I've gotta hand it to Columbia. The guys are marketing geniuses. Think of the first (and second, and third) Miles Davis albums you picked up and they were probably all from that label. Chances are this was quite likely one of them (my third or fourth, I think). His entire Columbia catalog has been reissued with eye catching packaging, deluxe editions, and extensive liner notes, plus the pitch labels slapped on the front of each CD heralds the album inside as a jazz masterpiece (and usually rightly so).
'Round About Midnight marked the beginning of a transition for Miles Davis that would transform him from just another bebopper into a jazz genius in his own right. First off, he sweat off the drugs and heroin, though deeply problematic for many/most of his sidemen, was off the radar. However, the "new" Miles Davis was increasingly skeptical about the future of bebop, a style he was both immersed in and trying to free himself from. Sessions like Birth of the Cool seemed to indicate he was ready to set off in a new direction, but other than a souped-up "Budo", this album doesn't have much "cool" about it outside of the opening of "'Round Midnight". In fact, with odes to Parker and Gillespie, this album shows Davis still very much in the bebop vein.
Davis would remain on Columbia for the rest of his career. Considering the earlier labels made a bit of a hash out of his early days, it was probably wise for him to stick with the label that upheld him as a jazz legend rather than ones that thought nothing of slapping together moments of genius with hazy heroin-fueled sessions. What Columbia may not have realized was that new styles would rule the day on future albums. Modal jazz would take off in a big way in the small combo recordings, cresting with Kind of Blue in 1959. Then of course there was the experimentation and fusion of the 1960's and 1970's, but that's well-chronicled elsewhere!
No comments:
Post a Comment