Harold in the Land of Jazz

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

The “Harold” in the title of this piece is tenor saxophonist Harold Land [1928-2001]. If you were an Los Angeles based Jazz fan or musician, “Harold” would have been enough as he was a widely-respected player in this city’s Jazz scene for over half-a-century, although, sadly, not as well known outside of it.

At a round-table discussion on West Coast jazz held in 1988, Buddy Collette offered a few words about fellow saxophonist Harold Land:

"Harold"s been one of the finest tenor players I've heard and I have hardly heard a write-up about what this man has been doing through the years. . . . I've known him for 30 years, 35 years, and he's been playing jazz morning, noon and night. ... In New York he would have gotten more."

"It is all too telling that Harold Land is best remembered in the jazz world for the brief time he was performing on the East Coast with the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet. Land's thirty-five years of exceptional work since that time are often treated as an elaborate footnote to this early apprenticeship. The recordings, however, tell no lies. They document Land's major contributions to jazz both during and after his work with Brown and Roach. They reveal that he was one of the most potent voices on the West Coast scene throughout the period.

Those aware of Land's origins in Houston, Texas, where he was born on February 18, 1928, often hear a lingering Texas tenor sound in his playing. In fact, Land and his family spent only a few months in the Lone Star State. Soon his family moved to Arizona, and just a few years later they settled in San Diego. At an early age Land began taking piano lessons, at the instigation of his mother, but switched to tenor after hearing Coleman Hawkins's influential 1939 recording of "Body and Soul.""

- Ted Gioia, West Coast Jazz, Modern Jazz in California, 1945-1960

After gaining experience with local bands in San Diego he moved to Los Angeles, where he joined the quintet led by Clifford Brown and Max Roach as a replacement for Teddy Edwards. He was with this band for 18 months, but left to play with Curtis Counce (1956-8). Land then led his own groups, or shared leadership with Red Mitchell (1961-2) and Bobby Hutcherson (1967-71); in the 1950s and 1960s he also worked with the Gerald Wilson Big Band. From 1975 to 1978 he led a quintet with Blue Mitchell, and thereafter has worked as a freelance, mainly in California but also touring overseas.

It seems that the only two people who did not lament tenor saxophonist Harold Land’s continuance with the initial version of the legendary quintet led by drummer Max Roach and trumpeter Clifford Brown were Harold and me.

When I asked Harold about his decision to quit the group and return to Los Angeles for family reasons, he said: “Do you know how often I get asked that question? I have no regrets. For the last 45 years I’ve been in the California sunshine near my family and friends. Going on the road is a drag, nothin’ but hard times. The work here has been all right over the years and I’m happy sleepin’ in my own bed at night.”

I really enjoyed having Harold’s unique tenor sax sound, a sound that was so different than many of the Lester Young inspired tones on the West Coast Jazz scene, within driving distance and it was always a gas to hear him play in Jazz clubs or concert venues as a member of Gerald Wilson or Oliver Nelson’s big bands or as the co-leader in groups he fronted with trumpeter Red Mitchell, vibist Bobby Hutcherson and trumpeter Blue Mitchell.

Sadly feature articles about Harold in Jazz publications were a rarity, but I did find this in -

down beat

June 6, 1960

A VOICE IN THE WESTERN LAND

by John Tynan

“Harold  Land, one of the  towering figures on contemporary-jazz tenor saxophone and standard-bearer of the new jazz on the west coast, isn't out to prove a thing to anybody but himself.

Living in Los Angeles since he left the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet some four years ago, the quiet, serious Land has been content to take his chances with the rest of the jazz branch of Local 47, AFM, and take his gigs where he finds them. Currently leading a quintet at Los Angeles' Masque club, he is decidedly optimistic about the present state of modern jazz in the southern slice of the Golden State.

Since his Roach-Brown days, Land said, the music and the musicians in the L.A. area have taken an upward turn. "It has improved," he commented, "especially in recent months. The few new jazz clubs that have opened have helped a lot; also the jazz concerts we've had recently have done much to re-stimulate interest."

During the last couple of years Los Angeles has become notorious among musicians as a jazz graveyard where night-club work is concerned. Land, however, somehow has managed to work with reasonable consistency in this drought.

"Having a place to play makes a world of difference to the musician — because just playing at home just doesn't make it at all," he commented dryly. "The musicians of Los Angeles have had so few places to play jazz; that's been one the biggest holdbacks. It meant that the few sessions that were going on would be dominated by just the few cats who showed up early and this made the sessions less enjoyable for the rest.

"Also, this situation made it very hard to keep a group together."

Land is frank in admitting his inclination to take things for granted in the development of jazz in Los Angeles. "There have been important changes in the playing of local musicians," he said, "but being so closely involved with my own playing, possibly I've been inclined to take these changes in stride."

In Land's view, Los Angeles musicians generally "seem  more conscientious than they were five years ago." Why? "It's rather hard to say, but for one

thing, there are countless musicians being influenced by what they hear from the east coast."

And is this increasing influence restricted only to the Negro jazzmen?

"No, I can hear this influence in the playing of both white and colored musicians."

In Land's view, Miles Davis and his more recent associates have been the most important influences on jazz musicians generally in recent years, "Miles, 'Trane, Cannonball and the 'Rhythm Section' (Philly Joe Jones, Paul Chambers, and Red Garland) have been the main influence," he said.

Why?

"For one thing, it's in the way they work as a unit. This is outstanding. Then, too, each individual's playing is important. As a matter of fact, the individuals' influence has been the most important factor, in my opinion.

"You could possibly say that these are the most influential men in jazz today, as I see it."

While not exclusively signed with any record company, Land can count albums under his own name on Contemporary Records (Harold in the Land of

Jazz) and High Fidelity Records (The Fox). Moreover, he has played as side-man on more jazz LPs than he can count.

Today he sums up his aim succinctly: "I want to get said as much as I possibly can on the instrument in my own group or in any group where I could be happy. Or to be playing in a group where all the musicians would be completely in accord; to me this is the ultimate in playing."

"Yet," Land added with more than a suggestion of wistfulness, "that's only happened once—with the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet. That was the happiest musical family I've ever been in. With Max, Clifford, Richie Powell, and George Morrow, every night was more exciting than the one before.

"It can happen again. But it hasn't happened completely as yet with the musicians I've been working with."

Land's search for the perfect empathy may well be as elusive as he contends, but observers have noted a remarkable musical rapport between the tenorist and the drummer with whom he apparently prefers to work, Frank Butler. Still, Land refuses to commit himself on this point for fear of offending other musicians.

Since his days with Roach and Brown, Land now feels that he has matured. "I have more to offer," he said. "I've learned a bit more since then."

For all his love of big-band sounds, he is happiest, he said, playing with small groups because of the blowing freedom this affords. But "a serious big band is beautiful," he remarked, "and I guess Gil Evans, Ernie Wilkins, and Quincy Jones are among my favorite arrangers. And don't leave out Gil Fuller and John Lewis and their charts for Dizzy Gillespie's big band years ago. This has been a long time ago, but age doesn't make any difference. They were good then, and they're still good."

Land is a typically west coast jazz son. Born in Houston, Texas, 31 years ago, he was reared and schooled in San Diego, Calif., which he left for Los Angeles eight years ago to seek his fortune. While pecuniary fortune may have eluded him thus far, he ranks today among the highest artistic earners in the top tenor bracket.”

Fortunately Harold does have a considerable discography and I thought it might be fun to focus on Harold in the Land of Jazz Contemporary 162-2, OJCCD 162-2 one of his earliest recordings as its always been among my favorites for a variety of reasons including [1] his front line pairing with Swedish-born trumpeter Rolf Ericsson, [2] a hard-driving rhythm section made up of Carl Perkins, piano, Leroy Vinnegar, bass and Frank Butler, drums, [3] six intriguing original compositions by Harold, Carl Perkins and pianist Elmo Hope, [4] some sophisticated hard bop arrangements by Harold and Elmo, including their take on the standards Speak Low and You Don’t Know What Love Is, and last but not least, [5] the following informative and instructive liner notes by Nat Hentoff, whose collective writings were one of my earliest sources of information about Jazz.

As an added feature, I’ve posted individual videos of the 8 tracks in the order that they appear on the CD version of the recording at the end of Nat’s notes so that you can sample the music on this recording at your leisure.

IN VIEW OF THE CURRENT VOGUE among musicians of such terms as "earthy" and "roots" when appraising the authenticity of a jazzman, I cannot resist noting the aptness of Harold Land's name in this alfresco context. His playing is as deeply rooted in jazz tradition as anyone's now in jazz. His capacity for communicating the blues, his wholeness of pulsation and his insistence on "keeping the emotion free" when he plays — all these elements make him a modernist whose language would not be alien to Sidney Bechet or Tommy Ladnier or Speckled Red.

Harold's reputation among musicians has been increasing rapidly in the past three years, and most jazzmen returning East after a Western campaign would agree with John Tynan of Down Beat that "Land ... of current California tenorists, consistently proves his leadership in the realm of ideas and uninhibition." British critic Tony Hall extends his accolade beyond state lines when he describes Land as "one of the most satisfying, soulful, exciting, inventive and highly personal tenors in jazz today."

It's to be hoped that this beginning chorus of international hosannas — and this, his first LP as leader — will finally bring Harold some of the wider public recognition and attendant gigs his jazz quality merits. Several months ago, Vic Feldman wrote to me his conviction that Land "is for my money the best tenor on any coast. The other day he told me that he is seriously thinking of taking a day job if nothing more happens soon," Some weeks later, during a time when his future didn't seem quite as bleak, I asked Land what advice he might have for a young musician, and his quick answer nonetheless was: "Be a plumber." Yet, when you hear him play, it will become insistently evident, I feel, that were Land given a chance to start life again, he'd wind up with some kind of horn, if only a vocationally, because jazz is so unselfconsciously essential a part of his self-expression.

Harold was born December 18, 1928, in Houston, Texas, but from the age of five, he was raised in San Diego. His interest in music didn't become activated until high school, "Colernan Hawkins and Body and Soul had a lot to do with drawing me in," he recalls. When he was about 16, his family bought him a saxophone; he took private lessons for a little over half a year; and "ever since, I've learned it on my own." In 1946, as he came out of high school, Land started playing professionally around San Diego. "I played clubs, casuals, every type of gig —picnics too." Lucky Thompson meanwhile became a strong influence because of "his fluidity and his beautiful, big, round sound," Around 1948, Land heard Charlie Parker and was intensely drawn to his "completely new approach in terms of phrasing, sound and harmonic conception, and yet I also realized that all this was just his inner voice - there was no way for it to come out any other way."

In 1954, Land moved to Los Angeles and "it was crackers and peanut butter for quite a while." Later that year, however, Clifford Brown brought Max Roach to a jam session in Los Angeles because he'd heard a tenor he liked. Max hired Land, and Harold stayed with the Roach-Brown unit a little over two years. He left the group and returned to the Coast when his grandmother, to whom he was closely attached, was stricken with what turned out to be a fatal illness.

Land feels his time with Roach and Brown was valuable in broadening his scope. "Working side by side with such a tremendous musician as Clifford Brown," explains Land, "was inspiring each night. He was such a master of phrasing." Back in Los Angeles, Land has worked with the Curtis Counce unit (with whom he appears along with Carl Perkins and Frank Butler on Contemporary CS 526 and CJ 559) and has headed his own group intermittently.

The late Carl Perkins (born August 16, 1928 in Indianapolis, died March 16, 1958 in Los Angeles) is described by his childhood friend, Leroy Vinnegar, as "the kind of musician who played right with you; who played the things you heard. He not only played the chords, he played the beauty in the chords — his own way. And his time was perfect. In that respect he was what you'd call a rhythm section pianist. A man with time like Carl's was so important to a bassist, because you're supposed to play those changes together.”

Harold Land, who selected Perkins, as he did all the musicians for this set, spoke of Carl as "a completely individual player who was also able to provide such warmth in his accompaniment. His chord constructions were beautiful; his solos were always interesting; he knew how to use space so that his phrasing too was beautiful. And there was no end to the funk in his playing."

Bassist Leroy Vinnegar, who has appeared frequently on Contemporary and whose first album as a leader is Leroy Walks! (Contemporary C542) was born July 3, 1928, in Indianapolis; has been in Los Angeles since 1954; and has worked with Barney Kessel, Art Tatum, Stan Getz, a year and a half with Shelly Manne, as well as heading his own units.

Drummer Frank Butler, whose initial recording appearance was on the first volume of The Curtis Counce Group (Contemporary C3526) was born February 18, 1928, in Wichita, Kansas; was raised in Kansas City; worked in San Francisco for a time from 1949. playing with Dave Brubeck and Billie Holiday, among others; moved to Southern California and a stay with Edgar Hayes; traveled the country with his own trio; played with Duke Ellington in 1954; and later worked with Perez Prado and Curtis Counce. "Frank," notes Land, "is completely relaxed at all tempos and at the same time, provides a constant spark. He's an authentic individualist."

Trumpeter Rolf Ericsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden, August 29, 1927, and came to the United States in 1947 where he worked with Benny Carter, Charlie Barnet, Elliot Lawrence, Charlie Ventura and Woody Herman. He was back in Sweden from 1950-1952; and during his second American stay, he played with Charlie Spivak, Stan Kenton, Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars, Harry James, and Les Brown. He toured Sweden with an American combo in the summer of 1956, and has been working in the States since. "I like the way Rolf plays," says Land, "because of his conception and the fact that he too plays with a spark."

Speak Low is a song that Land has liked for a long time, and he used to play it often with the Max Roach group.

Delirium is by Harold, and its title was suggested to him by the seemingly unending flow of sixteen bar phrases. There is, then, a quality of corybantic "delirium" to this concept of phrases into infinity.

You Don't Know What Love Is is one of Harold's favorite ballads. His interpretation, for this listener, is a moving experience in controlled intensity and in a jazzman's ability to make the most familiar standard an urgently personal statement.

Nieta is by Elmo Hope, the pianist-composer-arranger, who collaborated with Land on the arrangements for the album. The song intrigues Land because "the chords in the channel are like the surrounding eights, but he changes the melody so it doesn't sound that way. Hope is another man who hasn't yet been sufficiently recognized. You'll hear in this song how differently lie can set his progressions from most other writers,"

Carl Perkins' ironically titled, Grooveyard, Land feels, "expresses a great deal of the essence of Carl's style — the voicings of the chords, the way the melody is constructed, and the way he phrases." Perkins' work in this, his last composition, is a particularly cogent example of how thoroughly a player can be rooted in jazz tradition — and in the current "soulful" extension of that tradition — and yet be strikingly personal. The same is true of Land. "After all," says Land, "what 'soul' means is the expression of your own soul through everything you've lived and felt."

Lydia's Lament, also by Land, is named for his wife. "I guess it refers to her sadder moments. The idea of the song was that I just wanted to try to portray a mood of some depth and sadness."

Smack Up, another by Land, received its title because the first phrase brought the words "smack up" to Harold's mind. All he feels is necessary to say about its structure is that "the middle goes into a sort of minor movement. His playing here, as throughout the set, indicates his continuing search for what he terms "a freer way of playing tenor, one that's more emotionally stimulating and more adventurous than, let's say, the 'four brothers approach." Land would not call either his playing or the collective work of the group an example of any "hard school" of jazz. "The term has no meaning to me," he adds, "because I can't think of any approach that's warmer than what we believe in."”

[N.B.: Promised Land the 8th track on the CD was not included on the original LP]

By NAT HENTOFF May 10, 1958

Nat Hentoff is the well-known jazz critic and author, He writes regularly on both jazz and non-jazz subjects for a host of magazines, has also co-authored two books: Hear Me Talkin' to Ya & The Jazz Makers (with Nat Shapiro) both published by Rinehart. 

Cover photo hy Walter Zerlinden         

Cover design by Guidi/Tri-Arts

Miles Davis - Dr. Jackle

Milestones - The Music and Times of Miles Davis by Jack Chambers

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

MILES DAVIS : Milestones, [Columbia C L 1193]

“Side 1: Dr. Jekyl, while not especially melodic, gives the group an excellent opportunity to "stretch out." The eights and fours between Miles and Philly Joe Jones are fiery and invigorating. Paul Chambers, in spite of the fast tempo, takes a soulful solo. The exchange of choruses between Coltrane and Cannonball is the high point of the track, and the rhythm section is very stable throughout.

Sid's Ahead is, in reality, the old, and now classic, Walkin'. During his solo, Coltrane is very clever and creative in his handling of the substitute chords. Miles strolls (without piano) beautifully. He is a true musical conversationalist. Cannonball is quite "funky " at times, and Chambers exemplifies his ability to create solo lines in the manner of a trumpeter or saxophonist.

The third track, Two Bass Hit, opens with everyone on fire—particularly Philly , whose punctuation and attack are as sharp as a knife. Coltrane enters into his solo moaning, screaming, squeezing, and seemingly projecting his very soul through the bell of his horn. I feel that this man is definitely blazing a new musical trail. Philly and Red Garland back the soloists like a brass section, an effect which always creates excitement.

Side 2: The theme of Milestones is unusual, but surprisingly pleasant particularly the bridge where Miles answers the other horns, achieving an echo effect. Philly' s use of sticks on the fourth beat of every bar is quite tasteful. Cannonball cleverly interweaves melodies around the changes. Miles is as graceful as a swan, and Coltrane is, as usual, full of surprises.

Red Garland, who is undoubtedly one of today's great pianists, is spotlighted in Billy Boy with Philly and Paul. The arrangement is tightly knit and well played. Red employs his block chord technique on this track and plays a beautiful single line, as well. Philly and Paul do a wonderful job, both soloing and in the section.

Straight No Chaser is a revival of a Thelonious Monk composition of a few years ago—the spasmodic harmony makes it quite interesting. Cannonball is excellent on this track. I may be wrong, but he seems to have been influenced somewhat by Coltrane. Miles paints a beautiful picture, as surely as with an artist's brush He has a sound psychological approach in that he never plays too much. He leaves me, always"wanting to hear more. I have heard no one, lately, who creates like Coltrane. On this track, he is almost savage in his apparent desire to play his horn thoroughly. Red plays a single line solo with his left hand accompanying off the beat. He closes the solo with a beautiful harmonization of Miles ' original solo on Now's The Time. Here, Philly goes into a subtle 1-2-3-4 beat on the snare drum behind Red's solo, setting it off perfectly. This is the best track of the album. In closing, I'd like to say — keep one eye on the world and the other on John Coltrane.”

- Benny Golson, The Jazz Review, January 1959

One of the reasons that I set up this blog was to have a place to celebrate my heroes and to share them with you.

I was very fortunate to have an early career playing in Jazz groups of every configuration imaginable and I enjoyed it all immensely.

Musically, I made money in commercials and studio work and while that income helped put me through college, the setting for it also helped me realize that the world did not need another, starving Jazz musician, which is what I would have become without the studio work.

But although I subsequently made my way in the world without music, I kept in touch with many of my “old Jazz friends” by buying and listening to their records, reading their books and magazine articles, and attending their club and concert appearances.

Along the way, I also made “new” Jazz friends, many of whom are Jazz writers and critics who have expanded my knowledge and awareness of the music and its makers.

One such new friend is the author, Jack Chambers.

I first “met” Jack on a stormy Sunday afternoon in San Francisco when undeterred by “The great El Niño of 1997-98” [headline from The San Francisco Chronicle], I hopped into my car and headed for the now defunct Borders Bookstore on the corner of Post and Geary Streets.

Over the course of that weekend, I had come to the realization that I did not know very much about Miles Davis’ pre-Columbia Records years, so I headed into town in search of a book that would give me more information about Miles’ earlier discography.

By some miracle, Borders always stocked an ample supply of books about Jazz and lo and behold there was Jack’s book Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis which provided me with all the information I needed about Miles’ recordings.

I was fortunate enough to get a combined edition, but Jack’s book was originally published in two volumes as explained in the following excerpt from his Introduction:

“My book is organized in two volumes, which subdivide Davis's long and extraordinarily productive career into its main phases. Milestones I traces the emergence of the teenaged Davis from East St. Louis, Illinois, into post-war New York City, where he joined the ranks of the bebop revolutionaries, worked out his individual style, and took his place in the forefront of jazz music by late 1959. Davis's activities during this period are covered in two main movements: the first, under the heading "Boplicity," details his apprenticeship, first in his hometown and later under the aegis of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, culminating in his first masterwork with the short-lived experimental nonet of 1948; the second, titled "Miles Ahead," concerns his creative recess during his years of heroin addiction and his dramatic return to form in the 1950s, culminating in the years of the first great quintet and the sextet. Milestones II takes up his music and his times from 1960, also in two main movements; it begins, in "Prince of Darkness," with his formal reorganization of bebop in the second great quintet and continues in "Pangaea" with his restless search for further formal expansions, leading to fusions with free form, rock, and other music.”

While I initially sought out Jack’s Miles book to help fill the gaps in my knowledge about Miles’ earlier recording career before he signed with Columbia in 1955, what convinced me to buy it was the following annotation about my favorite Columbia recording by the Miles Davis Sextet.

I literally wore this record out practicing to it so I thought I was familiar with it, yet what struck me was how much Jack’s observations and insights enhanced my appreciation of the music on Milestones.

See what you think; I’m willing to wager that you’ll see the recording differently after you’ve read Jack’s assessment of it.

“Miles Davis Sextet

Miles Davis, tpt; Julian Adderley, as; John Coltrane, ts; Red Garland, pno; Paul Chambers, b; Philly Joe Jones, dms. New York, 2 April 1958 Two Bass Hit; Billy Boy (rhythm trio only); Straight No Chaser; Milestones (all on Columbia CL 1193)

Same personnel but omit Garland on Sid's Ahead; Davis plays piano and trumpet; same place; 3 April 1958

Dr. Jekyll [Dr. ]ackle] Sid's Ahead [Walkin']

(both issued as above)

Dr. Jekyll is a misspelling (pace Robert Louis Stevenson) of Jackie McLean's title, Dr. Jackle.

With the expanded instrumentation from the quintet to the sextet, Davis makes strategic use of the instrumental combinations. Red Garland's role as a solo voice almost disappears, except for the trio track, Billy Boy, the American folk song that Ahmad Jamal rearranged into a swinging vehicle for piano players. Garland's version was only one of dozens being played at the time, which later prompted Jamal to complain, "I was stupid enough not to copyright the arrangement, and then Oscar Peterson did it, Red Garland did it, Ramsey Lewis did it, everybody did it, and I didn't get paid for it." Garland's only other solo turn is on Straight No Chaser, and everywhere else the space conventionally taken by the piano player is given to Paul Chambers on bass, who solos on every track except Two Bass Hit and Milestones.

The unusual emphasis on bass rather than piano as a solo voice rankled Garland, who walked out of the studio during the warm-up for Sid's Ahead, leaving Davis to double on piano and trumpet on the recorded version of this track. But the emphasis not only reflects Davis's displeasure with Garland; it also, more positively, reflects his delight in his bassist's development. Soon after these recordings were made, Davis told Nat Hentoff, "Paul Chambers ... has started to play a new way whereby he can solo and accompany himself at the same time - by using space well." How that polydexterity might translate into performance is hard to guess, but Chambers was given ample opportunity to show his wares both arco and pizzicato.

The solo orders take some unconventional turns, too. Adderley is the first soloist on Milestones and Straight No Chaser, followed by Davis and then by Coltrane, an order that exploits the stylistic contrasts among the three horns magnificently and also preserves the dynamics of the superseded quintet by allowing Coltrane to charge in behind Davis. On Sid's Ahead and Two Bass Hit, Coltrane opens the solo round, with Davis again interposed between the two reedmen on the former but not soloing at all on the latter. On Dr. Jackie, Davis solos first, exercising the traditional privilege of the leader in jazz bands, but the round of solos turns out to be another innovation, as Davis shares his final three twelve-bar choruses with Philly Joe Jones, and then Adderley and Coltrane trade choruses in their turn.

Probably a more challenging problem for Davis than alloting solo space for the expanded band was working out the ensembles. Only Dr. Jackle seems cluttered in the ensembles, and that impression probably comes not from the lines played by the horns so much as the quick tempo at which they are asked to play it, which prevents them from giving full value to each note. Otherwise the arrangements are very effective, even on the complex Two Bass Hit, where each horn takes charge of a counter-theme in a glorious small-band adaptation of John Lewis's composition. Equally noteworthy are Adderley's lead on the ensemble of Straight No Chaser, with the other horns playing tight dissonances under him, and the startling fanfare of Milestones from which Davis's translucent tone rises at the bridge.

But despite all the attention to solo orders and ensembles that went into these recordings, they succeed only because of the improvisations that sustain the moods of the ensembles and cohere both individually and collectively. Benny Golson, who reviewed this album for Jazz Review, remarks that in Two Bass Hit "Coltrane enters into his solo moaning, screaming, squeezing, and seemingly projecting his very soul through the bell of the horn," and he adds: "I feel that this man is definitely blazing a new musical trail." Perhaps the best evidence of that new trail, in retrospect, occurs on Straight No Chaser, where Coltrane stacks up chords in breathless runs of eighth-notes and sixteenth-notes, a solo that makes a textbook demonstration of the "three-on-one" approach he discussed in his Down Beat article.

Golson and most other reviewers noted that Adderley's playing here shows Coltrane's influence, but that influence is more apparent than real at the point where most listeners think they hear it. In Dr. Jackie, the seams between the alternating choruses by the two players are almost indistinguishable, and there is momentary confusion on a first listening as to where Adderley leaves off and Coltrane begins, and vice versa. But the confusion does not seem to be caused by similarity of phrasing so much as by similarity of tone, as Adderley's full, rich tone on the alto almost seems to be aping Coltrane's tenor in the transitions. Coltrane's influence comes across more clearly on Adderley's solo on Sid's Ahead, a series of sweeping glissandi worthy of Coltrane at his best. The two reedmen are balanced by Davis's sure, spare trumpet, characterized by Golson as "a sound psychological approach in that he never plays too much." Golson adds, "He leaves me, always, wanting to hear more."

The power of the sextet is thus clearly demonstrated in their first recordings. Apart from Dr. Jackie's flawed ensembles, each composition crystallizes various aspects of that power as a self-contained miniature. The intricate, ingenious arrangement of Two Bass Hit, which is worthy of Gil Evans, was almost certainly put together with only a few gestures by way of instruction for the reallocation of parts. For Ian Carr, the British trumpet player, it is Straight No Chaser that wins the accolades. "With Miles Davis, everything counts," Carr told Lee Underwood. "Everything must count, and every note must be accountable. If there's no reason for its being there, then it shouldn't be there. And he swings. For me, he swings more than any other trumpet player, more than almost anybody - just listen to his solo on Straight No Chaser on the Milestones album. No other trumpet player swings like that." Benny Golson points out, among the more arcane delights of this music, that Red Garland ends his solo on Straight No Chaser with "a beautiful harmonization of Miles's original solo on Now's the Time." He states flatly that Straight No Chaser is "the best track on the album."

At least as many people would choose Milestones as the best track. This new composition by Davis, which recycles the title he first used in 1947-it was obviously too good a title to simply abandon - but otherwise bears no resemblance whatever to the earlier composition, contains a remarkable unity. Michel Legrand remarks, "I love the way they approach this melody-everything is for the melody; the chords are very simple, like a carpet on which all the music is based. In other words, the whole thing is not based on complexity, but on simplicity and purity." (It is juvenile, of course, to speak of any work of art as 'perfect,' but it is somehow irresistible to come right out and say - at least parenthetically - that Milestones seems to be a perfect jazz performance. Its components are a simple, memorable, highly original melody, followed by three individualistic explorations of the theme, each one as memorable as the theme itself, by Adderley, Davis, and Coltrane, all buoyed by the brash but sensitive rhythm section, and then the simple, unforgettable melody again. There is nothing more, it seems to me, that one might hope for or ask for in a jazz performance.)

Amazingly, Milestones, which appears to be simple, highly accessible, and above all swinging, also represents a structural innovation of great consequence not only for the music of Miles Davis but also for jazz in general. It is Davis's first completely successful composition based on scales rather than a repeated chord structure. James Lincoln Collier, in his history of jazz, describes its structure this way: "The ability to place his notes in unexpected places is Davis's strongest virtue. It colors his work everywhere. His masterwork in this respect is his Milestones ... It is made up of the simplest sort of eight-bar melody - little more than the segment of a scale, in fact - which is repeated and then followed by a bridge made out of a related eight-bar theme, also repeated. After the bridge, the theme is played once more. The point of it all lies in the bridge, where the rhythm goes into partial suspension. Miles stretches this passage out with notes falling farther and farther behind their proper places. Indeed, in the reprise of the theme at the end of the record he stretches the bridge so far out that he cannot fit it all in and has to cut it short." Collier adds: "It is built not on chord changes but on modes... For Davis, who was already making a point of simplicity, they were a perfect vehicle. He was not the first to see what could be done with them, but he was the one who brought the idea to fruition. Milestones uses one mode on the main theme, then switches to a second mode for the bridge."

Collier correctly points out that Davis was not the first jazz player to promote a modal foundation for jazz compositions - that distinction probably belongs to George Russell. During one of Russell's enforced absences from jazz activity due to tuberculosis, he formalized his thinking in a dissertation called The Lydian Concept of Tonal Organization, first published in 1953 and required reading ever since for jazz scholars, but well before that Russell had tried to use modes in his writing. The first composition in jazz to use a modal organization is probably Russell's introduction to the Dizzy Gillespie orchestra's Cubano Be. "Diz had written a sketch which was mostly Cubano Be," Russell says. "His sketch was what later turned out to be the section of the piece called Cubano Be except that I wrote a long introduction to that which was at the time modal. I mean it wasn't based on any chords, which was an innovation in jazz because the modal period didn't really begin to happen until Miles popularized it in 1959. So that piece was written in 1947, and the whole concept of my introduction was modal, and then Dizzy's theme came in and we performed it,"

Davis's contribution was not in discovering the innovation but in making it work. He was fully aware of the breakthrough he was making in Milestones, as its title indicates, and he described its advantages to Nat Hentoff at the time. "When you go this way," he said, "you can go on forever. You don't have to worry about changes and you can do more with the line. It becomes a challenge to see how melodically inventive you are. When you're based on chords, you know at the end of 32 bars that the chords have run out and there's nothing to do but repeat what you've just done -with variations. I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them."

This was the innovation that Coltrane described when he spoke of Davis's "new stage of jazz development" and of his compositions with "free-flowing lines and chordal direction." Hentoff draws the conclusion from his discussion with Davis that "Davis thus predicts the development of both Coltrane and, to a lesser degree, the more extreme, more melodic, Ornette Coleman."

For the ordinary jazz listener, Davis's modal breakthrough is meaningful not for its formal musical properties or for its historical importance but for the gain in expression it allows the musicians, which in the hands of individuals of the caliber of Davis, Coltrane, and Adderley is heard and felt powerfully.

In Milestones and in the other modal compositions that follow it in Davis's repertoire, there is no feeling of self-conscious experimentation and no implication that these musicians are revising the structural foundations of their art. In this regard, Davis contrasts strikingly with the proponents of third stream music and even with the humbler innovators in his old nonet, and also with the avant-garde or free form musicians soon to follow, all of whom spent more than a little energy talking about the uniqueness of their contributions rather than making their music.”