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).

Paul Chambers plays the mambo (sort of)

Paul Chambers in 1958
 by Dennis Stock

Boxed multi-disk sets are wonderful, but they can be a challenge to assimilate. Case in point, the sensational Miles Davis - Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings, released in 1996. It comprises six CDs full of music that gave us four albums, so you do the math: it contains a lot of music with a lot of repetition.

However, some attentive listening with the appropriate equipment—enough sound on all frequencies, particularly the bass—can unveil treasures such as Paul Chambers's bass line on take 5 of "New Rhumba".

Gil Evans recycles

Before the career-changing album that was Miles Ahead for both Miles Davis and Gil Evans, the latter was making a living out of odd jobs and small assignments. Like this arrangement of "Miss Brown to You" for Kent Harian, for instance (the only one by Evans in the album Echoes of Joy):

When Harian recorded his album, in December 1956, Evans was already hard at work writing for Miles Ahead, which would be released in October 1957. Only weeks before that release, he was in the studio, courtesy of Prestige—Miles's previous label—, to do Gil Evans & Ten, his first album as a leader, at age 45. One of its better known tracks is his reading of the bloody ballad "Ella Speed", with a classic solo by Steve Lacy, and this passage for the ensemble: