The Complete Birth of the Cool [ORIGINAL RECORDING REISSUED] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Miles Davis

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 19, 1998)
• Original Release Date: May 19, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Label: Blue Note Records
• ASIN: B000006Q6B
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,037 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Birth of the Cool is the first important leader date from Miles Davis, one of jazz's most seminal figures and farsighted practitioners. Having made his reputation in large measure from playing with bop giant Charlie Parker, Davis confounded expectations when he embraced the "cool" arranging style of Gil Evans, an arranger for Claude Thornhill's band. Evans, who was employing unique voicings by adding French horns and tuba to Thornhill's instrumentations, also emphasized a diminished use of vibrato in both reeds and brass, producing a drier, "cool" sound. Two of Evans's arrangements, "Boplicity" and "Moon Dreams," appear on the album. Also involved are baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, who contributed such outstanding tunes as "Jeru" and "Venus de Milo," and Modern Jazz Quartet pianist John Lewis. The result is a date that has withstood the tests of time, fashion, and Davis's own extraordinary growth as a performer. An enhanced set, The Complete Birth of the Cool expands the original issue with previously bootlegged live recordings of Davis's nonet at the Royal Roost in New York in 1948. Although the sound quality is far from perfect, the performances are remarkable, and worth the additional expense for the serious fan. --Fred Goodman

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Of Mile Davis' Important Albums, August 1, 2000

By	"skapunkbluesjazzrock" (Houston) - See all my reviews

The Birth of Cool album is the most important album of Davis' earlier works. This album is important for two reasons, one being that this is Davis' first widely noticed album as a leader of a group. The second reason is that this is the album that created the "cool" style of jazz. The remastered edition of The Birth of Cool sounds fresh today, and the band seems to work really well together. This album also showcases the first time that Miles and Gil Evans created an album together, which they would repeat to their success many times. The added live recordings aren't of the best quality, but the quality isn't exactly bad either. This is a very important landmark for Miles Davis, and I recommend fans pick up this album which is probably the most important of his earliest work.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first of many essential Miles Davis albums!, September 20, 2000

By	J. Lund "jazzbrat" (SoCal, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

For all their brilliance, the majority of the classic bebop recordings of the mid-late 1940s (by Charlie Parker and his peers) moved along at brisk tempos that made it a little difficult for such modernistic yet lyrical players as Miles Davis to assert their identities and reach their potential.

In what would become a commonplace routine throughout his career, with these 1949-50 BIRTH OF THE COOL sessions Miles revamped his musical surroundings--in this case bebop--to fit his unique trumpet sound. Here Davis usually slowed down the tempo and tended to add more impressionistic colorations...via an expanded, mid-sized ensemble with arrangements by Gil Evans and others. At the same time, Miles retained the advanced harmonic lessons he'd learned from the likes of Parker, Gillespie, and Monk. What Davis sacrificed in velocity he recovered in emotive depth and nuance. These strengths would be further defined--and redefined--by Miles in the coming decades.

The results can be looked at in at least two ways. One, there is a sense that Miles reached his first aesthetic peak here. Secondly--in light of his later habitual strokes of genius--Davis' later music built significantly on what he accomplished here, while never copying these records. To put it another way, these BIRTH OF THE COOL recordings are stand-alone jazz classics. At the same time, in many ways they only hint at Davis' future successes.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Miles changes jazz for the first time, September 27, 2003

By	Manny Hernandez "Author of Ning For Dummies" (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

In his professional life, Miles Davis was an agent of change and a permanent self critic. Also, he would always surround himself of the best possible musicians (he said, "I'm hiring a [musician] to play, not for what color he is") to help in materializing his musical vision. Leaving behind the enviable position of musical director of Charlie Parker's group, Miles assembled a nonet (several of its members coming from the ranks of Claude Thornhill's Orchestra), Gerry Mulligan and John Lewis among them, and with their help gave birth to the new sound in jazz at the time: the Cool, an attempt to sound like a big band with a significantly smaller ensemble (a nonet, in this case), by means of a collective writing approach.

The album, recorded throughout three sessions between January of 1949 and March of 1950, marked the beginning of a series of outstanding works of Miles along with musical mentor and genius arranger Gil Evans. Its slower and softer sound resonated throughout the jazz world, taking jazz to a new level and influencing musicians all over the place, mostly in California it would help give shape to a mellow sound that would later be called West Coast Jazz (Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, etc.)

It is hard to pick favorite tracks in such a brilliant production. Four different arrangers and a rich assortment of composers, from Davis and Evans, to Mulligan, Lewis, Bud Powell and several others, along with the assorted lineup of musicians (only Davis in trumpet and lead, Mulligan in baritone, Lee Konitz in alto, and John Barber in Tuba were part of all three recording sessions) allow the careful listener to see tunes from a number of different points of view. For example, how does a pianoless Gerry Muligan tune sounds like ("Rocker"), how does a song arranged by John Lewis sound like when it's also a composition of his ("Rouge") as opposed to when it's someone else's ("Move") or how does Max Roach sound on drums with a bunch of other musicians vs. how does Kenny Clarke sound with the same (well, almost) bunch of guys.

There are so many possibilities to the album that the best favor you can do to yourself is to get it and incorporate it into your musical collection and language from now on. This version (The COMPLETE Birth of the Cool) is a bit more expensive than it's "incomplete" counterpart, but it carries live versions of a number of the studio tracks, something of a rarity, considering the nonet did a very small number of live dates.