Miles Ahead in images

Some time ago, I put together Dennis Stock's photos from the first session for Miles Davis's Milestones record.

We now turn to one of the sessions for Miles Ahead, the first Miles Davis/Gil Evans collaboration for Columbia, a relevant LP in Miles Davis's career for its commercial success (the infamous change of covers was made easier by the speed at which runs of prints sold out). The photographs were taken in May 1957 at Columbia's studio on 30th St, Manhattan, and they come from Miles Davis's official website, where they do not carry information on location, date or personnel. From the credits in the Complete Miles/Evans Sony set, we know they were taken by Don Hunstein, Columbia's staff photographer.

Second and final LP cover (source)

The most significant image is the one showing the ensemble (except bass and drums), because it shows the positions of musicians and microphones (a grand total of four were used) to record an orchestra out of balance between the brass (one microphone in the middle for five trumpets, four trombones, two French horns and one tuba) and the "reeds" (one microphone for four chairs sharing alto sax/clarinets/flutes/oboe). As the (almost) only soloist, Davis has his own microphone, and I guess the fourth was for bass and drums, out of frame (click on the images to enlarge them).

Charlie Parker and Chet Baker 70 years ago

In late October of 1953, about 70 years ago, producer Gene Norman—he of the label GNP/Crescendo—organized a mini-tour of the West Coast with two bands. The header was the Dave Brubeck Quartet, with Brubeck on piano, Paul Desmond on alto sax, Ron Crotty on bass, and Lloyd Davis on drums—1953 was a significant year for Brubeck: the quartet recorded Jazz at Oberlin on March 2 and Jazz at College of the Pacific on December 14, a month after that mini-tour.

The other band in the bill was a Charlie Parker quintet with Chet Baker on trumpet, Jimmy Rowles on piano, Carson Smith on bass, and Shelly Manne on drums (Parker and Baker had met the year before in California). As for Parker, on May 15 he had taken part in the famous "Quintet of the Year" concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, and in the second half of the year he would play at the Open Door in New York City, the location of some spectacular recordings and some well-known photographs by Bob Parent.

According to Leif Bo Petersen's chronology, the dates of that tour were as follows:

    October 30: Olympia, WA

    October 31: Seattle, WA

    November 1: Portland, OR

    November 2: Vancouver, BC, Canada

    November 4: Eugene, OR

    November 7: Hollywood, CA

    November 8: San Diego, CA

In Portland, OR, they were snapped by local photographer Carl Henniger:

Carson Smith and Charlie Parker

Steve McQueen's vinyl collection

His ability as an actor aside, Steve McQueen was a photogenic man, as proved by the work of photographers like William Claxton and John Dominis. The latter, who's been featured in this blog before, took this image below, which may be familiar to music lovers.

Steve McQueen in 1963 by John Dominis
©John Dominis/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
(source)

If you're reading this, you've probably wondered what are those LPs spread all over Mr. McQueen's floor (we want to believe he's not stepping on one of them). If that's the case, I think I have been able to identify all the sleeves, even those only partially visible.

The two immediate conclusions are, firstly, that McQueen must have had some direct or indirect contact at Atlantic Records: not only is the label with most LPs in the room, but there seem to be up to three copies of one album.

Secondly, this collection of LPs, mostly stereo, is of its time. Even though LPs recorded and published in the mid-1950s could already considered to be high-fidelity soundwise, from about 1957 recordings are made also in stereo—often in paralel to mono—and towards the end of that decade stereo sound becomes the norm, with the popularity of hi-fi.

Given the rising tide of hi-fi equipment, record labels on the one hand phased out mono sound, and on the other they adapted their existing and still recent mono stock to the new stereo sound, through processes of "remastering" or "rechanneling", which at times didn't amount to much more than playing the same music through both left and right channels with minor differences in equalization or phase in order to give the listener a sense of space, of "stereo". This is the case with at least two of the LPs in the list below, numbers "6" and "14". The rest are LPs published in stereo, except for two instances of mono issues.

I've numbered the LPs in the image below. I've also added links to Qobuz (for audio) and Discogs (for info on the LPs).

Finally, it is quite clear that Mr. McQueen had excellent taste, or he knew how to be advised on musical matters.

(Click on the image to enlarge it)