transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:03] Miles Davis wasn't always an icon. In the early 50s, he was at his lowest point, personally and professionally. Clubs didn't want the bother, and no label would touch him, except one. Then in 1954, he got clean, formed what would become his first great quintet, and began to rebuild his life and his career. He showed up at the Newport Jazz Festival, a last-minute addition to an all-star group. A Columbia Records producer saw him and tried to sign him on the spot. There was just one problem. Miles still owed his label four albums, so he gathered his amazing band, went into the studio for two days, and walked out a legend.

Speaker 2:
[00:47] I'm Adam Maness.

Speaker 1:
[00:48] And I'm Peter Martin.

Speaker 2:
[00:49] And you're listening to the Youll Hear It podcast.

Speaker 1:
[00:51] Music explored.

Speaker 2:
[00:52] Explored. Brought to you today by Open Studio. Go to openstudiojazz.com for your jazz lesson needs. Peter?

Speaker 1:
[01:00] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[01:01] Good morning. Good morning.

Speaker 1:
[01:02] Guten Morgen.

Speaker 2:
[01:03] So we got a good one today because we're going to be checking out four different albums today. And we've done similar episodes to this. We did this during Herbie Hancock's Headhunter's Run.

Speaker 1:
[01:14] We didn't do four complete records, did we?

Speaker 2:
[01:16] No, no, no, no, no. And we probably won't listen to every track today, obviously.

Speaker 1:
[01:20] I'm going home. Don't depress me. Don't suppress me.

Speaker 2:
[01:24] Just chill, just chill. But we also did this during Bill Evans' trio, The Waltz for Debbie, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, Explorations episode. And these four albums, I mean, we could do an episode on each of these individually, but they go so well together. And the story behind them is so interesting, as you alluded to in that brilliant intro.

Speaker 1:
[01:45] Well, can I, and I just want to have one little quick caveat. We did a little bit of, we took a little bit of editorial license there.

Speaker 2:
[01:51] Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:
[01:52] Cause I said, you know, two days in the studio, just to be clear, those two days were six months apart from each other.

Speaker 2:
[01:57] They were, yeah, they were, they were in May and October, 1956 is when both of these albums were recorded. But all of that is what happened in July, 1955. Miles played the Newport Jazz Festival as a last minute edition. He was really coming off of, and he writes about this in his autobiography, which by the way, I've got right here. Now I don't know if you can see, this is my copy of this. The, I mean, literally Peter, decades of coffee stains.

Speaker 1:
[02:24] I can see that, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[02:25] Look at how brown these pages are.

Speaker 1:
[02:26] Look at the patina on this.

Speaker 2:
[02:27] The patina on this. I mean, this is, I bought this in the 90s, buddy, when this came out.

Speaker 1:
[02:31] Did you leave that in your Ford Escort from the 90s for like 20 years and let the sun come in on it?

Speaker 2:
[02:35] I spent time in every single Chevy S10 I've ever owned.

Speaker 1:
[02:38] It's one of the greatest music biographies because it's an autobiography. It's controversial.

Speaker 2:
[02:43] It's amazing.

Speaker 1:
[02:44] Because I remember when it came out, reading it and I was like, everybody was like, oh my gosh. Controversial because a lot of people said it takes some liberties with the truth, which Miles said that was not true. But it's super fascinating the intersection not only of stuff like what we're going to be talking today, 55, 56, where he goes into depth on that, his memory of it and really just his viewpoint. We feel like we know Miles because of these records. And I'm sorry, I interrupted you were saying, going through multiple records we've done before, but we've never done four records. And I don't know if this exists that we could even do four records from basically two recording sessions. That's pretty incredible.

Speaker 2:
[03:26] It's very incredible. And as we were just talking about too, Miles was coming out of a real low period for him where he had a horrible addiction and he beat it. He was getting stronger. He was kind of reading.

Speaker 1:
[03:42] What did they used to call heroin? It was like a monkey or the something.

Speaker 2:
[03:47] The dragon.

Speaker 1:
[03:48] Dragon. That's what it was.

Speaker 2:
[03:50] And he, but he was, he got clean in 54 and he started re-devoting himself to his music. And, you know, he was signed to Prestige and he was, they were giving like $750 an album. And it was really just kind of like a bargain basement deal that he had. It was not like a prestigious deal. He was not the Miles Davis that we think of at this point. He was really going through it, but he's Miles and he's talented and he's a visionary. And more than anything, he's so confident and knows what he wants and who he is, at least when he's himself. And he describes that, you know, that that person who was on drugs was not him. And that once he was out of that horrible situation, that he got real clarity on what he wanted to do. And luckily he found four compatriots in this band, that they were a real brotherhood for a couple of years. And we'll talk more about that.

Speaker 1:
[04:42] Miles really describes it as his first grade band.

Speaker 2:
[04:45] The way he talks about it in his autobiography is more positive than any other experience that he has musically. I mean, he has a real fondness for this time in this band. And you could hear it in the music. There's so much joy in the music. You could tell that they were a real unit. But he did play when he was sort of getting back on his feet. He played, he was asked to play at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival as a last minute addition to an all-star band that included Monk.

Speaker 1:
[05:11] By George Wein.

Speaker 2:
[05:12] By George Wein.

Speaker 1:
[05:13] Who was the first producer up until just a few years ago.

Speaker 2:
[05:15] And it's really cool. They've released that concert live and you can hear the whole thing. And this is Miles and Monk playing around midnight.

Speaker 3:
[05:42] I hear the seagulls in the background. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[05:44] Fort Adams, Newport. This is good quality recording. You hear the bleed through on the two inch tape.

Speaker 2:
[06:13] There's some really funny stories here in the autobiography about this, about the drive home.

Speaker 3:
[06:18] Back to New York.

Speaker 2:
[06:19] Yeah, they all went back together in a car, and Monk apparently was like, hey, you didn't-

Speaker 1:
[06:22] You messed up my tune.

Speaker 3:
[06:23] You messed up my tune.

Speaker 1:
[06:24] You played the melody wrong.

Speaker 2:
[06:25] And Miles in his autobiography was like, I could have said that I didn't like what you were comping, but I didn't, which is really funny. But George Avakian of Columbia Records heard him at that performance, and was just blown away, and wanted him on Columbia. But as you said in your intro, Miles still had four albums left to record with Prestige. And it's a real fascinating time, Peter, because it's like, not that he had to release with Prestige, as we'll find out, he just had to record them.

Speaker 1:
[06:52] Yeah, it was up to them when they would release.

Speaker 2:
[06:54] Well, that's what's so fascinating is basically, he like starts recording for Columbia immediately. They make what's gonna become Roundabout Midnight before he even makes this stuff. You know what I mean? And then this Prestige stuff is coming out all the way up until 1961.

Speaker 1:
[07:08] Which was by, what was that? Bob Weinstock? Was he the?

Speaker 2:
[07:12] Bob Weinstock. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[07:13] That was a savvy move for him because it was kind of like, let's see what happens with this Columbia, obviously kind of blue, you know, blockbuster albums and stuff for him to drip those out as well. But yeah, it was a fascinating kind of turn of events. And apparently that wasn't Columbia just tried to just, they just were like, oh, we'll just buy out his contract from Prestige. But Prestige was like, no, no, no, like they wanted a crazy amount that even Columbia was like, no, we're not paying that. So it kind of worked out well for Miles, especially in terms of like developing this band, the sets and reps, they were doing a bunch of club dates. Yeah, they were playing famous couple of weeks here in St. Louis.

Speaker 2:
[07:45] That's right. Yeah, Miles talks about those dates in St. Louis, about his family being around and about him feeling so good about everything. And they had a regular gig at the Cafe Bohemia in the Greenwich Village. So they go into the studio for two days and the very next year, the first of these four albums, so they make four albums in two sessions.

Speaker 1:
[08:05] It's crazy. No second takes.

Speaker 2:
[08:07] No second takes apparently, just all Colin tunes. And it's a band that's playing together all the time. It's a band that really love each other, that are like hanging out, having a good time on the road. And you can hear just like the ease at which they do it. And it's a group of masters. It's Miles on trumpet, obviously, John Coltrane on the tenor saxophone.

Speaker 1:
[08:28] Ever heard of him?

Speaker 2:
[08:29] Red Garland on the piano, who I want to go on a bit of a deep dive on. Paul Chambers, PC on the bass, who was the youngest member of the band at 21 and the incredible Philly Joe Jones on the drums.

Speaker 1:
[08:40] Strangely, from Philadelphia.

Speaker 2:
[08:42] Fun fact, Philly Joe from Philly. They start out with releasing Cookin with the Miles Davis Quintet. And it was released August 1957. And it starts with a Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart song, My Funny Valentine.

Speaker 1:
[09:04] The ease with which they just slide into this intro. Man, the confidence and clarity of Miles' sound, that's what he would carry for the rest of his career, really. He was already there.

Speaker 2:
[10:06] That Harmon mute sound. I love the way these albums are recorded too. So good. Very simple sounding recordings. I don't know if they are simply, but it sounds very basic and it works so well.

Speaker 1:
[10:20] Apparently, at that Newport gig, the Harmon was what everybody was going crazy on. Miles talks about it in there and he was like, Oh, I didn't know he would like that. Man, it strikes me how much Red Garland and Paul Chambers, how much of an influence they had on Herbie Hancock. I never really noticed it like that. Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter playing the same tune seven years later once they were in the band, because Miles kept a lot of this repertoire on these records, many of these tunes for years, especially like My Funny Valentine, and did it with the next bands, and kind of had a pretty tight repertoire up until the late 60s, really.

Speaker 2:
[11:07] Absolutely. Well, it's great you mentioned Red Garland, because it was such a huge, incredible collaboration that Miles had with Red, and Miles actually influenced Red by encouraging him to play more like Ahmad Jamal, because Miles, and Miles, again, talked about this quite a bit, that he was influenced by Ahmad Jamal, that he loved the space with which Ahmad played, the way that he was so melodically focused, and he especially loved Ahmad Jamal's light touch on the piano, and told Red Garland, you sound best when you play like that, when you play with that light touch that Ahmad played.

Speaker 1:
[11:51] He said that right before he said, but play what you feel.

Speaker 2:
[11:53] But play with what you see, what you feel. So he did, he encouraged Red to play like Ahmad Jamal, here's Ahmad Jamal at Surrey with the Fringe on Top.

Speaker 1:
[12:05] A lot of the repertoire of Ahmad informed, influenced these records.

Speaker 3:
[12:10] Like five or six of the tunes.

Speaker 2:
[12:11] That's right. Surrey with the Fringe on Top is on these prestige.

Speaker 1:
[12:14] And he plays a couple of Ahmad's tunes, doesn't he?

Speaker 2:
[12:15] So you hear that way up high in the register, light touch. Brilliant.

Speaker 1:
[12:26] Yeah, so good. And I mean, so it's great we're talking about Red Garland because he's, I mean, this is really a quintet. Like there's, Miles, in some ways, as a personality towers over this, but once you get into these records, there's so much, I mean, in a way, Paul Chambers, who's by far the youngest on here, is kind of the one who steals the record in a way because he's just, he's so consistent, he's always there. Philly Joe, of course, is Philly Joe. But I would say Red Garland. All four of these records, I realized, start with, we talk about how important the beginning of records are, and even though we're gonna kind of paint with a broad brush today on these four records, they are four distinct records that were released over a year apart, all of them, I believe. They're pretty stretched out. All four of them start with Red Garland playing by himself. I think that was an intentional thing that Bob and Miles made in terms of the producing this, like with beautiful classic intros.

Speaker 2:
[13:21] Great call, great call.

Speaker 1:
[13:22] And they're all four, I mean, I have kind of my favorite, we'll talk about, but they're all four. I mean, this is the most iconic one, probably, the way that My Funny Valentine's, oh, and then the one when Miles says Black Hordes.

Speaker 2:
[13:33] If I Were a Bell, that's You're My Everything, which is the second tune. So I want to get a little one more track from Cookin. This is Blues by Five. Yeah, you the rhythm says you gon play first. You gon play first, we gon go. Here we go.

Speaker 1:
[13:48] Right on?

Speaker 3:
[13:49] Yeah. You're here.

Speaker 1:
[13:56] On the bass, you know, that's true.

Speaker 2:
[14:01] I love it, man. There's so much studio talk.

Speaker 1:
[14:04] And this... Oh, they just fall into it.

Speaker 2:
[14:09] So, Red Garland doing his Red Spread thing here. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[14:13] And that shadow was not on the original, this was on the remastered version. But the stuff on Relaxing Over Here was all on the original. Yeah. Man, Philly Joe's bombs he drops.

Speaker 2:
[14:28] The greatest, the greatest.

Speaker 1:
[14:32] Oh, back me. The conversation between Miles and Philly Joe, with the space that Miles gives. This is a very influential trumpet. I'm the trumpet player's geek out on this solo.

Speaker 2:
[15:24] So good, man.

Speaker 1:
[15:25] Crazy. And that playing. The major to minor.

Speaker 2:
[15:37] Playing this ass off in this whole run.

Speaker 1:
[16:40] We talk about Charlie Parker, of course, of that mastery of like bebop and blues, like seamless integration.

Speaker 2:
[17:10] All the train stuff is there. So this is from Miles' biography. He talks about their tour, their first tour. On our first tour, after Coltrane joined the group in late September, 1955, we were having a lot of fun together, hanging out, eating together, walking around. From Chicago, we went down to play Peacock Alley in St. Louis. Now, you know, I was gonna have a good time there, and we all did. It seemed like everybody in East St. Louis came over to St. Louis to see me play that week in the middle of October. All my boys that I had gone to school with showed up and it was a gas. I was happy for my family to see me doing all right, off drugs and clean, leading a band and making some money. I could see that my father and mother were proud of me, especially after I told them about all the recording deals that I had going with Columbia and all. Columbia for them was the big time, and it was the big time for me too. Anyway, everything just went beautifully in St. Louis while I was there and throughout the whole tour. I think a lot of people had expected Sunny Rollins to be in the band. Nobody in St. Louis had ever heard of Trane, so a lot of them were disappointed until he played. Then he just fucked everybody up, though some people still didn't like him yet. By the time Sunny Rollins came back from Lexington, New York, Trane was a fixture in the band and had taken over the place reserved for Sunny. And Trane's playing was so bad by then that it even made Sunny go out and change his style, which was a great style, and go back to woodshedding. He even went out on the Brooklyn Bridge a few times, at least that's what someone told me, to find a private place where he could practice. So that little behind the scenes of that sort of shuffling in Miles' band. He was playing with Sunny Rollins for a long time. Sunny leaves, Trane comes in, really establishes himself during this time as this force in the music. And by the time Sunny gets back, there's no spot for him. The train's taking that over.

Speaker 1:
[19:21] Yeah, and I think he had to get Trane. Trane was playing with Jimmy Smith, I think, right before this. They had to, like Philly Joe really lobbied for him, and Miles was a little bit like, I don't know about that. It's like, I heard that guy. So this really is the blossoming of Coltrane. Like this period, you can hear it. You can hear it. This is like the coming out party. And Miles is like control, his phrasing, like his understanding, his use of space. And I mean, I don't want to read too much into it. Read the book if you're interested in this, but Miles definitely walks through this in terms of his life. Like that, I don't want to belabor the stereotype drug addict in jazz. Hollywood's done that plenty of times. But Miles talks about it there, like, you know, about how he went about kicking this habit, the confidence that that gave him. And the, you know, with so many direct musician friends, I mean, like him and Charlie Parker were very close. I didn't realize until I reread that how much, like beyond just an influence and mentor, but Charlie Parker was musically to Miles. But I think Charlie Parker died right before this, like maybe 54, 55, and like that was a big hit to a lot of people. I mean, they were like, Charlie Parker is God. I mean, that was the thing the musicians that looked up to and said. And so I think for Miles, knowing that he was able to beat this drug situation that was very hard. And then he was like, you know what, now I'm doing it. Like I got my band and a lot of people saw him as aloof and all this, he talks about that in there. He's just like, I didn't want to go on the wrong path again and like, I'm here to play music. They're not here to hear me talk. Like he was all about business. You know, the business of like having a great band and then that's, it all started taking off, you know, as it should, right?

Speaker 2:
[21:03] Yeah. Well, Peter, that brings us to the next album, the second album to be released in March of 1958. And it is Relaxin.

Speaker 1:
[21:11] Yeah, this is getting these confused back and forth.

Speaker 2:
[21:13] No, this is an amazing album. And before we talk about Relaxin, it has If I Were a Bell, the iconic If I Were a Bell and the block chords, Fall Star.

Speaker 1:
[21:21] With Red Garland.

Speaker 2:
[21:22] Yeah, and if I could write a book and Olio and it could happen to you and Woody and you.

Speaker 1:
[21:26] Isn't it Olio?

Speaker 2:
[21:27] Olio. I want to talk about Open Studio. openstudiojazz.com, Peter. So we were talking about Red spreads before. And it's something that we teach over there. At least I love to talk about it. It's a spread voicing where you play a simple four note block chord in your left hand and you play these octaves in your right with a perfect fifth in the middle. And Red keeps the perfect fifth, even if that perfect fifth doesn't line up with the key. It sounds weird over a podcast, but I promise you on a video lesson, it makes a lot of sense. So if you're curious to know how these great musicians are making the music, we try to demystify some of that for you at Open Studio. And you and I both have a ton of lessons on, I mean, almost all these tunes, I'm thinking.

Speaker 1:
[22:07] I've done a bunch just on Red Garland's introductions, because I'm in love with his introductions. Of all his different kinds.

Speaker 2:
[22:12] No, I have something on You're My Everything as well, because all of it is so good.

Speaker 1:
[22:15] I just did a lesson on You're My Everything.

Speaker 2:
[22:17] Yeah, but I know you have lessons on When I Fall in Love, If I Were a Bell, It Could Happen to You.

Speaker 1:
[22:23] These are classics, my friend.

Speaker 2:
[22:24] They are classics. So, if you go to opensudiojazz.com/yhi right now, you can start your free trial. That's opensudiojazz.com/yhi for your jazz lesson needs.

Speaker 1:
[22:38] Now, back to the show.

Speaker 2:
[22:40] If I Were a Bell.

Speaker 3:
[22:40] Oh, iconic.

Speaker 2:
[22:42] The greatest.

Speaker 1:
[22:43] Red Garland.

Speaker 2:
[22:44] I'll bled and tell you what it is later. Hold on, hold on. We got to do that again one more time.

Speaker 1:
[22:48] I remember when I first heard this, I was like, damn.

Speaker 2:
[22:52] I'll bled and tell you what it is later.

Speaker 3:
[22:54] That hi-hat.

Speaker 1:
[22:58] RVG knew how to record some drums. Let's put that out there.

Speaker 3:
[23:06] That's swing.

Speaker 2:
[23:07] Do we like it? Yes.

Speaker 3:
[23:09] I mean, it's effortless swing, effortless mastery of swing. Like swing doesn't have to be, kak-ka-choo, kak-ka-choo, kak-ka-choo, kak-ka-choo, kak-ka-choo.

Speaker 2:
[23:17] What are you doing?

Speaker 3:
[23:18] That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:
[23:18] It doesn't have to be that. I'm saying it's elevated. This is swing elevated. You know, you go in the club and it's kind of jankity, and they're like, would you like to go to the other room?

Speaker 3:
[23:28] And everybody's like rich and good-looking and tall.

Speaker 2:
[23:30] This is the champagne room of Swing?

Speaker 3:
[23:32] No, not like the hoochie champagne room. Like the classy champagne room. All right.

Speaker 2:
[23:37] Let's listen. Let's check.

Speaker 1:
[23:40] PC's bass is so up front in this mix.

Speaker 3:
[23:43] We're going to talk about that a little later.

Speaker 2:
[23:46] That's cool because the piano sounds 100 yards away.

Speaker 1:
[23:57] Miles has some perfect solos on here. Go with what you know.

Speaker 3:
[24:03] And a four and a two. How does he make that work?

Speaker 1:
[24:11] I tried that, and this trumpet player threw his valve oil at me.

Speaker 3:
[24:15] Well, you're not Red Garland. You know...

Speaker 1:
[24:33] Miles is playing very St. Louis style trumpeting. You know, it's like swinging clean, though, coming out of Clark Terry. You know, technically proficient. With the bass of having the mix, it's like... It's like two melodies going on, Miles' and Pee-See's, you know?

Speaker 2:
[25:18] It is, it is like a counterpoint, and Red's chords are almost like a snare drum hit.

Speaker 1:
[25:21] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3:
[25:31] You can hear him from a distance. He comes here. He's like, he's like, If I was ever coming, I would have something to say. So great.

Speaker 2:
[25:40] Amazing.

Speaker 3:
[25:40] One take.

Speaker 1:
[25:41] One take. Yeah, all these tunes have that first take energy.

Speaker 3:
[25:47] You notice that?

Speaker 2:
[25:48] No.

Speaker 1:
[25:55] So many great phrases.

Speaker 3:
[25:57] I mean, trenches are a lot of space on here, too. A lot of space. Man, the piece, he's like a machine on this. He's like AI baseline. They turn it around, they turn it around.

Speaker 2:
[27:08] Hot take, are these albums just the biggest flex in music history? Like, first takes, four albums, two days.

Speaker 3:
[27:19] Yeah, very small.

Speaker 2:
[27:21] All right, Red Garland is so swinging.

Speaker 3:
[27:23] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[27:28] Clarity of language.

Speaker 1:
[27:30] Thinness of sound from RBG.

Speaker 2:
[27:33] Just the fluency.

Speaker 1:
[27:34] So good.

Speaker 2:
[27:41] That's the signature of Philly Joe Jones. Move.

Speaker 1:
[27:49] Man, it's kind of... It's kind of stunning when you think about these records. Like, you could be like, oh, these are simple standards, but like, they made them standards for the jazz world.

Speaker 2:
[28:02] Absolutely.

Speaker 1:
[28:03] And there's like, there's no letdown on any of these solos. There's no like, low.

Speaker 2:
[28:07] They're all amazing.

Speaker 1:
[28:08] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[28:08] They're all good.

Speaker 3:
[28:09] And there's no like, well, there's a couple of like, really big, but it's mainly just like, like, you could show up to the gig anytime, you're gonna be happy, you know.

Speaker 1:
[28:17] It's not like, oh, you should have been here for the first set.

Speaker 3:
[28:19] That was really killing.

Speaker 2:
[28:20] No, everything is a banger. I always direct new jazz pianists. Like pianists who are getting to the point where like, I want to transcribe a solo, transcribe some red garland.

Speaker 3:
[28:33] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[28:33] So easy to hear and understand. And also each solo is a little theory lesson. It teaches you how to play the changes.

Speaker 1:
[28:41] It all that like, he does the basics so well, even like the block chords, which is not necessarily that basic. But he does it in a very simple basic way. Like you were saying with the red spreads and the way he goes in, like the usage of it. He's like a taste maker.

Speaker 2:
[28:57] He's a taste maker. And it's not just Ahmad Jamal.

Speaker 1:
[28:59] He's not just these like, it's like a combination of Ahmad Jamal, Nat King Cole, got a little Nat King Cole, Errol Garner, Bud Powell for some of that bebop language.

Speaker 2:
[29:09] Errol Garner.

Speaker 1:
[29:10] Yeah. I wish I could hear a little better over the bass, but nothing like that.

Speaker 2:
[29:32] But honestly, and I know this is the RVG, but I wouldn't change a thing.

Speaker 1:
[29:36] Yeah, no, no, no, I agree. I agree.

Speaker 2:
[29:38] A tone.

Speaker 1:
[29:38] I couldn't imagine it would be. Man, some of this stuff is some of the most copied stuff in modern jazz.

Speaker 2:
[29:47] Just by me.

Speaker 1:
[29:48] Yeah, all of us.

Speaker 2:
[29:50] Oh. Another great studio chatter is the beginning, and this is legendary. This is the beginning to You're My Everything with the false start.

Speaker 3:
[30:04] You're My Everything, Red.

Speaker 2:
[30:07] When you see red light on, everybody's supposed to be quiet.

Speaker 1:
[30:10] You're supposed to be quiet. You're crossing tape then. It's a killing intro.

Speaker 3:
[30:25] Block chords, Red.

Speaker 2:
[30:26] All right, Rudy.

Speaker 3:
[30:27] Block her.

Speaker 1:
[30:51] And like PC just playing. I know. No, sir. Bourbon. Oh, it's double stuff. And like Philly Joe's choices of what not to play here.

Speaker 2:
[31:32] Henry Warren. I'm sorry, Perry Warren. Excuse me. PC just basically playing chords.

Speaker 3:
[31:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[31:51] I mean, PC is overplaying, but it works.

Speaker 3:
[31:54] Like, that's when you know you're a great bass player.

Speaker 1:
[31:58] At the beginning, at first, he's just kind of like, boom, then he's fine, you know, but it's just.

Speaker 2:
[32:03] Any other tracks from Relaxin that you gotta, I mean, honestly, the whole Relaxin.

Speaker 1:
[32:08] Well, if you want, we can wait, because my apex moment is gonna come back.

Speaker 2:
[32:12] We'll get to the next one, which is.

Speaker 1:
[32:14] But wait, actually, can we first, there's some good, can we listen to just the top? Okay, so I'm obsessed with the Studio Chatter on this record.

Speaker 2:
[32:21] It's amazing.

Speaker 1:
[32:22] I think it's some of the best stuff.

Speaker 2:
[32:23] By the way, this was the only one that had the Studio Chatter in the original, right?

Speaker 1:
[32:27] Yes, I think there was a little bit at the end on some things on the other, the only ones with these extended ones at the beginning.

Speaker 2:
[32:33] Because that.

Speaker 1:
[32:34] The Blues by Five, that wasn't original.

Speaker 2:
[32:36] Yeah, yeah. No, but like the, If I Were a Bell.

Speaker 1:
[32:40] Oh yeah, that was always.

Speaker 2:
[32:41] I'll play it and tell you what it is later. Because like.

Speaker 1:
[32:43] Man, I'm gonna tell you that, sorry.

Speaker 2:
[32:44] There's a Honda commercial where he says that. So it must have been a thing. Like in the 80s.

Speaker 1:
[32:48] Miles said it.

Speaker 2:
[32:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[32:49] Yeah, that's cool. But that, can you play it one more time, just that first part?

Speaker 2:
[32:54] I'll play it and tell you what it is later.

Speaker 1:
[32:57] Okay, so this and then the, and then the way he counts that off, that was so inspiring to me when I first heard this record. I don't know why, like his voice, like there's something, I had heard, like this was a very early record for me when I got into jazz, but I definitely heard other stuff. But I'd never heard like a jazz musician talking on a record from like, it was like a ghost, even though Miles was still alive then, you know? And I actually saw him live not that long after and then I got to meet him at, but I mean, the thing about it was something about like, even the way that hi-hat, because you hear all the music that comes later, and so the only other reference point I had for that as I started to get into this music was like live records. And I think that this very much falls in the pantheon, live at the Blackhawk, live at the Plugnickel where you see, but they're not talking as, I mean, and Miles was not talking at all in those records in terms of announcing. There was a little bit maybe, or like live at Carnegie Hall and these different things, but something about the humanity of that and the way, the elegance of how that can go right into the record. It's like, it's not shtick or anything. It's just, you see the flow of the recording. You could imagine because it's got that first take energy and then you find out later as you research it, oh, these were all first takes. They were the only takes. But the confidence and that's just something that's always inspired me when I'm in the studio. It's like, I want to be able to just be like, oh, okay, we're playing. Bam, you're on. And it's not like, okay, come on guys, we got to do this. It's just like, all right, let's go. Let's do it. Time for the professionalism of it. That's what struck me. I was like, damn, how do they do that?

Speaker 2:
[34:31] I mean, some of my most favorite moments are with musicians who, when the red light is on, they are on. And it's like, I mean, I'll never forget the first professional recording session I was on. I made a mistake in a, I was just doing the arrangement. So I just made an arrangement that had a mistake in it. And I got vibed hard by these really great pros. And I won't name names, but they're great people that you've heard of.

Speaker 1:
[34:54] Quincy Jones, Rod Temperton.

Speaker 2:
[34:57] And they were right, because they were like, time is money and they were there to do this session and then serve the music and you got to be on your stuff.

Speaker 1:
[35:02] 12-year-old Adam was like, Surrey, guys!

Speaker 2:
[35:05] I mean, it pushed me to never have that feeling again, for sure, you know what I mean? But it's a great, I honestly love the first take, man. I love the feeling of like freshness and newness. And if you can do it, and I mean, it's not like it's perfect.

Speaker 1:
[35:19] We did it yesterday, didn't we?

Speaker 2:
[35:20] We did. It's not like it's perfect playing, like where everything is perfect, you know what I mean? You got to be able to just take some mistakes with that first take because, or just like not, or imperfections, not mistakes.

Speaker 1:
[35:31] You know what's interesting? Yeah, it's not perfect, but these, I think every one, I mean, some of these tracks I know better than the others, but I've heard them all a lot. I think these tracks, these two sessions, these four records from two sessions, I think they're kind of more perfect. They're not perfect, but I think they have less mistakes than definitely they have any business having being all first takes. That's the amazing thing. But I think it's less than even like Kind of Blue. Like Kind of Blue's got some, Yeah, absolutely. I mean, wonderful mistakes.

Speaker 2:
[35:58] A lot of those are first takes.

Speaker 1:
[36:00] Yeah, that's true. Well, right. But they did multiple takes, I think, on everything. They did two and three, yeah. But I mean, these, I think, no, because they said they were just gonna, they only had time to do one, and that was the plan, like we're gonna go in and knock this out. Now they were working band, they're doing club dates for months at a time.

Speaker 2:
[36:14] Yeah, they're probably playing all these songs live all the time, right?

Speaker 1:
[36:16] But I mean, in general, like some of these solos, and we're gonna get to that on my Apex moment, are like perfect solos one after another, where you're like, I wouldn't change a thing on that. And like the comping, like everything is like, it seems like it was pieced together like a mosaic. I'll put this there, but it was, but it was done in real time, in the studio, in the studio.

Speaker 2:
[36:35] Cool.

Speaker 1:
[36:37] Okay, so we're gonna come back to, we'll come back to something on this.

Speaker 2:
[36:40] Okay. Next up is Workin.

Speaker 1:
[36:43] Oh wait, but there's some more good chatter in here, sorry.

Speaker 2:
[36:45] Oh yeah, what's the chatter?

Speaker 1:
[36:46] Okay, so go to, well, the beginning of Oleo, the beginning of Oleo's group. It's like, you're like, you're getting guys in one. Turn on the red light. Just like we did with it?

Speaker 2:
[37:08] Yeah, watch the tempo, Paul.

Speaker 1:
[37:10] Yeah, let's keep it up there. Keep it up there. That's a great trumpet sound, recording of it.

Speaker 2:
[37:25] This is classic.

Speaker 1:
[37:26] They're phrasing it like exactly together. Swing activated.

Speaker 2:
[37:32] Bud Powell stuff.

Speaker 1:
[37:42] Okay, we can come back to this at Apex.

Speaker 2:
[37:44] Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's good to hear them address things like keep the tempo up. Like these are five masters.

Speaker 1:
[37:54] That's actually the biggest, if you want to find mistakes, there's a lot of tempo fluctuation on these records. And I don't think it ever gets away the music somehow. Like there's one, I think it's Ahmad's Blues or Blues by Five, one of those blues slows way down, but it's so gradual that you never notice it.

Speaker 2:
[38:10] Cool.

Speaker 1:
[38:11] So they were not recording to the click track.

Speaker 2:
[38:12] They did not use a click on these albums. The next one of these albums to get released was Workin with the Miles Davis quintet, released December 1959. Another Miles Davis album.

Speaker 1:
[38:24] That was a long time to hold off three years at that time. Every stuff was getting released like two months later.

Speaker 2:
[38:41] Absolute heartbreaker.

Speaker 1:
[38:45] Okay, can we pause it there for just a second?

Speaker 3:
[38:47] We gotta, no, no, we're gonna get, we get to hear it twice, see?

Speaker 1:
[38:49] We don't know, pause, you know, nothing. Okay, so let's talk about the intro. That's such a, apologies, we're a little out of tune with each other. That's a, I never really, always, these things that are like, actually way simpler than you think they're.

Speaker 2:
[39:03] Don't be snobby about a major triad.

Speaker 1:
[39:04] Yeah. Man, just the simplicity, the beauty of, okay. This is my excuse we get to hear it twice now, okay, see? Don't get fended.

Speaker 2:
[39:16] You good? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:17] I put the O in fended. Is there a little, oh, no, it's the left hand, he's down. It's very cinematic. PC man, making the perfect choice.

Speaker 3:
[40:08] They go back, they commit to that.

Speaker 1:
[41:26] Were musicians just better back then? Is that what it was?

Speaker 2:
[41:29] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[41:31] These weren't old guys. They're like 30 years old.

Speaker 2:
[41:33] 30 years old, yeah. No, they were great.

Speaker 3:
[41:36] They're playing like old dudes.

Speaker 2:
[41:37] I mean, I could.

Speaker 1:
[41:38] And they're playing with the expectation that everyone's gonna do something beautiful throughout the whole damn track, and then they do that. Like, there's no like, oh, what's, are we gonna do something cool? It's just like, no, we got it. Like, they're really playing like old people.

Speaker 2:
[41:53] They're grownups, doing grownup things.

Speaker 1:
[41:54] They're doing grownup things.

Speaker 2:
[41:56] Next up on this album is, This Became a Standard, four.

Speaker 3:
[42:03] This Frilly Play Confidently, I Can't Remember. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[42:07] I mean, yes. This is a Miles Davis original.

Speaker 3:
[42:16] Is this by Miles?

Speaker 2:
[42:18] Eddie Vinson claims he wrote it.

Speaker 1:
[42:20] Yeah. Oh, it reminds me of some Bill Evans compositions.

Speaker 3:
[42:24] I mean, Miles Davis compositions and Funny Rollins. Swing.

Speaker 1:
[42:49] Time to swing. Boom, roasted.

Speaker 2:
[42:54] I mean, these albums are...

Speaker 3:
[42:57] These are like jam session records. It's like the greatest jam session ever.

Speaker 2:
[43:00] But they are what I think people who think, who don't know about jazz, this is what jazz sounds like. Right. Sounds like this.

Speaker 1:
[43:08] Well, I don't know about that. If that was the case, everyone would love jazz.

Speaker 2:
[43:12] They should. They should start here. These are great albums to give people as a starting point.

Speaker 1:
[43:16] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[43:18] Kind of Blue is such a singular album. It's still its own thing. But these are a great entree into what you're going to get with the best of jazz. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[43:28] But don't you feel like that, especially some of the ballads on here, they're very closely connected, except for the production, the sound, even of Miles, that's the main separation between that and Kind of Blue. Like Miles is very much, it's not like people make it like, oh Kind of Blue, Miles started playing modal. He was already doing that on here. But that recognized such a distinctive sound and concept. But to me, Miles is already there in terms of the beautiful phrasing, the harmon mute, the ability to connect with the audience, like on a gateway level, with the beauty of it.

Speaker 2:
[44:01] It's true.

Speaker 1:
[44:02] And there's, it's a different kind of swing.

Speaker 2:
[44:03] It's a different kind of swing.

Speaker 1:
[44:04] It's a different kind of swing. That's that Jimmy Cobb, Philly Joe Jones. That's that beautiful diversity of approaches that...

Speaker 2:
[44:11] Great take of Dave Rubeck's In Your Own Sweet Way.

Speaker 1:
[44:15] Yeah. Man, Philly comes in late on a bunch of stuff, and I'm here for it every time.

Speaker 3:
[44:24] The way he does it is so cool, man.

Speaker 1:
[44:33] I think they're listening to each other.

Speaker 2:
[44:37] Train solo on this.

Speaker 1:
[44:38] Oh, so great. And Miles is like, he's already at his technical peak, I think. He maintained it for a while, especially with the harmonies. Let's suss it out, baby. Train with that almost no vibrato.

Speaker 3:
[45:33] Right, just playing the note.

Speaker 2:
[45:51] Just using the melody to start the solo.

Speaker 3:
[45:53] Yeah. Man, it's...

Speaker 1:
[45:55] For them to record so many tunes in a day, it's kind of stunning to how... I just want to say the consistency of these. Like, you would think, you're recording all that, and a certain thing, you'd be like, oh, you wouldn't really be locked in. Like, they're hitting a high level, but that's also the great thing about doing one take. If you can nail it, now you're saving your energy to be able to do twice, three times as much material, which is basically what they did. But there's some other stuff, like before this, Miles was, like, they used to do three recording sessions in a day, literally three records in a day sometimes, you know, but they was shorter. That was the 10 inch instead of the, this was the 12 inch. All right. Do we want to listen to anything else on Workin? Workin's great.

Speaker 2:
[46:34] I mean, there's so much on all of these. The only drag about doing all four albums in an episode is we can't actually listen to all like 30 something tracks or whatever.

Speaker 1:
[46:42] You want to move on to Steamin?

Speaker 2:
[46:43] Let's go on to Steamin. The last one, this was released in August 61.

Speaker 1:
[46:47] Dude, this is like another generation.

Speaker 2:
[46:49] Like five years after they recorded almost.

Speaker 1:
[46:51] The Beatles are out by now.

Speaker 2:
[46:51] I know, it's crazy. And this does start-

Speaker 3:
[46:54] Jazz is dead by the time this comes out.

Speaker 2:
[46:57] This does start. By the way, Miles talks about this too, about this string of albums. He says that this band and these albums made him famous. They made him well known to a wider audience. They made his music, you know-

Speaker 1:
[47:11] You say wider or whiter, cause it was both. It was both.

Speaker 2:
[47:13] It was.

Speaker 1:
[47:14] He talks about that.

Speaker 2:
[47:15] Yeah, he talks about that. And it just made him a superstar.

Speaker 1:
[47:18] This is when he got with the first really big booking agents. I mean, he had played and toured a lot, but this was like him.

Speaker 2:
[47:26] He's now Miles. After they record, he walks out of that second session and he is now Miles with this band and this music. And then he's releasing stuff on Columbia. This whole time too, Peter. By the way-

Speaker 1:
[47:36] Big records, big records.

Speaker 2:
[47:37] 57, Birth of the Cool, the whole album finally gets released.

Speaker 1:
[47:41] Right, 10 years later.

Speaker 2:
[47:42] There's tenages speaking of those, 10 years later. So he's having this moment in the late 50s, obviously.

Speaker 1:
[47:48] I don't think they were, one thing they weren't great in the record industry back then was exclusive contracts. They hadn't mastered that concept.

Speaker 2:
[47:54] Listen, if you go to Miles Davis' discography, it's like during this time, it's like Prestige was released one, Columbia was released one.

Speaker 1:
[48:00] Dial, Suburial.

Speaker 2:
[48:01] Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[48:02] Random.

Speaker 2:
[48:03] It's all these rando labels that are releasing Miles Davis albums. Had to saturate the market a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[48:08] And then he played on at least one, Blue, well, that was, no, that was.

Speaker 2:
[48:12] Cannonball's something else?

Speaker 1:
[48:13] Oh, that was Cannonball's record, that's right. That was Blue Note.

Speaker 2:
[48:15] Blue Note.

Speaker 1:
[48:15] That was Blue Note. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[48:17] So we talked about Ahmad Jamal and Surrey with the Fringe on Top. We listened to that a little bit. That is what starts out the final recording here of Steamin with the Miles Davis Quintet. Again, released August, 1961. Another Red Garland entry.

Speaker 1:
[48:33] Yeah, he starts every record. He starts pretty much every tune, also.

Speaker 2:
[48:39] This is from the musical Oklahoma, which Lorenz Hart was not a fan of. You ever saw the film Blue Moon?

Speaker 1:
[48:49] Neither was Ethan Hawke was not a fan.

Speaker 2:
[48:51] Incredible. Incredible. Just the whole movie, him just shitting on Oklahoma is great.

Speaker 1:
[48:56] It's a corny song with the words.

Speaker 2:
[48:58] Yeah, with the words, but this is not good.

Speaker 1:
[49:00] Ahmad divvied up.

Speaker 2:
[49:03] Chicks and ducks and geese.

Speaker 3:
[49:04] Listen. Red, just doing those tents down there.

Speaker 1:
[49:12] There's a lot of subtle arrangements. You think, oh, they're just playing it like a jam session. But there's a lot of arrangements. Even on the balance.

Speaker 3:
[49:19] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[49:20] You are my everything. It's very sophisticated arrangement, very simple.

Speaker 2:
[49:25] What's that blues they end on? It's him. I forget on the end of one of those blues. They end on this like him vibe.

Speaker 1:
[49:30] Beard blues.

Speaker 3:
[49:31] The Trane blues.

Speaker 2:
[49:32] It might be the Trane blues.

Speaker 1:
[49:36] Like this.

Speaker 3:
[49:41] A little counterpoint line. Do you think I like 3-6-5's on this record?

Speaker 1:
[50:34] Man, Philly must have been a great listener beyond music.

Speaker 3:
[50:38] Maybe not, that'd be funny if he didn't.

Speaker 1:
[50:39] He listens so well.

Speaker 3:
[50:41] He's like the guy that's like, yeah! You know, like, he's all, yeah!

Speaker 2:
[50:45] He's like, yeah, buddy, I know exactly what you're talking about. Man. I'm going to skip ahead a little bit. I want to hear some more red. We haven't heard nearly enough red garland. Whoo!

Speaker 3:
[51:08] It's insane. Like, how do they do it?

Speaker 2:
[51:10] It's all good. It's all famous, dude. No.

Speaker 1:
[51:17] That's a tough little tasty part of the piano to pull off. Man, PC and Philly are dialed. They are locked in the ride and the bass. This is almost like a Jimmy Cobb kind of...

Speaker 2:
[51:35] Hi-hat's perfect.

Speaker 3:
[51:36] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[51:37] Like, dynamically.

Speaker 1:
[51:38] Right. Newsflash.

Speaker 3:
[51:41] Philly Joe can play the hi-hat.

Speaker 2:
[51:43] Philly Joe Jones, the greatest. I've been saying that a lot on this episode, but these guys are just so next level, man.

Speaker 1:
[51:51] I think that's the other thing, is like, the level, it's not... Like, Train is not, like, just... He's cutting loose, but he's not, like, another level.

Speaker 3:
[52:00] He's not from everybody.

Speaker 1:
[52:01] Like everybody is right in the A tier or S tier.

Speaker 2:
[52:03] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[52:04] What's the highest one?

Speaker 2:
[52:05] S tier.

Speaker 1:
[52:05] Like this, it's very even, even Miles.

Speaker 2:
[52:07] That's true.

Speaker 1:
[52:07] You know?

Speaker 2:
[52:08] Well, this is one of the good, it was going to be one of my hot takes, and I'll do it now because you just mentioned Trane is not like outrageous. Yeah. Trane is not quite Trane yet. That's the thing. He's just getting his Trane this together. But this isn't 1961, 1963 Trane.

Speaker 1:
[52:23] Where everyone's trying to keep up with him.

Speaker 2:
[52:25] Yeah. This is like him still kind of gathering his sound together.

Speaker 1:
[52:29] He's still looking over his shoulder for Sonny Rollins is what it is.

Speaker 2:
[52:32] Yeah. Honestly, he's about to, we mentioned Miles coming out of his lowest point to make this. Trane's heading to his lowest point during this time, and eventually gets fired from this band. Like basically, Miles and him get an altercation in a dressing room a couple of years later because Trane was having addiction issues of his own.

Speaker 1:
[52:49] Which Miles could have been a little more understanding, haven't gone through that, but.

Speaker 2:
[52:52] Miles is a business man, he's trying to run a band. So Sonny Rollins actually comes back into the band after that. But Trane would get clean and do this exact same thing. Trane would get clean and refocus his efforts and become that mammoth player that he became. It's so funny because those two musicians, even though they're the same age, had this similar arc at different periods. I mean, we could listen to every tune. Salt Peanuts. Yeah. First time I heard it, I thought someone threw a drum kit down the stairs.

Speaker 3:
[54:10] Oh, effortless swing, relax.

Speaker 2:
[54:12] So fast to be that relaxed, literally.

Speaker 3:
[54:14] There's none of this.

Speaker 2:
[54:19] We don't think about Red as this chops monster, but Red's like... That's choppy as hell. That's choppy as hell.

Speaker 3:
[54:38] I like Miles kind of scrubbed up that, but he came back and played it again. He's like, I'm gonna get that shit. You hear that?

Speaker 1:
[54:45] Oh, cause this is not Miles' like, you know, for, yeah, that's killing though, man.

Speaker 2:
[54:50] I love too that these are a mix, you know, this kind of is the blueprint too, for how post-bop, like hard bop jazz would be for a while. Like there's a mix of great American songbook standards and of standards by their contemporaries, like there's, you know, Sonny Rollins, Olio, Woody and You. They got, on this album, there's a Monk tune, Well, You Need It, which has controversial changes as well. There's Aragé, Sonny Rollins.

Speaker 1:
[55:26] Although When I Fall in Love is great. Yeah, this is all bangers. This is all the ballads, the mid-tempo, the couple of really up-tempo.

Speaker 2:
[55:34] The last track on the album, When I Fall in Love.

Speaker 1:
[55:36] This is so great. So this was... This was... This is the template that George Clean wanted at the beginning of Good Night, Good Luck.

Speaker 2:
[55:56] Oh, that's what he said.

Speaker 1:
[55:57] D'Angelo, you sing it. And this is like the tempo we did it in every day.

Speaker 3:
[56:00] The same tune.

Speaker 1:
[56:05] I'm sorry, D'Angelo, you sing it.

Speaker 3:
[56:07] That's right.

Speaker 2:
[56:12] Should we get George on the phone?

Speaker 1:
[56:13] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[56:14] Can we get, Sam, can we get George Clean on the phone?

Speaker 3:
[56:16] Friend of the Pod? Well, friend of ours.

Speaker 1:
[56:17] I don't know about friend of the pod, but we didn't mention the pod in the song, right?

Speaker 2:
[56:21] He assumed he already knows.

Speaker 3:
[56:23] Of course. We'd like to rub it in his face.

Speaker 2:
[56:27] All right, Peter, this is a blast. You have on here, we had our If I Were a Bell from Relaxin. I'll play it and tell you what it is later. Right?

Speaker 1:
[56:34] The hi-hat.

Speaker 2:
[56:35] You have a couple here that I really like from 1961, another version with Miles.

Speaker 1:
[56:40] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[56:43] Who's this bandito?

Speaker 1:
[56:45] This is a few years later. That's Wynton Kelly. This is the Blackhawks. The Blackhawks in San Francisco, Saturday night.

Speaker 3:
[56:54] So it's a little bit, not much faster.

Speaker 1:
[56:59] Same hits, same arrangement.

Speaker 2:
[57:02] But then, four years after that, 10 years after they recorded the original, The Plugged Nickel.

Speaker 1:
[57:08] They're still playing the tune.

Speaker 2:
[57:09] Avant-garde-ish.

Speaker 1:
[57:10] Yeah. Chatter, still, well, live chatter.

Speaker 2:
[57:17] Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock. This is freaking fast. When's the Plug Nickel album?

Speaker 1:
[57:42] Deconstructed, oh. Which one?

Speaker 2:
[57:44] Plug Nickel Show? Box set?

Speaker 1:
[57:47] I'm down for it.

Speaker 2:
[57:47] The 90s box set?

Speaker 1:
[57:48] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[57:50] Yeah, so there's a bunch of these things.

Speaker 2:
[57:52] They're just painting the abstract at that point.

Speaker 1:
[57:54] But that was like Miles, man. Miles took this and, you know, and he was thrifty with the material. He knew how to take this stuff through different bands. Let's talk about some categories, my friend.

Speaker 2:
[58:04] Yeah, Desert Island track. We could do a track, why don't we do a track and an album?

Speaker 1:
[58:08] I like it.

Speaker 2:
[58:08] Okay. Cause there's four albums.

Speaker 1:
[58:10] So mine, I've always been drawn to Relaxin. Now I think part of that, that was the first one I had of all these, but I think it's the strongest from beginning to the end. But I'm also a little bit like, because all the studio chatter on it, I love that so much.

Speaker 2:
[58:23] Yeah, it's either Relaxin or Steamin for me, but I'm going to go with Relaxin too. I think Relaxin is an S tier Miles Davis album.

Speaker 1:
[58:29] It's incredible. And then for the track, I would say Olio off of there. And it's going to be one of my Apex moments.

Speaker 2:
[58:37] Let's hear your Apex moments.

Speaker 1:
[58:38] My Apex moment is the whole track. But no, the transition, we kind of go towards the end of Miles' solo. I think Miles' solo is so good, but I think Trane's really the way he starts his solo, but the transition, like Miles pretty much plays a perfect solo. And PC is walking perfect lines. But the way Trane starts his solo, we're not there yet, but. But this last eight bars. And then it overlaps.

Speaker 2:
[59:33] Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:
[59:35] This is the first Trane solo I ever learned. I was like.

Speaker 2:
[59:40] It's a good one. You can really hear everything without the drums.

Speaker 1:
[59:47] Oh, and then Philly right here.

Speaker 3:
[59:52] It's like a, like a Buick Hall thing.

Speaker 1:
[59:56] Street Beat.

Speaker 2:
[59:57] I mean, honestly, you could put any of the transitions between Miles and Trane. I know. Between Miles and Trane, any of those transitions could be an apex. Like we've talked about it before. This is the greatest hands off in jazz history.

Speaker 1:
[60:08] And this band in general, okay, now we're hitting on it. The masters of the transition, the introductions, like going between soul, like, you know, Philly Joe Jones.

Speaker 2:
[60:18] Little details. I mean, these are head charts, right? But those little details make them really, really special.

Speaker 1:
[60:23] And a lot of that stuff, it's so, like you try to do some of this, like we all have, and it's like, it didn't quite sound like, because the inspiration, the impetus for them to play it at the time was so, like, they had such an awareness of the kind of overall arrangement. And nobody's being greedy on here. And like, even like Philly Joe is probably the most obtrusive, but he's being obtrusive, like, hey, hey, like at the right times, you know, and he like, Miles, like he's coming in. So like, there's this honoring of the overall architecture that really makes all these little details and transitions work great. What's your Apex moment?

Speaker 2:
[60:58] Well, hold on. I got, I still have a Desert Island. So definitely my album is Relaxin, but my track ironically is this. It diverted my mind. The first track on Workin.

Speaker 1:
[61:12] One of the great starts to an album ever.

Speaker 2:
[61:14] It's unbelievable. It breaks my heart every single time.

Speaker 1:
[61:17] Even this part. And then when Miles comes in, forget it.

Speaker 2:
[61:19] No, the whole thing, man. But this, but you know, this piano line specifically, because it's and like PC. Honestly, can I, you know, can I be, we're about to do some some radio head on the show.

Speaker 1:
[61:33] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[61:34] There's like radio head pulls from this kind of stuff. You know what I mean? Like this kind of ethos is right in my wheelhouse. And it's honestly also very Ahmad Jamal-ish that to have that line like that on that line. All right. My, so we got your Apex moment.

Speaker 1:
[61:51] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[61:52] My Apex moment is from If I Were a Bell. And it is that Trane also entrance.

Speaker 1:
[61:59] You know what? That was my original one. Trane solo break on If I Were a Bell.

Speaker 2:
[62:04] I think it's the greatest.

Speaker 1:
[62:05] It's so good.

Speaker 2:
[62:06] I mean, it's so funny. We both picked, we both picked Trane entrances.

Speaker 3:
[62:13] It's one of the greatest solo breaks ever.

Speaker 1:
[62:15] But Miles sets it off for a little bit.

Speaker 3:
[62:17] Up a minor note.

Speaker 2:
[62:18] The fact that he's far away from the mic and walking towards the mic playing what he's playing.

Speaker 1:
[62:22] You're feeling, you're feeling the presence in the studio.

Speaker 2:
[62:25] I'll never forget the first time I heard it.

Speaker 3:
[62:26] I almost fell over.

Speaker 1:
[62:28] Great production.

Speaker 3:
[62:35] I still, I still, I'm freaking out.

Speaker 1:
[62:38] Red's doing the perfect thing. Philly does the perfect initial fill.

Speaker 2:
[62:42] I mean, it's still, you're right, it still gives you chills.

Speaker 1:
[62:44] It's one of the greatest solo breaks. I mean, it's like Louis Armstrong, West End Blues. I mean, it's like up there. Cause that's the thing, like you take one little solo line, solo break, because you know, the architecture, like the placement of it, but it's just one line. It's the awareness of what's happening around it. You know, it's like if you built this door, a beautiful door, it's just like sitting on the sidewalk.

Speaker 2:
[63:05] Go on, go on, paint your picture.

Speaker 1:
[63:06] You know what I'm saying? It's just sitting on the sidewalk. But now all of a sudden, but then you place it in a building where it's like, whoa.

Speaker 2:
[63:11] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I could picture it now.

Speaker 1:
[63:14] You don't go in buildings?

Speaker 2:
[63:15] You don't open door?

Speaker 1:
[63:16] Hey man, when one door closes.

Speaker 2:
[63:17] I love that you're always like, it's like you have metaphors ready to go, Peter. You have these like imagery. You're an author, man. You're an Autur. Autur, bespoke playlist title. What do you got? If this was a playlist on Spotify, this four, what do you got?

Speaker 1:
[63:34] Well, the one I really want to do is New Jersey Audiophile.

Speaker 2:
[63:38] Well, it's not bad. It's not bad.

Speaker 1:
[63:41] Because this is recorded in Jersey at a certain place. But I'm actually gonna call this one, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna do Indy Club.

Speaker 2:
[63:49] Indy Club.

Speaker 1:
[63:50] Like 50 Cent.

Speaker 2:
[63:51] Why?

Speaker 1:
[63:52] Indy Club. Because this has the, this.

Speaker 2:
[63:56] Your Spotify playlist titles always have a duh or.

Speaker 1:
[64:01] I'm from the streets, man. What can I say?

Speaker 3:
[64:03] A Z. I like to add Z.

Speaker 1:
[64:04] Martins. No, the reason is like Indy Club because Bespoke Playlist, there's other stuff on there, right? And so I'm thinking Plug Nickle, Black Hawk. Cause this is like, it's a studio record, but to me it's a live record. It's a working band that's been in the clubs.

Speaker 2:
[64:17] I don't think this is the first time.

Speaker 1:
[64:19] Ahmad Live at the Pershing, that would be on there too.

Speaker 2:
[64:21] Indy Club.

Speaker 1:
[64:21] Indy Club, DA.

Speaker 2:
[64:23] Mine, my Bespoke playlist title is Contractual Obligations. And it's just albums where the artist made it. It's like, Hear My Dear. Right, that's how it is, you know.

Speaker 1:
[64:33] So when you say Contractual Obligations with a Z.

Speaker 2:
[64:36] We can, we can. What are your quibble bits?

Speaker 1:
[64:42] Quibble bits. Actually, for me, the only quibble bit I have on this is.

Speaker 2:
[64:48] Actually, can we make, I wanna change the name of this category.

Speaker 1:
[64:50] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[64:51] Quibble bits or hot takes.

Speaker 1:
[64:53] Okay. Okay, how you just.

Speaker 2:
[64:55] So you can either do a quibble bit.

Speaker 1:
[64:56] Your hot take is that you're changing the quibble bits.

Speaker 2:
[64:58] Well, the problem is that sometimes I don't have a quibble bit and I really got to reach for one.

Speaker 1:
[65:01] We can just say, you know, we've said none before.

Speaker 2:
[65:03] But a hot take is like the opposite of a quibble bit. It's like, I got a hot take.

Speaker 1:
[65:06] Did I have quibble bits on Money Jungle? I can't remember. Okay, so my quibble bit on this, and it's definitely a quibble bit, not a hot take, but it's very slight is the bass sound, oddly enough. But I have to qualify this.

Speaker 2:
[65:20] Oh, I'm sorry, you don't love great bass sounds?

Speaker 1:
[65:23] This, I don't think is a great bass sound, but it's so far up in the mix.

Speaker 2:
[65:27] That might be a hot take, honestly.

Speaker 1:
[65:29] Maybe so. PC's playing so good and hearing the lines, it affects the music a lot, I think actually in a very positive way. So the placement in the mix I'm cool with, I just don't think it's a super, do you have any of it isolated, any of the bass?

Speaker 2:
[65:41] Yeah, I do, actually.

Speaker 1:
[65:42] I just don't think it's like, I've heard more natural, like actual sound, how PC sounded. To me, this doesn't, it sounds good. It's a little, like a little bit of a nasal, I know it's not an amp, but it just doesn't sound super natural to me. But it's, I get it, I mean, like, he's got it pushed up in the mix. It's very clear. It's just, it's not super natural. But this is a small quibble bit for me. The piano sound on this record is actually, I'm okay with.

Speaker 3:
[66:13] I'm okay with that.

Speaker 1:
[66:15] You have some artifacts here.

Speaker 2:
[66:16] Okay, interesting. I have a hot take. I don't have any quibble bits, honestly. I do have a hot take. Hear me out. I'm listening. This is the greatest rhythm section in the history of recorded music. That is hot.

Speaker 3:
[66:28] That's red hot.

Speaker 2:
[66:29] No, it's a hot take. The greatest rhythm section in the history of recorded music. I think PC, Philly Joe and Red Garland, specifically that unit.

Speaker 1:
[66:37] Can't they just be great? Why do they have to be the greatest ever?

Speaker 2:
[66:39] Well, cause it's a hot take.

Speaker 1:
[66:40] So Tony Williams, Ron Carter and Herbie boo.

Speaker 2:
[66:43] No, no, no, no, no one's booing anybody. I think this is, I think if it, okay, if it's not the greatest, because I realized that is.

Speaker 1:
[66:51] Wow, you fell off that mountain quickly.

Speaker 2:
[66:52] I mean, I was trying to be a, I was trying to get a hot take going. I just think, let's put it this way. There's nobody better. There's nobody better than these three musicians. And let me tell you why.

Speaker 1:
[67:04] And playing this music, like this kind of arrangements, this period, I could agree that it's the best.

Speaker 2:
[67:10] Let me be specific of why. All three of them as a unit are so swinging. The groove is so incredible, right? There's those little details, the transitions, the intros, the things that they play together, the way the ride cymbal and the bass lock up, the way Red Garland does his red rhythm, which is like that and to four and to two anticipates.

Speaker 1:
[67:29] He just calls that rhythm.

Speaker 2:
[67:30] I know he does, but we have to classify it for contractual obligations. But the way that they work together as a unit supporting other soloists is as good as it can get. And then on top of that, all three of them are world-class, like top tier, S-tier soloists in their own right. Red Garland is just a complete monster on these albums. He is crushing every solo. I mean, crushing every solo. Incredible language, fluent language, choppy when he needs to be, big spread chords like Errol Garner, like we mentioned. Philly Joe plays some Arco solos on here that are unbelievable. He's one of the greatest bass soloists ever, and sorry, PC, and Philly Joe is playing some of the greatest, like most transcribed drum solos in history straight ahead music. I just think that individually, they're all the greatest soloists on their instrument at this era, and then, or arguably, some of the greatest soloists on their instruments in this era, and then as a unit, they are an unstoppable engine of swing under Trane and Miles. And I just think there's no one better.

Speaker 1:
[68:37] So in summary, you love this rhythm section. You got it. Check mark.

Speaker 2:
[68:40] They're right. Stomometer, what do you got?

Speaker 1:
[68:42] Five. Straight five.

Speaker 2:
[68:44] I got a four, so we're not too far off there.

Speaker 1:
[68:46] That's a couple weeks in a row we've been five.

Speaker 2:
[68:48] Yeah, we've been, well, because this is, I think it is fair, like I said, you could show this to someone as their first jazz album, and you wouldn't go wrong, right? These beautiful ballads.

Speaker 1:
[68:56] So that would make it lower.

Speaker 2:
[68:57] Well, lower than a five for me. But there's still John Coltrane on here, doing some stuff that, like, there's still...

Speaker 1:
[69:04] But this is some of the most accessible Coltrane, wouldn't you say?

Speaker 2:
[69:08] Besides maybe, like, Blue Train or something like that. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[69:11] Well, even that, he's kind of going crazy.

Speaker 2:
[69:12] He's kind of going crazy, yeah. But, no, this is a solid in the middle.

Speaker 1:
[69:15] Yeah, this is TaylorMade5.

Speaker 2:
[69:17] Okay, the big question.

Speaker 1:
[69:19] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[69:19] Is it better than Kind of Blue? You have no.

Speaker 1:
[69:22] Well, in total, I have no. I mean, I could almost say Relaxin would be equal for me.

Speaker 2:
[69:29] So you don't like Red Garland.

Speaker 1:
[69:30] I love Red Garland. I think Red Garland, I'm gonna say no.

Speaker 2:
[69:35] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[69:35] What are you saying?

Speaker 2:
[69:35] Wow, I'm shocked.

Speaker 1:
[69:37] I don't think it's which, are we saying one in particular? Like I was so relaxed and I feel like it's the strongest. That's what I'm taking. I'm very close, but I'm not saying better than.

Speaker 2:
[69:46] I'm saying equal to kind of blue.

Speaker 1:
[69:47] But that is, the question is not, is this better, equal or lesser? It's a binary question. I've never said, I've said maybe.

Speaker 2:
[69:55] Pardon me?

Speaker 1:
[69:55] I've said maybe. Okay, sorry. Hypocrite, thou art and joy soi, un hypocrite.

Speaker 2:
[70:02] Akutra Mons, can we ask Chet GPT who did these out in the first place?

Speaker 1:
[70:06] I got a nine on these. Cause I really like them. We don't know a lot. We're not going to go in deep, only cause we don't have time. We know all about it.

Speaker 2:
[70:12] Oh yeah, we know.

Speaker 1:
[70:13] But I do like the one with Reid Miles. That one's cool. I mean, actually I love them all. That one's different.

Speaker 2:
[70:19] I absolutely love them all. I also agree, nine is the way to go.

Speaker 1:
[70:21] That's fun that Prestige had a blue note looking cover. That's cool. But they're all really, they're great.

Speaker 2:
[70:27] Up next, what do you got?

Speaker 1:
[70:28] KOB.

Speaker 2:
[70:30] Why not? Round Midnight. Same era. Round Midnight is the same band on Columbia.

Speaker 1:
[70:37] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[70:38] I'm gonna say Round Midnight because that's a fun one.

Speaker 1:
[70:40] Okay, other albums that you might want from that.

Speaker 2:
[70:42] Round About Midnight.

Speaker 1:
[70:43] Round About Midnight, right. Oh, we don't have to do that. Good. Man, this was fun.

Speaker 2:
[70:47] Awesome blast.

Speaker 1:
[70:48] So if you guys like to get some behind the scenes stuff, we have a newsletter. Don't tune out now because we got other fun stuff coming. Not really. We have a newsletter. Go to youllhearit.com and we have some other accoutrements of ourselves. Actually, to be honest, I haven't been on youllhearit.com in months, but I hear this fun stuff.

Speaker 2:
[71:03] Come on, you spend all your free time on the chat board on youllhearit.com.

Speaker 1:
[71:08] There's no chat board.

Speaker 2:
[71:09] I don't know. I've never been there.

Speaker 1:
[71:10] Do we still have the speak pipe?

Speaker 2:
[71:12] We do have a speak pipe. You can leave us a message and we'll listen to it.

Speaker 1:
[71:15] We don't know where it goes.

Speaker 2:
[71:17] But hey, if you do want to go on a deeper dive on any of this musical stuff, don't forget to go to openstudiojazz.com/yhi. That's openstudiojazz.com/yhi. And you can sign up for a free trial and get lessons from Peter Martin.

Speaker 1:
[71:27] That's right. Good stuff, good stuff.

Speaker 3:
[71:29] All right.

Speaker 1:
[71:29] Well, till next time, Youll Hear It.