Then we went on the road and scared everybody to death in the towns we played - Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia. And there wasn’t a night when I didn’t open my eyes, look out at the audience or the bar and see some great bass player checking me out. He had gotten up on the stand, taken Cherry’s horn and started playing. One night we were playing, Cherry was taking a solo and all of a sudden I heard the solo change direction and I opened my eyes and it was Miles. I’d never been there before, and after checking into the hotel we went down to the Five Spot for a rehearsal…When we started playing every night, the place was packed with people not just from the music world but from the art world, from everywhere. It was really something.Ĭoming to New York in 1959 was really exciting. We would play every day and stop and talk about what we were doing and then we would play the tune over again. We got together and started playing at Don Cherry’s house. “I’d actually met Don Cherry and Billy Higgins before Ornette. The horns riff behind the piano solo, as Evans responds with complex chord voicings on the bridge of his chorus. Each soloist confronts the challenge of blowing over modes brilliantly and each horn soloist draws distinct accompanying textures from Evans. The two-note kicker is another “amen” cadence that gets at the church-music echoes Davis wanted in the music, although the interval creates a far different feeling here than on Freddie Freeloader. Chambers states the melody, with responses by Evans and the horns. It is introduced here by piano and bass, playing the only detailed written material employed at the session which has been attributed to both Gil Evans (the more likely source) and Bill Evans. Once musicians grew accustomed to blowing over this open terrain, So What became the I Got Rhythm of modal jazz. It is a 32-bar, AABA structure, built on two Dorian modes rather than a more detailed chord sequence. Liner notes studio version: Bob Blumenthalīill Evans takes over for So What, which remains the most influential track from this most influential album and one of only two that became a permanent part of the Miles Davis repertoire. Miles’s playing here is absolute perfection! – Michael Cuscuna Over the years, the tempo accelerated to avalanche speed. Played at its original medium-slow tempo, the piece is haunting. The first recording of “So What” was made exactly one month earlier. This stunning version of “So What” comes from an ApCBS program featuring Miles’s quintet with John Coltrane and an ensemble arranged and assembled by Gil Evans.
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December 2022
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