The Gil Evans Orchestra - Out Of The Cool (1961)

Here's something that sounds particularly good in a sweltering summer.  Coming hot on the heels of Gil Evans' Sketches Of Spain collaboration with Miles Davis, Out Of The Cool was one of the first batch of LPs released on the new Impulse! label.  

 

Trading some of the tightly-written arrangements that were Evans' stock in trade for a slightly looser, more rhythmic groove, the album hits cooking temperature right away with the 15-minute La Nevada, the insistent rhythm an ideal base for soloing.  A pair of refreshed standards follow, with a lovely trombone-led Where Flamingos Fly then a languid Bilbao Song.  An extended take on George Russell's Stratusphunk highlights more great solos over a walking strut, and the album closes on a pensive note with another Evans composition, Sunken Treasure.

link

pw: sgtg

Arrangements by Gil Evans at SGTG:

Miles Davis: Miles Ahead, Sketches Of Spain, Quiet Nights

Astrud Gilberto: Look To The Rainbow

Miles Davis with Gil Evans - Quiet Nights (1963)

Whilst not up to the standard of their previous collaborations (see Miles Ahead and Sketches of Spain links below), Miles Davis and Gil Evans' final album is still an enjoyable slice of summer-night loveliness.  The compromised nature of Quiet Nights is generally thought to have been due to pressure from CBS to make a more commercial bossanova cash-in, which Davis and Evans eventually grew frustrated with after months of sessions.  They abandoned the project with just 20 minutes of music completed.

The paltry runtime was filled out with an outtake from Miles' previous album and released by Teo Macero against the artist's wishes, causing a three-year rift in their working relationship.  When remastered for a Columbia Legacy CD, it was bulked up a little more with 12 minutes of music intended for a theatrical project.  For all its limitations, I've got a definite soft spot for Quiet Nights - not just because I love Miles Davis/Gil Evans and Brazilian music, but because it's a sweet, languid little record perfect for sitting with the windows open in August watching the sun set.

link
pw: sgtg

Miles Davis at SGTG:
Conception
Walkin'
Blue Moods
Bags' Groove
Miles Ahead (with Gil Evans)
Sketches Of Spain (with Gil Evans)
On The Corner
Agharta

Astrud Gilberto - Look To The Rainbow (1966)

Astrud Gilberto's third solo album showed her vocal range and interpretive skill beginnig to mature, and with this came a gorgeous half hour of arrangements by Gil Evans (with the exception of the third last and second last songs, arranged by Al Cohn) and production by Creed Taylor.  Perhaps trying to position Astrud as both international pop star and authentic bossanova voice, just over half the album's tracks are sung in English, and Look To The Rainbow presents a cracking selection of songs by the likes of Jobim, João Gilberto, Vinicius De Moraes and Baden Powell.

Mixed in with these are I Will Wait For You from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Maria Quiet from the considerably less well known (and never fully performed as written) Brazilian musical, Pobre Menina Rica (Poor Rich Girl).  Without that context, the latter song, sung in English, can seem a little...odd, but never mind - as a whole, this album is pure bossanova-jazz-pop perfection.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do
Gilberto With Turrentine

Miles Davis/Gil Evans - Miles Ahead (1957)

Miles Davis and Gil Evans, who'd first worked together on the 1949-50 sides that would make up Birth Of The Cool, reunited in 1957 for the first of three major album projects.  Miles Ahead was to be an ambitious suite of jazz and classical pieces that were arranged to run together.  Right from the upbeat Springsville segueing into Léo Delibes' Maids Of Cadiz, it was an inspired album that expanded the vocabulary of jazz and third stream music, and still sounds fresh and essential.

Miles abandoned the trumpet in favour of flugelhorn for Miles Ahead, an inspired choice that was a natural fit for his playing style.  The 20 musicians are masterfully arranged by Evans, and the linking together of each piece makes it hard to pick favourites; they're just all brilliant.  Still to come from this legendary collaboration was a setting of Gershwin's Porgy And Bess, and of course the magnificent Sketches of Spain.

link
pw: sgtg

Miles Davis - Sketches Of Spain (1960)

This album always jumps to the front of my August playlist - languid, lazy dog days never quite feel complete without its legendary Gil Evans orchestration and Miles' muted, melancholy tones being so perfectly suited to the Spanish melodies.  IIRC from a Mojo interview back in the 90s, this is Robert Wyatt's favourite album of all time, and what a great choice; Sketches Of Spain isn't just a high watermark in the careers of Davis & Evans, but a hugely influential and enduring classic of 20th century music full stop.

With the passage of time, and with so many recordings of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjeuz available to us now, it's weird to think that it was only 20 years old at the time Miles Davis heard the CBS recording fronted by Renata Tarragó and became obsessed with it.  He got Gil Evans hooked on it too, and the arranger took the gorgeous melody of the Adagio and extended it into 16 minutes of stunning third-stream writing to form the centrepiece of a new album.  Next to receive the Evans treatment was Will O' The Wisp from Manuel Falla's El Amor Brujo, and a folk tune called The Pan Piper.

Reaching even further into Spanish tradition, the album was rounded out by the melancholy march of Saeta, inspired by an Andalusian Easter procession, and Solea, another more upbeat piece in which Miles discovers the links between flamenco and the blues and turns another legendary performance.  The recording sessions for Sketches Of Spain might not have always run smoothly, and the Davis/Evans relationship would soon run out of steam (although the studio backchat between them quoted in the record's liner notes can be hilarious), but the album that resulted here is arguably the best that they made together.

link