THE SESSION

The sextet was less than two weeks old when they assembled at CBS Records’s 30th Street Studio for their first session on May 26. Yet they were ready. They recorded four tunes: three ballads — two inspired by pianist Ahmad Jamal, whose 1950s group Miles adored and drew inspiration from, plus a new Miles original. In the sequence recorded, the tracks are:

“On Green Dolphin Street” is a tune from the 1947 film Green Dolphin Street that had entered the modern jazz lexicon in ’56 by way of Jamal, whose trio had painted it in a more sophisticated light. Davis puts his trademark muted trumpet to good use, imbuing the opening with a misty glow, Chambers leading the procession, before Coltrane digs in with a strong, more direct feel, followed by Adderley’s fleet, jaunty approach, and then Evans’s relative sparseness — sparse yet still propulsive. “Bill could play a little like that Ahmad thing, too,” was how Miles described Evans’s touch. “Although when he did, he sounded a little wild.”

This first track exposes Evans to Davis’s spontaneous ability in the studio to simplify complicated musical structure. In 1979 he told jazz radio station WKCR-FM: “Miles occasionally might say, ‘Right here, I want this sound’ and it turns out to be a very key thing that changes the whole character of the [song]. For instance, on ‘On Green Dolphin Street,’ the original changes of the chorus aren’t the way [we recorded it]: the vamp changes being a major 7th, up a minor 3rd, down a half tone. That was [when] he leaned over and said, ‘I want this here.’”

“Fran-Dance” was the next tune recorded, which was originally listed on the Jazz Track album as “Put Your Little Foot Right Out,” a folk melody Miles employed for this billet-doux to his new love, and soon-to-be wife, Frances Davis. A whispered level of passion pervades his muted solo; even Coltrane and Adderley temper their statements appropriately. Evans’s solo adds a dissonant touch before Miles’s brings it home.

Adderley lays out on “Stella By Starlight,“ another standard introduced on a film soundtrack (The Uninvited in 1944) and then brought into the modern jazz idiom by musicians who had Miles’s ear (Charlie Parker, Chet Baker.) Another ballad opening with a sense of delicacy — Chambers playing arco, Miles blowing tenderly — the soloists (Miles, Coltrane, Evans) each uphold and add to the late-night vibe of the performance. Miles hews especially close to the contours of the tune’s melody at the start, so sparsely and softly that the simple effect of the rhythm section kicking into gear as Coltrane’s solo kicks off is startling. Evans’s own solo is lush and laconic, suggesting the bittersweet spell he would cast over the Kind of Blue sessions the following year.

“Love for Sale” is the Cole Porter original originally written for the 1930 Broadway musical The New Yorkers, which had long been adopted by various jazz players and vocalists. Enamored with a Jamal version from ’56, Miles had brought the tune two months earlier to a Cannonball Adderley session for Blue Note Records (yielding the album Somethin’ Else) on which he played as a sideman — one of the last times he would do that.

Jazz historian Bob Blumenthal has compared the two versions with insight, describing the earlier, “more concise” version featuring Miles and Cannonball with pianist Hank Jones, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Art Blakey as being flavored by “glorious piano from…Jones, a pre-Jamal master of keyboard elegance.” He adds:

The great length of the [Miles] sextet version… in contrast to the starkly inflected Blue Note arrangement, Davis gets a consistently dancing groove from Chambers and Cobb, who reportedly had requested an opportunity to cook after their more restrained work on the previous tracks. The blowing atmosphere favors Davis…and Adderley who excelled on these chord changes. Evans, for all his supposed prettiness, [is] a touch on the brittle side…and his inventions also contain dashes of Thelonious Monk and Lennie Tristano.

As Evans later told arranger Sy Johnson, the rhythm section did in fact push for the upbeat approach. “Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb were getting edgy having to hold back, and wanted to cook on something. Miles just turned and said, ‘Love for Sale’ and kicked it off.” The feel of release is palpable. It’s telling that compared to the band’s more meticulous handling of the first three tunes on the date — requiring up to seven takes of each — the band took but one pass at “Love For Sale” before calling it quits.

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