MILES & JOHN COLTRANE - A Dynamic Relationship
by Julian Nicholas
Following the death of Charlie Parker in 1955 the New York jazz scene struggled with the kind of vacuum of meaning and a low-level depression that is normally associated with personal bereavement.
Miles Davis was a different kind of animal to Dizzy Gillespie, and rather than finding pragmatical answers to staying at the top of the business, his concerns were focused on how the music was going to move forward.
Sonny Rollins tells of how he has never come to terms with not being able to tell Bird that he had kicked his own heroin habit in Bellevue, finding on his exit that Bird had succumbed to its fatal lure. On Relaxin recorded in 1956 - Coltrane’s soloing was beset with intangible delicacy due to his own submersion in heroin, and it was Miles who could foresee the unsustainability of this lifestyle.
For now, at least, Miles was clean and looking for clean and innovative forces with whom to change gear creatively. Indeed, when Miles did finally give Coltrane the ‘heave-ho’ for a brief period following several warnings, Rollins was right there to provide sporadic, energetic sparring, if not the long-term creative depth of JC.
That is not to say that Sonny wasn’t ‘a deeper level of cat’, just that Miles and Coltrane shared something that I contend is an underestimated influential factor upon the thinking and creative output of Miles, both in the post-Parker phase leading to Kind Of Blue, and thereafter.
Following the death of Charlie Parker in 1955 the New York jazz scene struggled with the kind of vacuum of meaning and a low-level depression that is normally associated with personal bereavement.
Miles Davis was a different kind of animal to Dizzy Gillespie, and rather than finding pragmatical answers to staying at the top of the business, his concerns were focused on how the music was going to move forward.
Sonny Rollins tells of how he has never come to terms with not being able to tell Bird that he had kicked his own heroin habit in Bellevue, finding on his exit that Bird had succumbed to its fatal lure. On Relaxin recorded in 1956 - Coltrane’s soloing was beset with intangible delicacy due to his own submersion in heroin, and it was Miles who could foresee the unsustainability of this lifestyle.
For now, at least, Miles was clean and looking for clean and innovative forces with whom to change gear creatively. Indeed, when Miles did finally give Coltrane the ‘heave-ho’ for a brief period following several warnings, Rollins was right there to provide sporadic, energetic sparring, if not the long-term creative depth of JC.
That is not to say that Sonny wasn’t ‘a deeper level of cat’, just that Miles and Coltrane shared something that I contend is an underestimated influential factor upon the thinking and creative output of Miles, both in the post-Parker phase leading to Kind Of Blue, and thereafter.
Miles saw in Coltrane the deeply searching, creatively intelligent, process-devoted practitioner that he considered himself to be, and that he found lacking in industry colleagues, fellow musicians, critics and audiences across the board. His was a solitary and driven purpose, and acting as a catalyst, he was able to see what contribution this new crop of musicians may have to offer, and to find in Coltrane the greater depth of expression he was seeking.
As with the arrival of Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley - when Miles’ first observation was how he could hear more blues in him than in Parker – Coltrane’s sound in the mid ‘50s was an unabashed blues wail, albeit suffused with developing harmonic and melodic shaping. And by 1959, although his sound had arrived at the emergence of a new language, was and is still essentially one of the deepest and rawest of blues voices in American music.
Miles had originally taken a huge risk in combining the little known musicians of this great band, but with ‘Round Midnight’ and a series of great studio recordings leading up to Kind of Blue, he had consolidated a pre-eminent position on the world’s stage that he never relinquished, an achievement born out of a desire that jazz be taken seriously as the deep folk expression and art form that it is.
Miles’ recordings Porgy & Bess and Sketches of Spain both owe much to the vocal nature of Coltrane’s approach to expression. In Coltrane’s striving for meaning, his voice can be heard enunciating syllables from lyrics of show tunes through to devotional texts [in the case of A Love Supreme], and his long notes are shaped as words of the gospel. Coltrane also explored the varied and altered scales of not only flamenco, but of Indian and Middle Eastern cultures whilst forming his sound in the late ‘50s. These and Gil Evans’ enticements led to Miles’ genre-creating works of colla-voce sections leading to a big medium-swing grooves, typical of Coltrane’s ballad output as well as later works with his great quartet.
As with the arrival of Julian ‘Cannonball’ Adderley - when Miles’ first observation was how he could hear more blues in him than in Parker – Coltrane’s sound in the mid ‘50s was an unabashed blues wail, albeit suffused with developing harmonic and melodic shaping. And by 1959, although his sound had arrived at the emergence of a new language, was and is still essentially one of the deepest and rawest of blues voices in American music.
Miles had originally taken a huge risk in combining the little known musicians of this great band, but with ‘Round Midnight’ and a series of great studio recordings leading up to Kind of Blue, he had consolidated a pre-eminent position on the world’s stage that he never relinquished, an achievement born out of a desire that jazz be taken seriously as the deep folk expression and art form that it is.
Miles’ recordings Porgy & Bess and Sketches of Spain both owe much to the vocal nature of Coltrane’s approach to expression. In Coltrane’s striving for meaning, his voice can be heard enunciating syllables from lyrics of show tunes through to devotional texts [in the case of A Love Supreme], and his long notes are shaped as words of the gospel. Coltrane also explored the varied and altered scales of not only flamenco, but of Indian and Middle Eastern cultures whilst forming his sound in the late ‘50s. These and Gil Evans’ enticements led to Miles’ genre-creating works of colla-voce sections leading to a big medium-swing grooves, typical of Coltrane’s ballad output as well as later works with his great quartet.
What sustained and influenced Miles in his relationship with Coltrane was not only his sound and the innovation and intention of his improvisations, but the quality of their dialogue as life-long seekers of musical depth. This they did in conversation – exploring relationships of intervals in chord construction and melodic variation – but also on the stand, reacting to each other’s polar positions [Miles, succinct and laconic, Coltrane equally compendious but rhapsodic, too] – and giving each other definition as Yin and Yang do.
is easy to write and read the history as Miles giving Coltrane a voice, as many have done, but looking at it from the position of a player, who’s every motivation is to be inspired by your fellow practitioners, and as a life-long fan of both of them, it is also clear to me that had Coltrane not come along, Miles may not only have floundered in the post-Parker doldrums, but he may indeed not have so quickly come upon the creative focus and intensity that came to typify his output from this time on.
Whilst Miles’ quintet and Coltrane’s quartet of the ‘60s went all the way to the end of acoustic chamber music as we know it, Miles was to veer into electric territory within a year of Coltrane’s death. Here too, he took with him the basic tenets of Coltrane’s toolkit: the blues, the groove, drones and ostinato, an unfailing curiosity and intelligence, and the genuinely supportive spirit of an elder of the tribe.
Echoes of Coltrane’s inestimable impact, and evidence too of a resonance not unlike that of the loss of Parker merely 12 years before, can be heard in In A Silent Way - the drone, the modality, the soprano – and in Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson and his work with John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis is very much the evocator of the blues voice – way back there in the deepest, subconscious self, his and Coltrane’s voices will always be intertwined.
is easy to write and read the history as Miles giving Coltrane a voice, as many have done, but looking at it from the position of a player, who’s every motivation is to be inspired by your fellow practitioners, and as a life-long fan of both of them, it is also clear to me that had Coltrane not come along, Miles may not only have floundered in the post-Parker doldrums, but he may indeed not have so quickly come upon the creative focus and intensity that came to typify his output from this time on.
Whilst Miles’ quintet and Coltrane’s quartet of the ‘60s went all the way to the end of acoustic chamber music as we know it, Miles was to veer into electric territory within a year of Coltrane’s death. Here too, he took with him the basic tenets of Coltrane’s toolkit: the blues, the groove, drones and ostinato, an unfailing curiosity and intelligence, and the genuinely supportive spirit of an elder of the tribe.
Echoes of Coltrane’s inestimable impact, and evidence too of a resonance not unlike that of the loss of Parker merely 12 years before, can be heard in In A Silent Way - the drone, the modality, the soprano – and in Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson and his work with John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis is very much the evocator of the blues voice – way back there in the deepest, subconscious self, his and Coltrane’s voices will always be intertwined.
