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Sonothque/Jazz/Miles Davis/Porgy And Bess

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 inproduction. Many trial edits and experiments in spliced takes were created. Not all ot the pieces were saved, nor were the uncut safety reels kept. Evenpreviously unissued material contains scars and gaps from this process. Phil Schaap

Miles Davis, Gil Evans - Porgy and Bess -

Track Title Year Length Comment Mode Codec Bitrate Size

1 Buzzard Song 1958 04:09 Stereo Vorbis 293 10,25 MB

2 Bess, You Is My Woman Now 1958 05:13 Stereo Vorbis 275 11,76 MB

3 Gone 1958 03:38 Stereo Vorbis 308 9,56 MB

4 Gone, Gone, Gone 1958 02:05 Stereo Vorbis 285 5,79 MB

5 Summertime 1958 03:21 Stereo Vorbis 280 8,25 MB

6 Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess 1958 04:31 Stereo Vorbis 281 10,62 MB

7 Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus) 1958 04:42 Stereo Vorbis 306 11,83 MB

8 Fishermen, Strawberry and Devil Crab 1958 04:07 Stereo Vorbis 274 9,62 MB

9 My Man's Gone Now 1958 06:17 Stereo Vorbis 286 14,35 MB

10 It Ain't Necessarily So 1958 04:25 Stereo Vorbis 284 10,53 MB

11 Here Come de Honey Man 1958 01:21 Stereo Vorbis 272 4,15 MB

12 I Loves You, Porgy 1958 03:43 Stereo Vorbis 265 8,59 MB

13 There's a Boat That's Leaving Soon for New York 1958 03:26 Stereo Vorbis 314 9,26 MB

14 I Loves You, Porgy (take 1, second version) 1958 04:17 Stereo Vorbis 266 9,67 MB

15 Gone (take 4) 1958 03:40 Stereo Vorbis 301 9,44 MB

15 file(s) Length: 00:58:55 Size: 143,66 MB

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Porgy And Bess http://desguin.net/sonotheque/1_JAZZ/Miles Davis/Porgy And Bess/ca...

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MILES DAVISGeorge Gershwins PORGY AND BESS

The Buzzard SongBess, You ls My Woman NowGoneGone, Gone, GoneSummertime


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Bess, Oh Where's My BessPrayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)Fishermen, Strawberry and Devil CrabMy Man's Gone NowIt Ain't Necessarily SoHere Come de Honey ManI Loves You, PorgyThere's a Boat That's Leaving Soon for New York

Orchestra under the direction of Gil Evans

Facsimile of Original LP back cover: CL 1274

Gershwin and the Sounds of Jazz 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 thestrongest source of musical fecundity... Jazz I regard as an American folk music, not the only one but a very beautiful one which is in the blood and feeling of theAmerican 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 theyworked out plans for the set and Miles worked with Gil even when it was still at the discussion stage- it occurred to Gil that not only were Miles and himselfcontributing 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 wellas expressed), came to life. Gil said, The three of us, it seems to me, collaborated in the album."

In the late 1940's, when Gil Evans and Gerry Mulligan helped Miles set up an historic nine-piece band that played briefy at New York's Royal Roost, the idea ofthe new thing" (as some musicians called modern jazz) having more accomodation 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 immediatesensation amongst musicians. In his more personal work Gil whose arranging stints with Claude Thornhill had already won him respect was preoccupiedwith providing an adequate orchestral setting for the new sounds of jazz. He did this not merely in introducing new instruments (such as French horns) andadding new colors to the orchestral palette but in freeing modern jazz from big-band swing that, even when meretorious in its own right, often had a restrictiveinfluence 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 mostsuggestive 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' powerfultalent (that is buttressed by an increased grasp of complex musical problems) suggest that when these two collaborate successfully, the wail will be heard 'roundthe world!

Thus, the album involves a distinguished jazz arranger who was largely self-taught, an honored composer who worked as a songplugger in Tin Pan Alley and adynamic 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 theGershwin 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. Thoughthere are 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 ofoperettas 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 DoctorJesus) he sensed the seriousness with which Gershwin had approached the theme and in this "healing" prayer, in which the amens" etc. are given to theorchestra, 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 andthe 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 thescore 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 thepop 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 jazzmen. Walter Damrosch in 1925, whenConcerto 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, shewas 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 momentousmoral 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 stillyounger 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 toBessie 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 himselfdid not orchestrate it, being unskilled in that sphere, but perhaps this was not so much of a lack as he himself thought at the time. The classically trained men ofthose days even those hardy souls who were willing were quite unable to interpret jazz scores. Jazzmen, on the other hand, were usually incapable ofsymphonic reading of professional calibre. 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 itsown writers. In a recent conversation, Gil mentioned Miles beautifully deliberatecontrolled, yet sus- pensefulrhythmic style on slow tempos, reminding me ofBill 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 beperceived very easily by a classically trained musician." But some of the men in this band, such as Gunther Schuller, have had classical training and areexamples 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 eachtheme, 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 theexcellence of their collaborative efforts such as "Miles Ahead" (Columbia CL 1041). I think a 'movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string ofchords, 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 play. No chords. And that otherpassage with just two chords gives you a lot more freedom and space to hear things." (ln this set, incidentally, the trumpet passages by Miles are usually playedwith 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 thesethat 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 ashe with the orchestral projections of Gil's arrangements produces incomparable renderings of "Porgy and Bess." In speaking of certain of Miles' solopassages, Gil remarked, Miles can be hot in the true meaning of the word."

Every piece has it own interest, orchestrally speaking, e.g., the grainy, pungent harmony on Bess, You Is My Woman Now, the utilization of brasses, tuba andbrooding French horns on The Buzzard Song. On the latter one notes how sureness and strength give sinew to the lovely tone of Miles horn. Gone is a holidayfor 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 ofthe spiritual. In the middle of it Miles, Paul and Joe improvise on the improvisation!"

With a slow chop on drums and a faint swish of cymbals, Miles states the theme of an unusually beautiful Summertime. In his solo passages he places tone inrhythm like a painter who uses color knowingly, aware of composition in advance. One of the loveliest Gershwin melodies, Summertime is based on a bluesmotif. It is followed by the lament, Bess, Oh Where's My Bess, a sweet poignance cradled in a rhythm now 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 strutcries and in the matrix of Gil's sensitive background writing. Miles hauntingly imaginative interpretations are completely devoid of easy artistry. My Man: GoneNow 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 andsupport Miles in a phenomenal series of choruses. The rhythm, which is very good throughout this demanding set, has an exuberant jazz quality and the mannerin 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 everyonehas 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 instrumentsthroughout this set is fascinating in ifself and as an example of Miles craftsmanship, note how he feeds the other horns. There are plenty drums, plenty PaulChambers, plenty everything. (The listener need hardly be reminded that this is a band made up of top-ranking jazzmen.) This bright and happy theme is given afull and exuberant performance, right down to the last drum beat.


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"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 adance. Miles and Gil have given it a superb performance in a new idiom.

NOTE: The Gershwin quotation is from his article, Relation of Jazz to American Music: "American Composers on American Music," ed. Henry Cowell (Palo Alto,1933).

Mr. Smith is coeditor of Jazzmen" (Harcourt, Brace) and a contributor to "The Jazz Makers" (Rinehart).

Recorded 7/22/58: My Man's Gone Now; Gone; Gone, Gone, Gone.Personnel: Miles Davis, trumpet and flugelhornTrumpet: Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal, John Coles, Bernie GlowFrench horn: Willie Ruff, Julius B. Watkins, Gunther SchullerTrombone: Jimmy Cleveland, Joseph Bennett, Dick Hixon, Frank RehacSaxophone: Julian Adderley, Danny BanksFlute: Phil Bodner, Romeo PenqueTuba: John "Bill" BarberBass: Paul ChambersDrums: Philly Joe Jones

Recorded 7/25/58: Here Comes De Honey Man; Bess You Is My Woman Now; It Ain't Necessarily So; Fishermen, Strawberry and Devil Crab.Personnel changes: Jimmy Cobb (drums) replaces Philly Joe Jones.

Recorded 8/4/58: Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus); Where Is My Bess; The Buzzard Song.Personnel changes: Jerome Richardson (flute) replaces Phil Bodner.

Recorded 8/18/58: Summertime; There a Boat That's Leaving Soon To New York; I Loves You, Porgy.No personnel changes.

This Columbia High Fidelity recording is scientifically designed ta play with the highest quality of reproduction on the phonograph of your choice, new or old. Ifyou are the owner of a new stereophonic system, this record will play with even more brilliant true-to-life fidelity. In short, you can purchase this record with nofear of its becoming obsolete in the future.

April 8, 2013 6:39 pm


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