Davis, Miles: Porgy And Bess (CD)

Porgy And Bess boldly took ideas that reversed the bebop aesthetic - instead of navigating one’s solo with rapid-fire assuredness from one chord to the next and next, Evans’ approach to the harmonies of Porgy And Bess was to slow down the rate of those shifts — the “changes” jazz musicians often speak of — and allow the soloist to stay on one modality (hence “modal jazz”) and invent his own melody and mood.

To Miles’ ears, by the late 1950s, the “music [had] gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they’re full of chords. I can’t play them.” Miles was talking to the jazz journalist Nat Hentoff, for the short-lived Jazz Journal magazine. It was 1958 and the article was titled “An Afternoon with Miles” — but it could be called “A Modal Manifesto”.

Modal jazz, restful and relaxing, swept away the clichés that Miles disliked, while still holding challenge for soloists. Kind Of Blue, built on the same foundational idea, was just around the corner.

1. Buzzard Song
2. Bess, You Is My Woman Now
3. Gone
4. Gone, Gone, Gone
5. Summertime
6. Oh Bess, Oh Where's My Bess
7. Prayer (Oh Doctor Jesus)
8. Fishermen, Strawberry And Devil Crab
9. My Man's Gone Now
10. It Ain't Necessarily So
11. Here Come De Honey Man
12. I Loves You, Porgy
13. There's A Boat That's Leaving Soon For New York
14. I Loves You, Porgy (Take 1, Second Version)
15. Gone (Take 4)