Miles Davis - Gil Evans - Porgy and Bess 1958 HQ RTI Audiophile Modal Jazz - Mono - Sealed 180 Grm LP

Miles Davis under Gil Evans - Porgy and Bess

Label: Columbia – CL 1274, Columbia – 887654075710

Style: Big Band, Modal

Reissue of the orginal mono version cat.#: CL 1274.



Tracklist
A1 The Buzzard Song
A2 Bess, You Is My Woman Now
A3 Gone
A4 Gone, Gone, Gone
A5 Summertime
A6 Bess, Oh Where's My Bess

B1 Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)
B2 Fishermen, Strawberry And Devil Crab
B3 My Man's Gone Now
B4 It Ain't Necessarily So
B5 Here Come De Honey Man
B6 I Loves You, Porgy
B7 There's A Boat That's Leaving Soon For New York


Companies, etc.
Recorded At – Columbia 30th Street Studio
Copyright (c) – Sony Music Entertainment
Distributed By – Columbia records
Pressed By – Record Technology Incorporated
Remastered At – Cohearent Audio
Lacquer Cut At – Cohearent Audio

Credits
Bass – Paul Chambers (3)
Composed By – George Gershwin
Conductor – Gil Evans
Drums – Philly Joe Jones* (tracks: A1, A3 to B1, B3, B6, B7), Jimmy Cobb (tracks: A2, B2, B4, B5)
Engineer – Ray Moore
Flute – Jerome Richardson (tracks: A1, A6, B1), Phil Bodner (tracks: A2 to A5, B2 to B7), Romeo Penque
French Horn – Gunther Schuller, Julius B. Watkins*, Willie Ruff
Lacquer Cut By – KPG*
Liner Notes – Charles Edward Smith
Photography By [Front Cover] – Roy De Carava*
Producer – Cal Lampley, Teo Macero
Saxophone – Julian Adderly*, Danny Banks*
Trombone – Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Joseph Bennett, Dick Hixon*
Trumpet – Bernie Glow, Ernie Royal, John Coles*, Louis Mucci*
Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Miles Davis
Tuba – John ("Bill") Barber


This collaboration with Gil Evans is a tone-poem epic based on the writing of George Gershwin. The storyline(opera) is about African-American slavery and its social consequences and since we still live in racially divisive times despite "Brown vs. Topeka", the story is contemporary and important. I don't believe Miles promoted the piece as such, but blackness was often alluded to in his music, and was naturally very important to him.

On several of the tracks the orchestrations seem to take precedence over Miles's solos, and some of the material (like "Bess, Oh Where's My Bess") lends itself more to "interpretation" than to jazz improvisation as such. So it's an album that will appeal most to those listeners who are as interested in Evans's work as in that of Miles the soloist.
At its best, though, the collaboration between Miles and the orchestrations produces some wonderful music. The masterpiece is "Summertime", which reconstructs the famous operatic lullaby using a gospel-style 'call and response' structure. Over a perfectly judged slow walking pace set by bass and drums, the orchestra plays a repeated six-note 'response' phrase which Evans subtly varies with changes of voicing and instrumentation. Above this, on muted trumpet, Miles floats a series of inspired, though essentially simple, variations on the melody. The opening statement of Gershwin's theme uses fragments of the well-known melody in a hint of a declamatory style, as if Miles is giving the 'call' to which the orchestra 'responds'. If that sounds at all complicated, the effect is actually very simple, and as direct in its appeal as any piece of music can be. But for me part of that appeal lies in the emotional ambiguity of the performance - the way in which it seems to hover between plaintive lament and optimistic joy.
My other favourites are the more obviously plaintive "Gone, Gone, Gone", the up-tempo variation on it - "Gone" - which has a superb solo from Miles accompanied only by Paul Chambers' driving bass and Philly Jo Jones's excitable, intense drumming, "The Buzzard Song" with Miles's rich-toned flugelhorn floating above some equally rich brass scoring, the beautifully arranged fragment "Here Come de Honey Man", and a joyous, spontaneous-sounding "There's a Boat That's Leaving Soon for New York".


Miles Davis - Gil Evans - Summertime
(1958)

Excellent version of this song. miles' phrasing kills me. A true master.




Miles Davis - Bess, You Is My Woman

I like to think this song shows how amazing George Gershwin, Miles Davis, and Gil Evans are!
definitely one of the most slept on producers...

Beautiful playing from Miles, no-one can play like him.