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Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall
Columbia/Sony Music
Two-CD set, Rs. 695
RECORDED ON May 19, 1961, at the most famous concert hall in New York City, this double CD features one of the greatest trumpeters of modern jazz leading two different ensembles. For more than half the music Davis has Hank Mobley (tenor saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Jimmy Cobb (drums) for company. On the rest he leads a 21-piece orchestra including Chambers and Cobb and conducted by Gil Evans, who also arranged this part of the music.
Over-arranged and conducted, I'm going to stick my neck out to say, against received wisdom. This part of the concert, like several Davis-Evans collaborations of the time including "Porgy and Bess", has Davis alone soloing against the ensemble play of the rest, with his solos too sounding mostly scored rather than improvised. All good music and true, but hardly jazz.
In fact the strongest jazz element I found on these numbers was the bass playing of Chambers, whose counterpoint melodies running throughout the ensemble play stand out from those passages and seem to have plenty of improvisation.
The quintet numbers, in contrast, are very meaty from a jazz perspective. The bulk of the solos, many of them outstanding, are taken by Davis, Mobley and Kelly, with Chambers too featuring now and then, and also contributing his strong counterpoint.
Davis's playing in general is much more aggressive than the quiet style he had settled into. It's most noticeable on the faster paced pieces, including "So What?", "Oleo", and "No Blues" and is one of the highlights of the album.
Ultimate Bill Evans
Verve/Universal Music
CD, Rs.395
THE COMPILER of this anthology, Herbie Hancock, was, like Bill Evans, pianist in the Miles Davis quintet and then led his own jazz ensembles.
He is uniquely qualified to highlight the work of an innovative senior with whom he shares the attributes of melodic improvisation, harmonic depth, rhythmic sense and originality as a composer.
He selects Evans's work in several contexts: leading a trio with bass and drums; on one track a trio augmented by Stan Getz on tenor saxophone; duetting with the guitarist Jim Hall; playing solo piano; and on a couple of tracks, playing piano thrice over, overdubbed into a single track! In many respects these last tracks (Thelonious Monk's classic "Round Midnight" and the Evans original "NYC's no Lark") are the most interesting, with one of the pianos often playing the part of accompaniment, maintaining harmony and rhythm while another runs through breathtaking solo improvisations.
The duets with Hall too are treats, each musician accompanying the other's improvisations and then the two of them engaged in short solo exchanges.
The lively "Funkallero", another Evans composition, features Getz's cool tenor sax sharing the limelight with Evans, while Ron Carter (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums) too come in for solos.
"I Should Care", a trio number, has interesting interludes in which Evans staggers the rhythm, while on "I Loves You, Porgy", played solo, he plays the theme slow but quickens the pace on the improvisation. Finally, his improvisation of the basic theme on "What Is This Thing Called Love?" is a treat.
JAZZEBEL
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