jazz
by Charles Edward Smith
by Charles Edward Smith
“The great music of the past,” wrote George Gershwin at the time he was working on Porgy and Bess, “…has always been built on folk music. This is the strongest source of musical fecundity…Jazz I regard as American folk music, not the only one but a very beautiful one which is in the blood and feeling of the American people.”
It was with particular attention to the blues-jazz inspiration inherent in Porgy And Bess that Miles Davis and Gil Evans approached the vocal score. As they worked out plans for the set – and Miles worked with Gil when it was still at the discussion stage – it occurred to Gil that not only were Miles and himself contributing to an interpretation of the score in terms of orchestral jazz but Gershwin himself was creating anew as jazz ideas, always latent in his scores (as well as expressed), came to life. Gil said, “The three of us, it seems to me, collaborated on the album).
In the late 1940s, when Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan helped Miles set up an historic nine-piece band that played briefly at New York’s Royal Roost, the idea of “the new thing” (as some musicians called modern jazz) having more accommodation than that of a “hitch-hike” in a swing band had barely been thought of. Though it was to be almost a decade before Gil Evans became well known to the jazz public, his original approach to jazz orchestration was an immediate sensation amongst musicians. In his more personal work Gil – whose arranging stints with Claude Thornhill had already won him respect – was preoccupied with providing an adequate orchestral setting for the new sounds of jazz. He did this not merely in introducing new instruments (such as French horns) and adding new colors to the orchestral palette but in freeing modern jazz from big-band swing that, even when meritorious in its own right, often had a restrictive influence on the projection of the new tonal and rhythmic concepts.
This album is not merely a jazz treatment – with Porgy And Bess marking the blast-off area – it is an orchestral approach to the score. Perhaps the most suggestive comparison would be some of Ellington’s work. But that by no means tells the whole story. Gil’s originality in orchestral jazz and Miles Davis’ powerful talent (that is buttressed by an increased grasp of complex musical problems) suggest that when these two collaborate successfully, the wail will be heard ‘round the world!
Thus, the album involves a distinguished jazz arranger who was largely self-taught, an honored composer who worked as a song-plugger in Tin Pan Alley and a dynamic artist in jazz who wrote Charlie Parker phrases on matchbook covers. And just to fatten it up, there’s the lyric writer, brother Ira – the piano in the Gershwin home was meant for him but George was the one who used it – and the “book” about life on Catfish Row by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward. Though there were no vocals in this presentation, these last are important because Miles and Gil do not merely flirt with show music tunes, they do a job on this greatest of operettas related to Negro folk music and jazz. In working from the vocal score, Gil was aware of both literary and musical relationships. On “Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)” he sensed the seriousness with which Gershwin had approached the theme, and in his “healing” prayer, in which the “amens” etc., are given to the orchestra, there is an urgency, a suppliance of sound. Then there is the use made of “I Got Plenty Of Nothin’” as the opening release of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and the evocative strain in “My Man’s Gone Now” that sounds almost like a reprise of “Summertime.”
Porgy And Bess, it is generally conceded, represents the culmination of Gershwin’s artistry. On “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” – as, indeed, throughout the score – many passages carry the Gershwin signature. One of the great melodic writers of our time, Gershwin’s work had both variety and vitality – even in the pop tunes he ground out in the shank of the night, a cigar clamped to his jaw – yet there was usually a distinctiveness, something immediately recognizable in it. The infusion of blues-jazz elements throughout his music made him, from the beginning, immensely popular with jazzman. Walter Damrosch – in 1925, when “Concerto In F” had its premiere – opined that, in effect, Gershwin had made a lady out of jazz. But the following year, to the arbiters of our cultural mores, she was still a tramp; even “The Etude” which hedged in a painful effort to be fair-minded, discussed “The Jazz Problem,” giving it the solemnity due a momentous moral issue!
However, we are concerned not merely with the young Gershwin whose “Concerto In F” was such a memorable contribution to American music, but with the still younger Gershwin who cut piano rolls in the same shop as James P. Johnson, the old master of Harlem piano, and with the composer who later on listened to Bessie Smith and the blues. At the time the “Rhapsody In Blue” was orchestrated, jazz orchestral writing as we know it today was unheard of. Gershwin himself did not orchestrate it, being unskilled in that sphere, but perhaps this was not so much of a lack as he himself thought at that time. The classically trained men of those days – even those hardy souls who were willing – were quite unable to interpret jazz scores. Jazzman, on the other hand, were usually incapable of symphonic reading of professional caliber. Nowadays, many men have equal facility in both fields.
Yet in the present decade, jazz orchestration remains more than ever a special field. Perhaps this is why it seems to find expression best, as a rule, through its own writers. In a recent conversation, Gil mentioned Miles’ beautifully deliberate – controlled, yet suspenseful – rhythmic style on slow tempos, reminding me of Bill Russo’s statement (in The New Yearbook Of Jazz Horizon) that “the melodic curve, the organic structure, and the continuity of a Miles Davis solo…cannot be perceived very easily by a classically trained musician.” But some of the men in his band, such as Gunther Schuller, have had classical training and are examples of what I referred to in a magazine piece as “a new breed of cats.”
Though he can particularize with regard to the innumerable facets of orchestral writing, Gil thinks of the music in its entirety, as a painter thinks of a canvas. Indeed, when he speaks of depth or density of sound, impingement of instrumental tone, the dynamics of structure and the particular requirements of each theme, the resemblance to descriptions of pictorial art is striking. And when one recalls Picasso’s dictum that a painting is alive, the parallel is complete.
Gil first met Miles when the latter was playing with Charlie Parker on 52nd Street and their respect for each other, often expressed in print, is testified to in the excellence of their collaborative efforts such as Miles Ahead (Columbia CL 1041). “I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variations,” Miles told Nat Hentoff in a recent interview (The Jazz Review, December 1958). He also made this interesting statement, “When Gil wrote the arrangement of ‘I Loves You, Porgy,’ he only wrote a scale for me to lay. No chords. And that other passage with just two chords gives you a lot more freedom and space to hear things.” (In this set, incidentally, the trumpet passages by Miles are usually played with mute, the flugelhorn open.)
In these days of stepped-up jazz production, the good things, like the good men, are still a rarity. Especially so are deeply moving performances such as these that seem infused with an inner fire that cannot be simulated. Miles’ beauty and variety of tone, his versatile manipulation of horns, is put to excellent use here as he – with the orchestral projections of Gil’s arrangements – produces incomparable renderings of Porgy And Bess. In speaking of certain of Miles’ solo passages, Gil remarked, “Miles can be hot in the true meaning of the word.”
Every piece has its own interest, orchestrally speaking, e.g., the grainy pungent harmony on “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” the utilization of brasses, tuba and brooding French Horns of “The Buzzard Song.” On the latter one notes how sureness and strength give sinew to the lovely tone of Miles’ horn. “Gone” is a holiday for jazzmen, especially for Miles, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, who are gone for several choruses. This is not from the score but relates to “Gone, Gone, Gone,” a beautifully harmonized spiritual, pulsed by a slow graceful rhythm. As for the previous track, taken at a fast tempo, Gil said, “This is my improvisation of the spiritual. In the middle of it Miles, Paul and Joe improvise on the improvisation!”
With a slow chop of drums and a faint swish of cymbals, Miles states the theme of an unusually beautiful “Summertime.” In his solo passages he places tone in rhythm like a painter who uses color knowingly, aware of composition in advance. One of the loveliest Gershwin melodies “Summertime” is based on a blues motif. It is followed by the lament, “Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess,” a sweet poignance cradled in rhythm no quiescent, now faster and more agitated in tempo.
After “Prayer,” mentioned above, Gil combines “Fishermen” (a song) and the calls of the Strawberry Woman and Devil Crab peddler. Gershwin heard music in street cries and in the matrix of Gil’s sensitive background writing. Miles’ hauntingly imaginative interpretations are completely devoid of easy artistry. “My Man’s Gone Now” is like a tone poem in its evocation of a pathos that gives to commonplace grief a deep and human dignity. On “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” horns surround and support Miles in a phenomenal series of choruses. The rhythm, which is very good throughout this demanding set, has an exuberant jazz quality and the manner in which Gil employs short phrases to accent Miles’ chorus is in itself masterly.
After a sweet interlude – an engaging bit of writing and playing (“Here Comes De Honey Man”) - there is the superbly played “I Loves You, Porgy.” Then everyone has a ball on “There’s A Boat That’s Leaving Soon For New York.” This is a happy voicing of instruments, using flutes to advantage – the subtle use of instruments throughout this set is fascinating in itself – and as an example of Miles’ craftsmanship, note how he feeds the other horns. There are plenty of drums, plenty Paul Chambers, plenty everything. (The listener need hardly be reminded that this is a band made up of top-ranking jazzman.) This bright and happy theme is given a full of exuberant performance, right down last drum beat.
Porgy And Bess – a folk opera that has humor, pathos, the sweetness of the last bit of honey in the comb, and moments of musical greatness – moves like a dance. Miles and Gil have given it a superb performance in a new idiom.
– Charles Edward Smith (1958)
Note:
The Gershwin quotation is form his article, Relation Of Jazz To American Music: American Composers On American Music, ed. Henry Cowell (Palo Alto, 1933).
Mr. Smith is co-editor of "Jazzmen" (Harcourt, Brace) and a contributor to "The Jazz Makers" (Rinehart).
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Excerpt of Bill Kirchner’s Liner Notes from the 6-CD box set -
Miles Davis and Gil Evans:
The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings.
In this century’s American music, three partnerships have been most influential:
Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn,
Frank Sinatra/Nelson Riddle,
and Miles Davis/Gil Evans.
Of these, the Davis/Evans relationship lasted the longest – from 1947 until Evan’s death in 1988 – and perhaps was the most interesting from the standpoint of personalities. “Modern music’s Mutt and Jeff,” as journalist Marc Crawford dubbed them, were indeed a contrasting pair: “the scholarly, soft-spoken Evans,” again in Crawford’s words, “and the sometimes volatile and always hard-spoken Miles Davis.”
But whatever their outward dissimilarities, the rapport between the two men was unique and deeply felt. Evans was Davis’ best friend, mentor, and musical alter-ego. He was one of the first musicians who recognized Davis’ unique gifts and was perhaps the only one who could match the trumpeter’s insatiable need for change and growth. In turn, Evan’s found in David his ideal interpreter, an artist whose strengths served as a focus for Evans most profound musical statements. Without underestimating in the least the recordings that Evans made on his own or with others, his work with Davis – beginning with the 1948 – 50 Birth Of The Cool nonet and climaxing (though not concluding) with the Miles Ahead, Porgy And Bess, and Sketches Of Spain recordings – is clearly the music for which he will be best remembered.
The musical, commercial and critical success of Miles Ahead made future Davis/Evans ventures a virtual certainty, and the next came a year later. At that time, a Samuel Goldwyn film production of the George Gershwin/DuBose Hayward/Ira Gershwin opera Porgy And Bess was underway, ultimately being released in June of 1959. The advance publicity of the film was considerable, and with the late ‘50s vogue for recorded “jazz versions of…” being what it was, it’s not surprising that a rash of Porgy And Bess jazz interpretations hit the market. These ranged from an all-star big band version arranged and conducted by Bill Potts to one by Bob Crosby And The Bobcats. Most were soon forgotten, the Miles Davis/Gil Evans version was not.
In fact, Davis’ recording of Porgy And Bess became one of his all-time best-sellers. But it is neither a particularly “commercial” project, nor is it faithful to the order of songs as they appeared in the opera. As Jack Chambers observes, “it is a new score, with its own integrity, order and action.” And it has a gripping emotional depth of its own.
On “Buzzard Song,” note how ingeniously Evans spotlights Bill Barber’s tuba in unison with Paul Chambers’ bass. And on “Prayer,” “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” and “I Loves You, Porgy” hear how effectively Davis and Evans use a modal framework for Davis’ improvisations. (We should bear in mind that Porgy And Bess was recorded halfway between the groundbreaking Milestones and Kind Of Blue dates where Davis featured a scalar approach.)
“Gone” is a Gil Evans original, his own improvisation on the spiritual “Gone, Gone, Gone.” It features some of the most difficult scoring on the album, and hearing two takes of it is engrossing, for Davis’ solos (all on a G minor blues). Philly Joe’s drum work, and the ensembles, the latter ragged at times but never unspirited. On “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” “Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess,” “My Man’s Gone Now,” and “I Loves You, Porgy,” we hear Davis at his most poignant, notice on the rehearsal take of “I Loves You, Porgy,” he begins with open horn and ten inserts a harmon mute.
What instruments did David use on Porgy And Bess? The original Liner Notes tell us that “…the trumpet passages by Miles are usually played with [harmon] mute, the flugelhorn open.” My own guess is that of his open-horn passages, about half are on trumpet and half on flugelhorn, but it’s almost impossible to know for sure. Miles at that time was developing an increasingly dark, rich, flugel-like sound on trumpet, and by the early ‘6s he had abandoned the flugelhorn altogether, he had reached appoint where he could play everything he wanted on trumpet.
The personnel for the Miles Ahead and Porgy And Bess sessions have many names in common. Evans definitely had a list of preferred players, and he often wrote with their specific sounds in mind. According to Joe Bennett, much of the lead trumpet playing was assigned to Bernie Glow, but at times – sometimes within the same piece – Evans would write the lead lines on Ernie Royal’s or Louis Mucci’s part, depending on the sound he was seeking. The same was true of the trombone section.
The woodwind personnel listing for the original release of Porgy And Bess was not completely clear or accurate. Woodwind player Danny Bank related that Cannonball Adderly played alto saxophone exclusively, and that Bank, Romeo Penque and Phil Bodner (or his replacement, Jerome Richardson, on some sessions) all played alto flutes. The lead alto flute parts were played by Bank, so the opening solo on “Fisherman, Strawberry And Devil Crab” is probably he. Sometimes three alto flutes were playing at once, as (I think) on parts of “Buzzard Song” and “Summertime.” Bank also played bass clarinet, and Penque and Bodner doubled on flutes and clarinets. For an excellent example of a Thornhill-like clarinet choir, listen to “Prayer.”
To these ears, the highlights of this work on the exchanges between the Reverend Davis and his “congregation” on “Prayer,” the ingenious and musical use of recording technology on “Here Some De Honey Man,” the irresistible joy of “There’s A Boat That’s Leaving Soon For New York,” and most of all, the arrangement and performance of “Summertime.” Evans’ unforgettable countermelody and simple-but-striking use of French horns and flutes, along with Davis’ perfectly understated ruminations, give this archetypal American song one of its most memorable renditions.
– Bill Kirchner
___________________________________________________Comments on the additional material by Phil Schaap:
We intentionally looked to full takes for bonus tracks. Our decision, among other things, prevented us from introducing any edited or hybrid takes. The alternate of “I Loves You, Porgy,” while unedited, is a partial take. There is no opening melody, but it does play to a genuine ending. On the original issue, the song faded in Miles’ solo, which was edited and shortened.
“I Loves You, Porgy” was recorded in two full sections. Take one provided a satisfactory statement of the melody. Two versions of the balance of the tune, largely Davis’ solo, were then recorded. The difficult decision of which one to pick was delayed until the mastering of the LP.
The choice to use the first solo obviously troubled somebody at Columbia back then because a second master was prepared using the unissued solo for 45-rpm release. It’s extremely unlikely that this 45 ever came out.
Take 1 on “Gone” was for a moment considered the master. At the end of the session of July 22, 1958 – the only session with Philly Joe Jones – there was time to return to “Gone.” That end date performance became the choice take for “Gone,” albeit with the cleaner last note from take 4 spliced on.
Since several hours had passed between the two versions of “Gone,” there is more difference between takes than is normal. Philly Joe Jones, although he never got to hear this alternate again, stated consistently that for him this earlier take was the better one.
The tune “Gone” is the “ringer” in this version of Gershwin’s Porgy And Bess. It’s really by Gil Evans. Gil is, of course, using George Gershwin’s “Gone, Gone, Gone” as the key strain of his “Gone,” but Evans’ chart is, in fact, a work of it’s own. It is also the only time we get a soloist other than Miles Davis, the aforementioned Philly Joe Jones on drums.
– Phil Schaap
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Original Recordings Produced by: Cal Lampley
Reissue Produced by: Phil Schaap
Project Director: Seth Rothstein
Columbia Jazz Reissue Series: Steve Berkowitz and Kevin Gore
Original Design: Teresa Alfieri
Cover Photograph: Roy De Carava
Remastering: Phil Schaap and Mark Wilder
Restoration and Editing: Phil Schaap and Mark Wilder
Masters Prepared by: Mark Wilder
Additional Engineering: Tom “Curly” Ruff
Liner Photography: Don Hunstein
Reissue Art Direction: Cozbi Sanchez-Cabrera
Reissue Design: Randall Martin
Production Assistance: Rene Arsenault
Packaging Manager: Jennifer Ebert
A&R Coordination: Patti Matheny
