Miles Davis: The French Connection

“I like to play in Europe every now and then,” said Miles Davis to Playboy magazine in 1962, “But I don’t like to spend more time out of this house than I can help.”

He also spoke of spending more time with his children and his wife Frances. Davis was taking a spot of what today would be called 'gardening leave'. What was not made public was that Miles was suffering from sickle-cell anaemia, which had given him pain for years, and which had recently flared up again. After the breakup of his great sextet that included John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans, Davis’s career seemed to have reached a plateau. His last two album releases, from March and April 1961 – Someday My Prince Will Come, and Miles Davis in Person at the Blackhawk, San Francisco – were in many ways picking up the pieces after John Coltrane’s departure in early 1961.

Davis continued to employ highly regarded sidemen – Hank Mobley replaced Coltrane, for example – but a Carnegie Hall concert with his quintet and the Gil Evans Orchestra in May 1961 was of previously recorded studio material while Quiet Nights, an album that was never completed with Gil Evans from July/August 1962, would not be released until 1963 when critic Leonard Feather accused Columbia of “scraping the bottom of the corporate barrel.” It was a release that would have unexpected knock-on consequences.

In live performance and on record, Davis seemed content to rely on a basic repertoire he had played for years – standards (‘My Funny Valentine’, ‘Stella by Starlight’, ‘Autumn Leaves’) and compositions he had made famous in the past (‘Walkin’, ‘So What’). On the face of it, the restless urge towards experimentation and pushing the envelope seemed to have temporarily deserted him in the face of the pain his disease was causing him in his hands, hips and knees particularly.

All is said to have been redeemed by the arrival of saxophonist Wayne Shorter for a European tour in 1964. But tempting as it is to package Davis’ story as a series of neat, linear, inter-connecting events, the recent release of Miles in France – Miles Davis Quintet 1963/64: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 as a 6-CD or 8-LP box set, serves to remind us this period of Davis’ life was far from the creative hiatus that has so often been portrayed, coming as it did between two creative peaks – the first culminating in Kind of Blue, and the second the formation of what is now known as his 'Second Great Quintet' with Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums.

These 'in-between' years, highlighted by the release of Miles in France, presents a substantial chunk of music, comprising all three sets he played at the Festival Mondial Du Jazz, at Antibes/Juan-Les-Pins, on 26, 27 and 28 July 1963, and two complete sets from the following year at the Paris Jazz Festival, Salle Pleyel, on 1 October 1964.

It is fair to say that prior to the formation of the quintet with George Coleman on tenor saxophone, Davis's career had been in the doldrums. Bookings had become sporadic, prompting the departure of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb to play with Wes Montgomery at the end of 1962. To make matters worse, tenorist Hank Mobley had left in 1961, replaced by Rocky Boyd for his 15 minutes of fame – he didn’t last long – and with Davis facing deteriorating health, now needing a saxophonist and a rhythm section meant he had to effectively build a new band from scratch.

But band or no band, he had contractual commitments to fulfil, and a Philadelphia promoter sued him for $8,000 for not fulfilling his contract; and a concert promoter in St Louis began legal action for similar reasons. Suddenly, an opening date at the Blackhawk in San Francisco loomed large, and he could neither afford further fines nor damage to his reputation among club owners and promoters these 'no shows' might cause. Davis phoned the Blackhawk asking for a postponement of a week, and set about forming a band in earnest. He was joined by Memphis-born Frank Strozier on alto, Harold Mabern on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Frank Butler on drums. As an afterthought he added George Coleman on tenor.

The Miles Davis Quintet (l-r): Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Davis and George Coleman in Antibes, France, July 1963 (Photo: Edward Quinn)

From such prosaic beginnings, Davis entered what would be another creative peak. On the final date of Blackhawk engagement, he replaced Mabern on piano with Englishman Vic Feldman, dropped Strozier and headed for the Renaissance Club in Los Angeles.

Afterwards, pleased with the results, he took the band into the Columbia Studios in Los Angeles in April 1963 to record several tracks that would become the basis of his album Seven Steps to Heaven. On it were two key tracks, ‘Joshua’ and ‘Seven Steps to Heaven,’ both of which frequently feature on Miles in France. The latter, written by Vic Feldman, was a significant departure for Davis – on the face of it, it presented an eight bar intro, 16 bars of stop time from the ensemble, a bass solo for the middle eight, and a return for eight bars of the stop time, followed by an eight bar interlude and on to solos over a 32-bar form with a slightly simplified chord progression. That slightly simplified chord progression for solos in live performance began to lead into modes. ‘Seven Steps to Heaven’ was a key composition on a key album of the same name, and was reissued in 2005 with an extra track, ‘Summer Night’, that had been used in 1963 to fill out the release of Quiet Nights with Gill Evans. The lavish limited edition box set Seven Steps to Heaven: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963–1964, also released in 2005, included ‘Summer Night’plus the final unissued track from the West Coast session, ‘Basin Street Blues’, was also added.

On Miles' return to New York, Feldman chose to remain in Los Angeles to continue his lucrative career in Hollywood studio work, and since Davis was unable to get on with Frank Butler’s drumming, he went too. After a few phone calls and rehearsals a new line up emerged with Coleman on tenor saxophone, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass and a 17-year-old drummer called Tony Williams. On 14 May, they recorded further tracks to complete the album Seven Steps For Heaven. A new quartet was now in place and it sounded like nothing any band Davis had fronted before.

Just three months after the New York session with the new quintet, Miles was at Antibes, where he was featured on every night of the festival. Miles in France – Miles Davis Quintet 1963/64: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 captures this new group in full flow. They rip into the standards and originals that had served Davis so well at tempos Davis never dreamed he would be playing, while his ballad performances dig deep into his lyrical side.

The core repertoire does not change much, with a few variations each night to keep everyone on their toes. George Coleman’s playing on each of these festival nights is some of his best recorded work to date, thanks to the musical empathy he had quickly developed with Herbie Hancock and a rhythm section that was fizzing with new ideas. It had gelled into a unit quite unlike anything Davis had used before – simultaneously commanding and adventurous on the brisk tempo numbers, lyrical and sympathetic on ballads, their willingness to take risks delighted Davis, whose playing assumed a confidence, assertiveness and invention not heard in years.

The release of the incomplete Davis/Gil Evans album Quiet Nights during the latter part of 1963, caused the trumpeter to fly into a rage, as he considered it inferior in length and quality to his work on Columbia, and had never agreed to its being made public. He blamed producer Teo Macero entirely, and for the next three years, until 1966’s Miles Smiles sessions, Davis refused to enter a recording studio under Macero’s supervision. To fulfil his contractual obligations, Columbia had to rely on Davis’ concert recordings.

This meant that Miles Davis In Europe (Miles à Antibes in France), first released on 13 July 1964, originallycomprised seven tracks taken from the concert at Antibes on 27 July 1963. It was re-released in 2005 with the addition of ‘I Thought About You’, while the complete, nine track concert, appeared in the Seven Steps to Heaven box set. However, context is all, and the 27 July concert now reappears in its entirety as CD number two of Miles in France, between the concerts from 26 and 28 July.

The band were on fire at Antibes, and were fortunately captured by ORTF, the state radio station in France. Davis was now rejuvenated, having found the right musicians to inspire him, who knew well the sound and language of his previous groups, from which their adventurous approach grew. He was so impressed by the band he would phone up the West Coast jazz critic, Ralph Gleason, and play him passages of the ORTF concerts over the phone – Davis’ enthusiasm for the band was something the critic Gleason had rarely heard from the trumpeter, and willingly agreed to do the liner notes for the 1964 release of Miles in Europe.

The Miles in France box set allows us to closely focus on the next step in the evolution of Davis’ Quintet and sees the trumpeter allowing his rhythm section to pull the leader’s familiar repertoire into unfamiliar areas both rhythmically and harmonically. By way of introducing his 'new' group to the enthusiastic French audiences, Davis opened with ‘Autumn Leaves’; this became a trademark opener with this band because it introduced each player in turn, by way of solos, to the audience. ‘So What’ sees the first stirrings of shifting from the form and harmonies of the original recording of the song by going 'off piste' into what would be developed in to Freebop, or time, no changes. It says much for a band whose intensity of both concentration and listening was such that they moved away from the written to the improvised, and back again as one, and this after just a couple of months together. It was a band that promised much.

At the instigation of either Hancock, Coleman or Carter, they would temporarily move from chord changes to no changes and to follow and support the improviser’s line. It was done subtly, and you have to concentrate on the changes to be aware of this, but Davis heard it immediately and liked the idea and went with what the young bloods were doing with enthusiasm. It was small steps at first, but it is no exaggeration to say that Seven Steps to Heaven is the first step towards Davis’ move towards the ‘time no changes’ approach to improvisation which Ornette Coleman had launched on an unsuspecting world that was now unfolding at Antibes.

It was an approach that would be refined and perfected to find its most exemplary interpretation at the hands of Davis’s 'Second Great Quintet', an approach that Wayne Shorter took to the next level with his final, brilliant quartet in the new millennium with Danilo Pérez on piano, John Patitucci on bass and Brian Blade on drums.

The link between the superb Miles in France sessions and the final two Columbia albums that documented this version of the Davis’ quintet came, perhaps surprisingly, not from Columbia at all, but was recorded in September 1963 by the doyen of live recording engineers, Wally Heider at the Monterey Festival and released in 2007 as The Miles Davis Quartet Live at The 1963 Monterey Jazz Festival on Monterey Jazz Festival Records.

There is certainly a step change in the quality of recorded sound with the Monterey recordings, but little change in the basic repertoire – ‘Autumn Leaves’, ‘So What’, ‘Stella by Starlight’, ‘Walkin’’ – with further intimations of pushing these songs to breaking point, with the single exception of ‘The Theme’ that evokes the memory of Davis’s previous rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb from the previous band.

On 12 February 1964, the final two albums released by Columbia documenting this band were recorded live – Davis still had not forgiven Macero, and carried on refusing to go into the studio under his direction – at the Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center, New York. That concert also provided a few photos that are used for the Miles In France set. 'My Funny Valentine', all 15 minutes of it, features Davis and has long been held up as an exemplary example of contemporary ballad playing for young musicians.

The critic Kenneth Tynan was quoted in the liner notes, referring to the Spanish word duende: “It has no exact English equivalent, but denotes the ability to transmit a profoundly felt emotion with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of restraint.”

Recorded at the same 12 February concert was ‘Four’ & More, and Davis’ solo trumpet here is among the best examples in his whole recorded legacy, while George Coleman is simply excellent. It is a quietly influential album that guitarist Pat Metheny recalls as the first jazz album he bought, and that over the period of a year he mastered the changes and key solos of Davis and Coleman on guitar.

The final two CDs in the Miles in France collection come from both houses at Salle Pleyel on 1 October 1964. By now, Coleman had left the band, Sam Rivers had been tried but did not work out, so once again Davis made a play for Wayne Shorter. This time Shorter agreed in time for the European tour, of which the Salle Pleyel concert was a part.

Perhaps it was Davis’ history in France, a country where he encountered true love for the first time (in the shape of Juliette Gréco) when he first came across to the country to play the Festival International De Jazzin Paris in 1949 when he was just 22 years of age. And with his affair with Gréco extending off and on well into the 1960s, he visited France more times than any other country outside of the United States.

He even recorded there from time to time, including the soundtrack to the film Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, a stepping stone en route to Kind of Blue. In fact, France was his favourite destination, and the French loved him, honouring him with the Knight’s Cross of the French Legion of Honour by French Cultural Minister, Jack Lang, in 1991.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, he played one of his final concerts there just two months before he died, in July 1991.

Maybe it was the warm October air that night on 1 October 1964, that gave him the confidence to give what would shortly be called 'The Second Great Quartet' its head over the two sets they played that night that complete the Miles in France set.

The group certainly sounds as if caution had beenthrown to the wind. By the final set the solos go on for longer, the excitement is more intense, as ORTF capture the beguiling, multi-dimensional effect of freedom and form being juxtaposed, something that would become more overt and more breathtaking as Shorter’s influence (he had only recently joined that band), took root. Taken together, Miles in France is a valuable historical document.

In fact you might say it’s indispensable Miles, captured live during a crucial period that has not had the attention it deserves by the gatekeepers of jazz culture.

Miles In France producer Richard Seidel speaks to Stuart Nicholson about the complex interpersonal relationships that fuelled this period of Miles' music

A few months after recording My Funny Valentine and ‘Four’ & More, George Coleman left Davis’ quintet. This was the stuff of legend, and I have heard/read many explanations for this. We know that prior to forming this band, Davis was enduring considerable pain from sickle-cell anaemia which appears to have continued through the duration of this band’s lifetime; and at the time, Coleman found himself fronting the band at bookings where Davis could not show up. Is this the reason?

Richard Seidel: “Coleman was recommended to Miles by John Coltrane. Tony Williams was not a fan of George. Tony didn’t think he was 'modern' enough, not sufficiently adventurous. And Coleman had to bail Miles out a lot when he was physically ill and didn’t show up for gigs. I once heard an interview with George on WBGO, the New York area jazz station, where he said that when Miles didn’t show, which was often, audiences just thought that he was Miles. And when Miles wasn’t there the rhythm section played much freer, which was not to his liking. Also, George knew that Tony didn’t care for his playing. And finally, George also mentioned that the money was frequently late. I get the sense that all of these things made him uncomfortable, and ultimately led to his quitting the band.”

As I understand it, all the albums by this band, with the exception of Seven Steps to Heaven, were recorded live because Davis blamed Teo Macero for the release of the incomplete Quiet Nights album, and refused to go into the studio with him for some 30 months as a result. Columbia thus had to rely on live recordings. It meant there was a similarity of repertoire in the albums (eg, Miles in France), as Davis tended stick to more or less the same setlist live, and introduced new material in the studio. I wonder what your thoughts are on this, as it would have been really interesting to see how far this band might have progressed with new material…?

RS: “Yes, Miles was pissed at Teo for releasing Quiet Nights. When Gregg Hall asked Davis in 1974, “What was the reason why you didn’t speak to Teo [Macero] for two and a half years one time?”, Davis answered, “’Cause he fucked up Quiet Nights...” (DownBeat, 18 July, 1974). The only time Miles was in the NYC Columbia studios between the last Quiet Nights session (November 1962) and the two Miles Smiles sessions (October 1966), was the May 1963 session that completed Seven Steps to Heaven. All other recordings were either live, or made in Columbia’s Hollywood studio with Irving Townsend as producer. I have an ongoing fantasy about Miles and new material. That he would have played live more of the many great new compositions written for the band by his sidemen between 1965 and 1968. For example, the 1965 ESP album has seven terrific new tunes, but the only tune from the album that made it into the live book was ‘Agitation’, which was the least interesting tune on the record. Ron Carter once shared with me that he thought the reason Miles never played ‘Freedom Jazz Dance’ live was that he was lazy and didn’t want to have to really learn the tune. This may have also applied to some of the other tunes that were new to the band.”                

Coleman’s time with Davis was overshadowed by Coltrane on the one hand, and the arrival of Wayne Shorter (as on the final two CDs of Miles in France, which I imagine are among his first recordings with the band) on the other. Coleman, to me, presents a powerful contrast to Davis (in the way Coltrane did) and was capable, as he shows in Miles in France particularly, of sustaining creative, swinging solos at length that were seldom repetitive. In short his contribution seems to have been underrated here (and subsequently). I wonder what your thoughts might be on this…?

RS: “I agree that Coleman is underappreciated. And I think one of the reasons for this is that he has made very few recordings as a leader over the course of what is now a more-than-60-year recording career. In a discography  that starts in 1957, he didn’t make his first album as a leader until 1977 when he was 41 years old. George plays consistently well on all of his recordings with Miles, a very melodic player who really eats up the chord changes at whatever the tempo. He may not be as adventurous as his two successors in the band, Sam Rivers and Wayne Shorter, but he’s a perfect foil for Miles, as he plays in a more notey style, but yet never sounds too busy. These 1963 Antibes recordings are some of his best, and they lead to his performance of a lifetime at the 12 February 1964 Lincoln Center concert (which I was privileged to attend) that produced the Miles’ My Funny Valentine and 'Four’ & More albums. In his memoir, Miles said he’d never heard George play better than he did that night. And I concur.”

Perhaps the key component in the Miles in France band is drummer Tony Williams, whose rhythmic approach was quite unlike, but derived from, the drummers in Davis’ group that preceded him. What for me is fascinating is how he, Hancock and Carter so readily coalesce into a unit that seemed capable of exceeding the sum of its individual component parts. Perhaps you could highlight for Jazzwise readers what you think makes this rhythm section the wonder that it is?

RS: “Yes, Tony was the shot in the arm that Miles needed. He knew all of Miles’ repertoire and encouraged him to play ‘Milestones’, which the band had never played live (listen to the audience reaction when they kick off ‘Milestones’ on the 27 July Antibes show.) As young as he was – only 17 on the Antibes recordings – it was clear to Miles that Tony was a serious student of jazz as well as a phenomenal drummer; and it’s clear from the studio chatter in 1966 that he was calling the shots as much as the others. Jimmy Cobb, Tony’s predecessor, was a drummer who basically played straight time, whereas Tony, who could swing as hard as any drummer, expanded into polyrhythms of a kind that had just about never been heard before. This in turn influenced how Ron and Herbie played. And so the rhythm section evolved to the point where they pretty much could play anything, from inside to outside. And you can hear that evolution developing really quickly on these 1963 and ’64 recordings. Which is remarkable given that the band had only been playing together for some three months. Their musical communication was nothing short of telepathic.”Special thanks to Peter Losin for his help and contributions to these answers