Name: The Complete Birth of the Cool
Brand: Miles Davis

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

B003044202

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2019-06-28

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

602577850486

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Total Cap

B002946801

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Includes a booklet with archival photographs and an extensive new essay.

2019-05-17

Unive­rsal

602577276408

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2 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Miles Davis

Genre US

Jazz

Label US

Blue Note

Trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and one of the most important figures in jazz music history. Miles Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in his five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz. Born on May 26, 1926 in Alton, Illinois, USA and passed away on September 28, 1991 in Santa Monica, California at the age of 65. He is best known for his seminal modern jazz album "Kind of Blue" (1959), which remains the highest selling jazz album of all time with six million copies sold.Miles Davis studied at an academic school for musicians in NYC where he met Charlie Parker and they started playing together from 1945. In 1948, Miles Davis formed his own ensembles and collaborated with Gil Evans to create The Miles Davis Nonet. Their recordings from 1949 to 1950 resulted in the album "Birth of the Cool" (1957) and laid the foundation for their future collaborations.A pioneer of 'Hard Bop' in the mid-1950s, Miles Davis constantly pushed boundaries throughout his career. In the late 1960s, he ventured into experimenting with electronic instruments and incorporating rock and funk rhythms into his music. Despite health problems leading to a hiatus from playing in the mid-1970s, he made a comeback with an 'electronical' sound in 1980.

The Complete Birth of the Cool documents the huge creative and cultural importance of the Miles Davis Nonet, and marks the 70th anniversary of the initial sessions for the Birth of the Cool album, released in 1957 as a collection of recordings from 1949 and 1950.

The sessions, in a nondescript basement room behind a Chinese laundry in midtown Manhattan, saw a group of kindred spirits and jazz modernists come together to form a groundbreaking collective. They included the jazz-headliners-to-be Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, Max Roach, John Lewis, arranger Gil Evans and, of course trumpeter Miles Davis, then 22, who became the bandleader, helming a creative project for the first time. The nine-piece group worked together in the studio and on stage in 1949 and 1950 to little public reaction at first. It was only seven years later, when their music came together on a full LP for the first time, that its impact was fully realised.

The Complete Birth of the Cool gathers all of the collective’s music in a 2xLP format. It features the 12 sides they recorded in 1949-50 and the ensemble’s only extant live recordings, captured at the Royal Roost. This is the first time since 1957 that the recordings have been remastered for vinyl and the release also marks the first time that all the Birth of the Cool performances, both studio and live, have been available together on LP.

The 2xLP vinyl package will include a booklet with archival photographs and an extensive new essay by the Grammy-winning American music historian Ashley Kahn. “Birth of the Cool was a proving ground of instrumental talent and of approaches,” he writes.

“Each of its participants would develop ideas that came from the project in their own disparate way, collectively leading jazz into a brave, postbop world in the years that followed.” Jazz historian Dan Morgenstern adds: “There can be little doubt that these records triggered the advent of a successor style to bebop.”

When Davis was later asked about the Birth of the Cool title, he said: “I think what they really meant was a soft sound. Not penetrating too much. To play soft you have to relax…” In his 1989 autobiography, he added: “Birth [of the Cool] was not only hummable but it had white people playing the music and serving in prominent roles…we shook people’s ears a little softer than Bird or Diz did, took the music more mainstream.”