Some of you have heard the buzz and some may have seen a premiere of the Grammy-nominated “Best Music Film,” Miles Davis; Birth of the Cool, the documentary directed and produced by renowned Stanley Nelson. This is the audio companion. The film’s U.S. broadcast premiere will be part of “American Masters” the award-winning biography series ” on Tuesday, February 25 at 9 PM (EST) on PBS channels nationwide. To those who are well familiar with Miles’ music it may beg the question of why one needs to hear the career-spanning soundtrack. There are at least three reasons: a) it’s impossible to find a career-spanning collection of Miles that one could get in a single listen, b) the soundtrack has complete, or at least longer renditions of the tunes than just the snippets in the film, and c) it has some previously unreleased material.
The soundtrack was curated by the director Nelson and paired with short audio excerpts from the film for a unique listening experience. It brings together recordings and performances spanning labels and the artist’s musical evolution–from “Donna Lee” (a 1947 Savoy master take with legendary alto saxophonist Charlie Parker) to “Moon Dreams” from the groundbreaking 1949 Capitol sessions that were ultimately collected on the album Birth Of The Cool, through the seminal 1950s pieces for Columbia that revolutionized the worlds of jazz and popular music (including “Generique,” Miles’ improvised soundtrack to Louis Malle’s “Elevator to the Gallows” as well as tracks from Miles Ahead and, of course the most popular jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue). The film footage for these aspects is quite good by the way.
The album also highlights Miles’ evolution in the 1960s with tracks from Sketches of Spain and Someday My Prince Will Come to his iconoclastic invention of electric jazz/fusion (exemplified in a 45rpm single edit of “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down” from Bitches Brew). And it documents his triumphant mid 1980s comeback (1986’s Tutu), while premiering a brand-new track, “Hail To The Real Chief.” The new track features unreleased Miles Davis studio trumpet performances combined with music written by Lenny White, produced by White and Vince Wilburn, Jr and featuring an all-star collection of Miles band alumni and acolytes including White, Wilburn, Marcus Miller, Emilio Modeste, Jeremy Pelt, Antoine Roney, John Scofield, Bernard Wright, and Quinton Zoto.
Having seen the film, this writer especially enjoyed the European sequences in Paris, especially where they showed Miles essentially improvising the score to Malle’s film while watching it. Frances Taylor Davis, his first wife ( whose photograph adorns Someday My Prince Will Come,) recounts a story from Barcelona where she ultimately convinced a reluctant Miles to attend a flamenco music show. Afterward he was so impressed that they went directly to a record store and he bought every flamenco album he could – thus, the back story for Sketches of Spain. There’s aptly much emphasis on Miles’ tone, and a couple of the memorable quotes are included in the soundtrack. George Wein, speaking about the Harmon mute when Miles performed at Newport – “He put a bell on his horn, and put it right into the microphone. That changed the world of jazz right there ….” Herbie Hancock – “Miles tone was like a stone skipping across a pond”
Nelson’s documentary has been hailed by critics as an engaging key to understanding the life, art and genius of Miles Davis. “I remember stealing my father’s copy of ‘Kind of Blue’ to take with me to college. I’ve been fascinated with Miles since then and have long dreamed of telling his story. He was to me a singular force of nature; the very embodiment of cool,” said the director Stanley Nelson. “This film is very special to me and curating the soundtrack gave me a chance to delve even deeper into his archive so that both diehard fans and his new listeners could discover something new.”
With full access to the Miles Davis Estate, the film features never-before-seen footage, including studio outtakes from his recording sessions, rare photos and new interviews with Quincy Jones, Carlos Santana, Clive Davis, Wayne Shorter and Ron Carter, among others. Select interview soundbites are included as commentary tracks on the album.
The film also does a great job of explaining Miles’ advocacy for black people, rooted in part by an ugly beating he took as an innocent bystander from a white policeman. It details several periods of pain and subsequent substance abuse due to throat and hip operations. Much of this explains his anti-social, reclusive, and angry persona. Ultimately one is left with the tale of the tortured artist, but it does serve to reveal a much deeper understanding of his life than most are aware of. Miles’ career took so many turns that Nelson was undoubtedly faced with tough choices on what to include and where to elaborate. We get very little about his great quintet of Shorter, Hancock, Carter, and Williams who produced so many landmark albums between 1965-68. And, his fusion gestation period gets short shrift too. It’s as if Bitches Brew was the first foray with little to no mention of In a Silent Way or Jack Johnson. Yet, there’s only so much the director can cover, especially since it will be unveiled in a TV format.
