Nature Boy {a singularity}

John Coltane's 1965 recording is the first I'd even heard of this song. It became an instant favorite of mine. I believe that this particular album, The John Coltrane Quartet Plays, is the first Coltrane album I bought. Given the nature of that song and the lyrics, it's as though it had been written with Coltrane in mind. But it wasn't, not by a long shot.

Coltrane's recording is world's away from the first recording, by Nat "King" Cole in 1948. The arrangement is lush, with flute obbligatos giving it the requisite exotic touch. For this tune reeked of the exotic, filling the air with orchids, incense, and small brightly colored birds. Cole's recording sold a million copies, became a hit, and transformed his career.

Here's another version by Cole, this time with a simpler accompaniment.

Ted Gioia has an article about it: The Strangest Hit Songwriter in History:

Today Eden Ahbez would get called a one-hit wonder.

That’s how the music business mocks artists who enjoy a brief taste of fame—a short stay on the chart followed by a lifetime of obscurity.

In Ahbez’s case, his hit was “Nature Boy.” This odd song, released as a single by Nat King Cole on March 29, 1948, sold a million copies and climbed to the top of the Billboard chart.

Industry insiders were astonished. Many dismissed “Nature Boy” as a bizarre novelty song. Perhaps that was understandable—there was no other hit tune like it back then (or now). But the word novelty doesn’t do justice to the poetic and philosophical tone of the lyrics, or the art song quality of the music.

But all the usual labels fall short when applied to Eden Ahbez—including that derogatory term one-hit wonder. You would do better to call Ahbez a guru or a mystic. Frankly, I consider him the first hippie, an advocate for a lifestyle that didn’t even exist when he rose to fame.

"The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love—and be loved in return."

By any measure, he is the least likely hit songwriter of his era. Or perhaps any era.

The story behind “Nature Boy” is as unique as its composer.

In May 1947, Nat King Cole had just performed to a capacity crowd at the Lincoln Theater in Los Angeles, when a strange man came to the stage door. He had long, flowing hair, an unruly beard, and was wearing a toga-like outfit. He insisted that he needed to see Nat King Cole.

This unkempt man was Eden Ahbez, but he never got a chance to see Cole that day. Instead he only got as far as the singer’s valet, Otis Pollard—who sent the visitor packing. But before leaving, Ahbez thrust a tattered piece of music—the score for “Nature Boy”—into Pollard’s hands.

Pollard returned to Cole, and remarked: “The guy I talked to is a genius or a nut.”

And so the article goes. It's a remarkable story, well worth your attention.

Here's another recording, from 1955. Another instrumental, like Coletrane's. Miles Davis on trumpet, Britt Woodman on trombone, Charles Mingus on bass, Elvin Jones on drums, and Teddy Charles on vibes.

One last version, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga (there are more on YouTube).

Is “Kind of Blue” the greatest jazz album ever?

That’s been said. But, while I love the album, I find the idea that there is some GOAT (greatest of all time) jazz album to be empty. Ted Gioia discusses Kind of Blue in the following video. It’s excellent and illuminating discussion. He’s got his doubts about the idea of it being the greatest.

Early in his remarks, Gioia notes that it is often recommended to people as the first album they should listen to if they want to get into jazz, and the first album they should buy. I think that’s a much more interesting issue, and one that doesn’t depend on believing that Kind of Blue is the best album ever.

One thing Gioia does mention, is that it is a well-recorded album. That’s a superficial consideration, but very real. He points out that much excellent jazz was recorded before the advent of high fidelity recording and that some of the best jazz musicians were never recorded in high fidelity, e.g. Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown. I agree. When I first started listening to jazz I started with high fidelity recordings and found older recordings, such as Louis Armstrong, a bit difficult to get into because of the sound quality.

But that’s a superficial issue. A more important issue is the nature of the music itself. Kind of Blue is modal jazz, jazz that is based on scales, not on often complex harmonic progressions. That’s much easier for beginners to grasp that bebop or swing, where you have to be able to parse the harmonic structure in order to grasp the improvisation. If you can begin making sense of improvised lines in modal jazz, that will make it easier to deal with improvisation over complex harmonic structures. Thus Kind of Blue is a good starting point for exploring other styles.

That’s what makes it such an important album in the jazz canon. It’s centrally located within the universe of jazz styles. Gioia gets at this indirectly when he points out that the musicians on the album – Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans – had different stylistic leanings. Kind of Blue thus becomes a meeting point for stylistic diversity.

Blue in Green

Marvelous interview with Louis Armstrong [followed by Miles]

Miles and John Lennon – a meeting of titans

From Reddit

Formal control of improvised performance [Miles Davis]

Miles Davis - Time After Time - Casino, Montreux, Switzerland, 20 July 1990

Miles Davis (tp) Kenny Garrett (as, fl) Foley (lead-b) Kei Akagi (keyb) Richard Patterson (el-b) Ricky Wellman (d) Erin Davis (perc)

Over the last week I’ve listened to, I don’t know, say a dozen live versions of Miles Davis playing “Time After Time.” Some clock in at 9 minutes or so, others run 11 or perhaps more minutes. But they all have the same form, which I discussed earlier, a form not on the recorded version. Just how and when this form emerged – in rehearsal for the road, on the road, spontaneously or deliberately plotted – I don’t know, but once arrived at, it seems to have stuck. I’m guessing that if I listed to live versions of other tunes Miles was playing at the time that I’d hear the same thing, a consistent overall flow in the performance.

Two things are involved. There’s the overall flow of musical and emotional energy. But also occurrence of specific musical features, motifs, climaxes. In the case of “Time After Time” I’ve laid some of these out in my post.

My question: How common is this? First of all, with Miles, but then more generally in jazz performance.

In big band jazz the arranger controls the overall flow. But most jazz has been performed in small groups, from New Orleans jazz, to bebop, cool, and after, small groups have predominated, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets and sometimes more. Leaving New Orleans jazz aside, bebop established the format for most of these performances: 1) head, unison or harmonized, 2) a string of solos, sometimes with the leader first, sometimes last, 3) trading phrases, often alternating with the drummer (optional), conclude with 4) repetition of the head. Sometimes there would be more complex arrangements, but the head-solos-head format seems to have predominated.

I’ve never sensed any overall structure to those performances, maybe here and there, but don’t really remember. There doesn’t seem to be any requirement that soloists echo or play off one another – except during tradeoffs – and sense of an overall climax. Each solo, however, generally had its own internal form. And perhaps the trade-off section would climax the performance. 

 

What Miles is doing in “Time After Time” is different than that. When did he start doing it? Have others been doing it? I’m thinking, for example, of Mingus. What about the avant-garde or “free” jazz? 

 

Has anyone written about this?

Time After Time: (Late period) Miles in the studio and on the road

As I noted in a post from 2011, I was knocked out by a 1987 performance where Miles Davis played “Time After Time” (immediately following “Human Nature”) in Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, NYC. The tune has haunted me ever since. [Miles was followed on the bill by the Gil Evans Orchestra playing Jimi Hendrix. Wow!]

Here I offer three versions of the tune. The first is a studio recording while the other two are from live gigs. The studio version has a single climax near the end, as do the live versions. The live versions are longer than the studio version. They also have a greater range of volume levels, from very soft to very loud, mostly soft to very soft. I’ve made some informal notes on the studio version and the 1989 live version. The 1988 live version resembles the 1989 more it does than the studio version. My music critic friend Phil Freeman tells me that the studio albums of that period have never gotten much love but there is some realization that Davis's live bands were much better. That's certainly the case here.

At the end I have a short video where Sonny Rollins discusses Miles. FWIW, yesterday, May 26, was Miles’ birthday (b. 1926).

Studio recording 1984

In the recording studio, January 26-27, 1984, Record Plant Studio, New York City, New York

Miles Davis: Miles Davis (tpt); John Scofield (g); Robert Irving III (synth); Darryl Jones (el-b); Al Foster (d); Steve Thornton (perc)

I’m sure I heard Cyndi Lauper sing this back in the day – on the radio, sometime, somewhere. But I don’t remember it. I started following along with some sheet music I'd downloaded, to see the form more clearly, and it became apparent that Miles has done some recomposing of the melody. Which is common, and fine. This is not a tune with a lot of melodic action, so parsing it is a little tricky, at least if you don't want to sit there and count out bars, which I didn't.

Opens with Miles on muted trumpet, the rhythm section enters quickly. Melody at about 0:18. Miles, with keys shadowing on chords.

Miles will continue playing in relation to the melody, sometimes hitting, sometimes embellishing, recomposing, and every now and then an excursion away. But he’s always in sight of it.

Repeat 0:45.
Bridge: 1:19.
Back to the beginning: 2:14.
Repeat: 2:55.
Bridge: 3:34.
High note: 4:14. The only one in the recording, establishing a single climax.
Back to beginning: 4:26.
From about 4:42 Miles plays fairly freely.
Strong melodic reference, 5:12.
Another melodic reference, 5:18, fade to end.

This clip superimposes Miles’ performance with Cyndi Lauper’s.

Very revealing.

God, I love modern tech!

Live in Chicago 1989

JVC Jazz Festival, Chicago Theatre, Chicago, Illinois, June 5, 1989

Miles Davis (tp, keyb); Kenny Garrett (as, ss, fl); Joe ‘Foley’ McCreary (lead bg); Adam Holzman (synth); Kei Akagi (synth); Benny Rietveld (el-b); Ricky Wellman (d); Munyungo Jackson (perc)

The overall approach is similar to the studio recording. Miles is almost always playing in relation to the melody; we’re rarely very far from reference to or quote from the melody. But the whole performance is opened up; Miles makes more use of phrases that start high and go low; and he has a dialog with his lead bassist, Foley, before the final open-trumpet push to the end.

Miles starts unaccompanied, noodling on open trumpet, middle and lower register, some half valves, accompaniment comes up softly and slowly.
Bass and drums, 0:36.
High-to-low, 1:03.
Middle-to-low, 1:19-25.
Miles stays silent (while he inserts mute).
Starting high soft and muted, out of nowhere and staying more or less up, noodling, 1:44 – 2:04.
Drops straight down for a short phrase, 2:05.
Miles plays the melody at 2:15.
Still on melody, comes down to bottom, 3:21.
Melody reference, 4:20, 2 tumbling down phrases.
Melody reference, 4:35.
Bridge, 4:55.
An air of finality, 5:24.
Volume picks up, 5:43.
Miles, open trumpet, high, 5:46, working his way down as volume builds.
High ‘squeal’ from Miles, short, then he goes silent (compare with 4:14 in studio version), 6:14, and the rhythm section drops way down, they knew it was coming. Note that at this point we’re only a bit longer than the entire studio version.
Muted Miles noodles softly with Foley, on ‘lead’ bass, 6:23.
Miles high & soft, 7:19, continuing with Foley, trading phrases.
Miles has stopped playing, 8:31, the rhythm section starts bringing up the volume.
Miles, open horn, starts in upper middle register, 8:52, goes up, then tumbles down a bit & goes silent. Miles re-enters, 9:20.
Bass drum hits, 9:32.
Miles peals off a quick upper register hit, 9:34.
We’re done. A definitive ending quite different from the studio version.

Munich, Germany 1988

MILES DAVIS – Live in Germany 1988 (Munich Philharmonic Concert Hall)
MILES DAVIS – trumpet,
KENNY GARRETT – saxophone
BOBBY IRVING – keyboards
ADAM HOLZMAN – keyboards
JOSEPH „FOLEY” McCREARY – guitar BENJAMIN RIETVELD – bass
MARILYN MAZUR – percussion
RICKY WELLMAN – drums

Almost the same band as for Chicago, 1989. The instrumentation is the same except for Mazur and Irving.

Note that “Time After Time” doesn’t start until 0:26. The overall performance is organized in the same way. Notice how he initiates the interchange with Foley (c. 6:49) and how they play facing one another.

Sonny Rollins talks about Miles

Bret Primack, Sonny Rollins and Miles Davis - The Untold Story

The hands of a genius

Irving Penn, 12 Hands of Miles Davis and his Trumpet
New York, 1986 pic.twitter.com/fwkSjxZrH9

— Oğuz Pancar (@opancaro) July 20, 2020

Kinda' Cool: Miles Davis Meets Mr. Rogers

Dang, I never knew that Miles Davis was a guest on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. pic.twitter.com/yJDSeUYIzR

— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) May 21, 2019

Miles Davis, the painter

The Paintings of Miles Davis. Started painting & drawing in his 50s and never looked back. https://t.co/wLHBBTS2cc pic.twitter.com/7VrrLTnENk

— Open Culture (@openculture) April 28, 2019

My Early Jazz Education 2: Maynard, Miles, and Diz

In my post about Rafael Mendez I mentioned how he directed my attention to jazz. I loved the material he did with the “Spanish tinge,” as Jelly Roll Morton called, so I went looking for more. What would you think if you saw this record sitting in a bin at the local discount store just waiting your greedy ears?

The man’s wearing a serape and “Si! Si!”, that’s Spanish, no? And he’s obviously a trumpet player, even if he’s surrounded by the “lesser” brass instruments.

So I bought it. The title track (that’s it above) was indeed Spanish tinged, though quite not what I was expecting. But that’s OK. It was very good. And the arrangement, I’d never heard anything like it–dig the close harmonies in the trumpets on the shout chorus. Not to mention Maynard himself.

But then it had this, “Early Hours,” a very different kind of tune, lazy and relaxed:

Notice that Maynard gave his sidemen generous solo time. Check the lead trumpet starting at 2:19, and then 2:52. Dig the shakes, the top notes–not super loud, just what taste dictates. And the closing phrase for the sax.

Miles Davis at Harvard: “the shit sounded good as a mother-fucker”

Miles Davis didn’t speak those words at Harvard. To my knowledge, he never set foot on the Harvard campus; though it is of course possible that he did so on some occasion. It was Homi Bhabha who uttered those words, quoting a statement Davis had used in describing Herbie Hancock’s piano playing. Bhaba was introducing Hancock as the 2014 Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry.

But Hancock’s not a poet, you might say. No, he’s not. The word is used with poetic license.

As Bhabha said at the beginning of his introduction, the Norton Lectures, which it is the duty of the Norton Professor to deliver, are “Harvard’s singular tribute to the most creative minds in the arts and humanities.” The Norton Professorship has previously been held by such luminaries as T.S. Eliot (1932-33), Igor Stravinsky (1939-40), Ben Shahn (1956-57), Leonard Bernstein (1972-73), Frank Stella (1982-84), John Cage (1988-89), and Luciano Berio (1992-93), only one of whom was a poet. But all of them were some variety of white. Hancock is the first African-American to hold that distinguished post.

Thereby hangs a tale, no, many tales, tales crossing over a half millennium in time and half the globe in space.

For the socio-cultural forces that gave birth to Harvard in the New World in 1636 for the purpose of educating young men in the ministry are the same forces that engaged in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Without those forces, no Norton Lectureship and no Herbie Hancock. Without those forces, no Homi Bhabha, for those same forces extended the British Empire to India. Bhabha was born in Mumbai and educated at Oxford. Mumbai to Oxford to Cambridge, Massachusetts–that’s quite a journey, one spanning the East-West extent of the old British Empire, which gave up its hold on India only in 1947, two years before Bhabha was born.

Miles Dewey Davis III, Time After Time

Most jazz musicians adopt an existing style. The best of them find their own personal voice within the style they adopt; many among these are musicians with no more than a local reputation and following. A small number of musicians have contributed to the creation of a new style: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, Ornette Coleman, and so on. A very few manage to make signal contributions to more than one style.

Miles Davis is one of those. He came up in the bebop style of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and found his way to a so-called cool style: One. A decade later he went modal and even free: Two. And then he went fusion: Three.

That last move was the most controversial of his career. Many jazz fans and critics accused him of selling out. Of going commercial. Maybe.

Trouble is, he could was still one of the most soulful musicians around. Here’s an out-take from Beethoven’s Anvil about the electric Miles: