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From: wjhe@hlexa.UUCP (Bill Hery)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Reissues: On the Blue Note Trail (1 of 6)
Message-ID: <4258@hlexa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Jun-85 15:32:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: hlexa.4258
Posted: Wed Jun 19 15:32:07 1985
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> 
> Cannonball Adderley: SOMETHING ELSE (1958)
> This is to my knowledge the only record where Miles Davis plays but is not
> the band leader since his successful comeback from heroin addiction in 1954.

It's the only complete lp, but not the only recordings.  Miles was on 4 
of the 11 cuts on Michel Legrand's Legrand Jazz (1958) and on two cuts by
something called the Brass Ensemble of the Jazz and Classical Music
Society (1956).

In the 1950's Legrand was putting out mood music LP's for Columbia, but
had a strong interest in jazz.  He managed to get Columbia to set up
three recording dates, each with a different all star ensemble, to record
some of his arrangements of jazz classics.  One of those ensembles included
Miles, Coltrane, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Herbie Mann; they recorded
Wild Man Blues (by Louis Armstrong and Jellyroll Morton), Jitterbug 
Waltz (Fats Waler), Django (John Lewis), and Round Midnight (Thelonious
Monk).  The cuts and solos are short, but interesting.  Musicians in
the other ensembles include Ben Webster, Art Farmer, Donald Byrd, 
Teo Macero (who later produced most of Miles LP's on Cloumbia), and
many of the best known NY studio musicians of the day.  The album
went out of print in the sixties, but I believe it is available again
as a reissue.  (Michel Legrand, of course, went on the greater fame 
as composer of film scores, for which he has won several awards,
including a Best Song Oscar for Windmills of Your Mind.)

I don't know how the Brass Ensemble cuts were originally released, but
I have them on a mid-sixties album called Outstanding Jazz Compositions
of the 20-th Century.  The title is pretentious and misleading, since
the compositions are mostly from the early attempts at third stream
music (blending classical and jazz elements) during the mid and late
1950's; however the music is interesting.  It includes some otherwise
unavailable music by, among others, Charles Mingus and Duke Ellington.
The two cuts Miles is on (and solos on) are Jazz Suite for Brass (by 
J. J. Johnson) and Three Little Feelings (John Lewis).  I personally
find the attempt to merge jazz and classical in these pieces somewhat
contrived (as were many of the other efforts by John Lewis and Gunther
Schuller) and unsatisfactory; Miles solos are the highlights.

Bill Hery