Miles Davis’ Career with Columbia Records Between 1955 and 1959

If there’s ever a place to listen to good jazz, it’s at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. Since its founding in 1954, the Newport Jazz Festival has showcased many of jazz’s most influential artists, from Louis Armstrong to Kamasi Washington. There have been several memorable years that could be talked about at length, one being the festival’s second year, 1955.

1955 would unknowingly mark a turning point for jazz, perhaps not stylistically, but in who the world looked to for direction. That new face was Miles Davis – a cold, no bullshit musician armed with an unwavering ability to make good music. Davis had convinced the organizer of the festival, George Wein, to let him perform.

“He [Davis] said, ‘You can’t have a festival without me,’ so I said, ‘Alright, I’ll call your agent.’” (Nelson Jr., 2019, 23:31).

At this point, Davis was slowly rebuilding his career after a tumultuous start to the decade. His heroin addiction had been publicized by the press, hurting his reputation further than heroin had. Despite this, he had several successful recording sessions with Prestige Records, a newly formed jazz label that would serve as a springboard for many future musicians. By 1954, he was free from the clutches of his heroin addiction and fully dedicated to music as he had been. 

Davis was acutely aware of what this festival could do for his career. The potential connections to be made were endless. Lucky for Davis, the people he needed to help elevate his career were sitting in the crowd during his set. A favorite song of Davis’ was ‘Round Midnight, a ballad composed by pianist Thelonious Monk. In the band that night was Monk himself on piano, Zoot Sims on tenor saxophone, Gerry Mulligan on baritone saxophone, Percy Heath on bass, and Connie Kay on drums. After Davis’ set, producers for Columbia Records approached with offers to sign him and join their label. Columbia was, and still is, one of the most prestigious record labels in the music industry. This opportunity could skyrocket Davis into the success that musicians only dream of. There was one problem, though. Davis was still signed with Prestige, and that contract was unfinished. This wasn’t going to stop Davis, and deals quickly began being made between Bob Weinstock, the owner of Prestige, and Columbia representatives.

The agreement between Prestige and Columbia was this: Davis was to go into the studio with his then quintet and record a number of songs for Prestige to release over the following years. This would free him of his contract and allow him to sign with Columbia. The recording sessions took place on May 11th and October 26th of 1956, a whole year after the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival. In Davis’ group at the time was himself on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Most of the songs recorded during those two days were a combination of standards from the American songbook and standards native to jazz repertoire. A few were originals written by Davis. The recordings were compiled into a series of four albums: Cookin’ (1957), Relaxin’ (1958), Workin’ (1960), and Steamin’ (1961) With The Miles Davis Quintet. Unbeknownst to the quintet, these recordings would be revered by critics and audiences, often hailed as quintessential listens.

Interestingly enough, Davis was already working with Columbia before these two Prestige dates took place. He went into their studios with the same quintet on October 26th, 1955, and recorded a handful of songs. On June 5th and September 10th of 1956, Davis would finish recording his debut album for Columbia, ‘Round About Midnight, and the album would be released on March 4th, 1957. Critics had positive things to say about the album; Downbeat Magazine critic Ralph Gleason revered it as “modern jazz conceived and executed in the very best style.” (Alyker, 2007, 201).

As planned, public attention towards Davis began to grow. Columbia had a far better reach than Prestige did, not to mention funding. Producer George Avakian, the man who signed Davis to Columbia, had great faith in Davis’ potential, despite differing opinions about Davis’ trustworthiness.

“I didn’t have to worry about budget because there was so much profit pouring into Columbia through the pop album department, that I had overcome the initial business of about, ‘Gee, how can you sign Miles Davis, a junkie? He might die before the year and a half of the other contract is over.’” (Dibb, 2001, 27:28).

Avakian’s next goal after the release of ‘Round About Midnight was to reunite Davis with a former collaborator of his, Gil Evans. Gil was an accomplished – and much older – composer and arranger based in New York City. He and Davis had done a project together with a nonet years prior for Capitol Records that proved to be quite successful, and Avakian hoped their reunion would elicit even greater success.

Out of this came their first of several large ensemble albums for Columbia, Miles Ahead. Davis hadn’t played in a genuine big band setting since his early days with Eddie Randle’s Blue Devils and a brief stint with Billy Eckstine. His bread and butter were small groups, often a quintet or sextet. Gil had a unique ability to hear instrument pairings that were rather unorthodox in a traditional jazz setting, yet he could make them work beautifully without irritation to the listener. In the band were Davis on flugelhorn, five trumpets, three trombones, three french horns, an alto saxophone, a flute, a clarinet, a bass clarinet, a bass trombone, a sousaphone, and a rhythm section. Bordering on classical music, the album contributes to Davis’ dark, brooding, and piercing attitude, while still paying homage to the previous textures of jazz. Recorded earlier throughout the year and released on October 27th, 1957, the album was met with critical acclaim and further put Davis on the map.

When first released, the album featured a photograph of a white woman and a white child seated on a sailboat. Confused and irritated, Davis demanded that Columbia change the album cover to something of his taste. In later pressings, the album featured an image of Davis playing his flugelhorn. This interaction sparked further inspiration for what would go on Davis’ albums. He pushed for having images of Black people on his album covers and removing unnecessary liner notes from the back of albums.

1958 was an especially important year for Davis. He would be in the studio for several different projects, and his small group would undergo dramatic personnel changes. In early 1958, Davis’ previously discussed quintet had now become a sextet after the addition of alto saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley. This iteration of Davis’ band existed only for a few months, but in those few months, Davis’ next studio album would be recorded. Recorded on February 4th and March 4th of 1958, Milestones would mark the start of something new.

Davis was growing exhausted of the parameters that existed in jazz at the time. The rapidly changing chord changes, harmonically advanced melodies, and improvisatory lines of bebop and its successor, hard bop, often felt confining to a musician. It was this year that Davis would begin to play with what is often referred to as modal jazz, a style of improvisation/composing that focuses on the different scales that can be derived from a singular chord, abandoning a key center. The title track of the album is exactly this. The musicians were given Gmin7 and Amin7 to play over, yet each solo uses scales that go far beyond G and A dorian. This track would serve as the blueprint for a future project of Davis’, which will be discussed later.

The rest of the album is full of uptempo compositions of the hard bop idiom that prove how special Davis’ band truly was. Coltrane was developing his own unique sound that would cement him as one of the greatest saxophonists of all time, Adderley’s virtuosity was unparalleled, and the rhythm section was unbelievably tight. Milestones, released September 2nd of 1958, showcases all of this and more. However, after this record, Garland and Philly Joe would leave the band for good, forcing Davis to search for new players.

Davis would replace Garland with pianist Bill Evans, and Philly Joe would be replaced by drummer Jimmy Cobb. Coltrane, Adderley, and Chambers would remain. Again, this band would only last for a brief period, but the music that they would make together completely altered the course of jazz and contemporary music.

Davis’ new sextet first entered the studio on May 26th, 1958. During this session, they would record three jazz standards and one original by Davis. Two of the standards, the original, and a series of recordings Davis did for a French noir film titled Ascenseur Pour L’échafaud the previous year, would be released on an album called Jazz Track in November of 1959 (the recordings for Ascenseur Pour L’échafaud would get their own album released by European label Fontana Records sometime in 1958). Jazz Track and another album would be the only studio recordings of this band.

While this band didn’t record in the studio all that much, there are a handful of live recordings from this time that were released by Columbia years later. Miles & Monk at Newport takes us to July 3rd, 1958. Its name is deceptive – this album is not Davis playing with Monk. Side A of the record is Davis’ sextet at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, and side B is Monk’s quartet at the 1963 Newport Jazz Festival. Though Davis had begun exploring modality, he was still invested in playing songs of the hard bop idiom. We hear very similar playing in live recordings from September 9th, 1958, released September 28th, 1973, on an album called Jazz at the Plaza, Vol. 1. The Plaza recordings are particularly special because they were done at a celebration put on by Columbia, honoring the success of their jazz department. Other major names at the event were Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Jimmy Rushing.

It’s apparent in these recordings that Bill didn’t fit in with the group as well as previous pianists did. This isn’t due to lack of skill – Bill was a genius in his own right. Part of it is due to him being the only White musician in the band, a tension that he felt from audiences. That tension often made playing difficult. 

“The Black community took great pride in the all-Black Miles Davis band… It was a challenge to deal with the situation in that – a lot of silent treatment from the audience, almost throughout the time I was with Miles. There were overt, you know, occasionally overt demonstrations of antagonism and hostility and so on.” (Evans, 2015, 5:28).

Davis and Gil would reunite a year after Miles Ahead to record a new project: Porgy and Bess. Porgy and Bess is an opera written in 1935 by George Gershwin. The music of this opera has been covered by countless musicians, but Davis and Gil’s interpretation serves as the gold standard of third stream music. Recorded in July and August of 1958, the album has a somewhat similar instrumentation to Miles Ahead, yet the arrangements are far more demanding of the musician. Much of the time spent in the studio was dedicated to rehearsing; a costly, but necessary measure to ensure Gil’s ideas fully shone through. The album was released on March 9th, 1959, and to no one’s surprise, it saw tremendous success amongst critics and audiences.

After Porgy and Bess, Davis would return to the studio with his sextet. Inspired by the sounds and aesthetics of African ballet and Western classical music shown to him by Bill, Davis was once again interested in exploring modality. It was these studio dates that would serve as the laboratory for Davis’ most commercially successful album, Kind of Blue. 

Recording this album felt like any other. The difference was that all of the music was original and far less planned out. Their parts were rough sketches of chord changes and short melody lines Davis had pieced together. Each musician was encouraged to dive fully into the modal approach and use their ears to direct them in new, unexplored places. Davis’ understating, Bill’s impressionism, Coltrane’s “sheets of sound” approach, and Adderley’s brightness blend to create some of the most refreshing and original music ever recorded. Not to mention they’re duly supported by Chambers and Cobb. One of the tracks, a 12-bar blues, features pianist Wynton Kelly, who would replace Bill after his departure shortly after Kind of Blue.

The album was recorded on March 2nd and April 22nd, and released on August 17th, 1959. The album saw success like usual, though initially overshadowed by saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s second album, The Shape of Jazz to Come, released the following month. It wasn’t until much later in time that Kind of Blue would reach overwhelming success. On November 18th, 2019, the album reached platinum status, selling over 5 million copies. Often hailed as Davis’ greatest work, the album serves as a bookmark in the history of not just jazz, but in music as a whole.

Davis’ final project of the decade was Sketches of Spain, with a portion of the album recorded on November 15th and 20th of 1959. Davis’ first wife, Frances Taylor, was a successful entertainer in her own field. Taylor had danced for several major Broadway plays, such as Mr. Wonderful, Shinebone Alley, and was even an original cast member for West Side Story. Around this time, Taylor convinced Davis to attend a flamenco performance with her. After the show, Davis immediately visited a record store and bought all the Spanish music he could. Sketches of Spain was a completely new project for Davis, and once again, Gil’s arrangements proved to be quite difficult for everyone involved. The album was released on July 18th, 1960, and earned Davis his first Grammy for Best Jazz Composition of More Than Five Minutes Duration.

1955 to 1959 is such a small window of time, yet Davis completely transformed music with his many collaborations with all sorts of talented musicians. His success didn’t just stop in 1959; he would continue to grow and evolve with the music of the times, surrounding himself with musicians who were equally interested in innovating and finding new sounds. This would be Davis’ attitude towards music for the rest of his life. He rarely revisited old repertoire if he was onto something else. There seem to be two types of musicians: those who are interested in playing one way and preserving a certain sound, almost for archival sake, and those who are uncomfortable with sounding the same their whole career. You’ll never find Miles Davis being the first kind of musician.

Citations

*For recording and release dates of albums, I used discogs.com*

Nelson Jr., S. (Director). (2019). Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool [Film]. Firelight Media / Eagle Rock Entertainment / American Masters.

Alkyer, F. (2007). The Miles Davis Reader: Interviews and Features from DownBeat Magazine. Bloomsbury Academic.

Dibb, M. (Director). (2001). The Miles Davis Story [Film]. Channel 4.

Trope, Q. (1989). Miles: The Autobiography. Simon & Schuster.

robrijn. (2015, August 8). Bill Evans home and car interview by Ross Porter on JAZZFM91. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Sz5ZNokEA&t=1293s

American album certifications – Miles Davis – Kind of Blue. Recording Industry Association of America.