In Person. Friday Night At The Blackhawk.

Description
**This is Vol 1 (side 1 of this double tape) -1961 Miles Davis– In Person: Friday and Saturday Nights At The Blackhawk, San Francisco.
Columbia – C2Q 569 Reel-To-Reel, 7 ½ ips, 4-Track Stereo tape | Jazz, hard bop, post-bop, modal jazz
Recorded: April 21 & 22, 1961
Producer: Irving Townsend

"This is an underappreciated group because of its relatively short life, but as evidenced here, the bandmembers swung fast and hard and never looked back". -Thom Jurek

"This recording hit #9 on the Billboard jazz chart

Tracklist
A1 Walkin'
A2 Bye Bye Blackbird
A3 All Of You
A4 No Blues
A5 Bye Bye (Theme)
A6 Love I've Found You

B1 Well You Needn't
B2 Fran-Dance
B3 So What
B4 Oleo
B5 If I Were A Bell
B6 Neo

Personel
Bass – Paul Chambers
Drums – Jimmy Cobb
Piano – Wynton Kelly
Tenor Saxophone – Hank Mobley
Trumpet – Miles Davis

On the evenings of April 21 and 22, 1961, Miles Davis and his quintet recorded at San Francisco’s The Black Hawk nightclub, a longtime Tenderloin neighborhood establishment described by Bay area music writer Ralph J. Gleason as “gloomy, dirty and unattractive” – a club kept proudly “repulsive” by its owner, Guido Caccienti, who claimed to have “worked and slaved for years to keep this place a sewer.”

The recording itself was relatively popular (reaching #9 on the Billboard jazz chart) and was described by The New York Times as the set that was “the gold standard for straight-ahead, postwar jazz rhythm.” It was also important because it was the first album Miles intentionally recorded live with his group

Ralph J. Gleason in a typically witty and often derisive tone, the liner notes to Miles Davis In Person Friday and Saturday Nights at The Blackhhawk, San Francisco are compelling not only because they were authored by Gleason, but also because they are comprised of two distinct biographies – Miles Davis as “social symbol” of the early 1960’s, and The Blackhawk as an “oblong, corner-saloon-with music” that attracted a “most incredible cross-section of American society.”

--------------

AllMusic Review by Thom Jurek
The first of two sets recorded during a weekend in 1961 features the Miles Davis Quintet at a period of time when Hank Mobley was on tenor and the rhythm section was comprised of pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. What is most remarkable is the way Kelly fits into this particular blend of the Miles band. Kelly's interplay with Chambers is especially brilliant, because his sense of blues phrasing inside counterpoint harmony is edgy and large, with left-hand chords in the middle register rather than sharp right-hand runs to accentuate choruses.

Davis himself has never played with more intensity and muscularity on record than he does here. He is absolutely fierce, both on the Friday night and Saturday night sets. Kelly plays more like a drummer than a pianist, using gorgeously percussive left-hand comps and fills to add bottom to the front line's solos. Mobley displays his bebop rather than hard bop and groove sides here, and reveals his intricate knowledge of the bop phraseology; he sounds free of the baggage and responsibility that he replaced John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. His solos on "If I Were a Bell" and "No Blues" are simply revelatory.

This is an underappreciated group because of its relatively short life, but as evidenced here, the bandmembers swung fast and hard and never looked back. Hearing a dropped bassline, an out-of-time cymbal flourish, and a shortened series of phrases by Miles because he miscounted -- you guess the track -- adds to the charm of this being recorded as it was, without any cleanup. It is difficult to recommend this set over Saturday Night or vice versa; Miles fans will need both to fully appreciate how special this engagement with this particular band was.

The cover art is a photograph by Leigh Wiener of Davis with his first wife, Frances Taylor, for whom the song "Fran-Dance" was composed. historian Robin D.G. Kelley drew attention specifically to this image, including Davis's position and the picture's use of lighting, as an example of Davis's camera awareness and manipulation of what Kelley termed a cultural "pimp aesthetic". Kelley argued that such iconic images of Davis help to demonstrate that Davis was a product and representation of "a masculine culture that aspired to be like a pimp, that embraced the cool performative styles of the 'playas', the 'macks,' the hustlers, who not only circulated in the jazz world but whose walk and talk also drew from the well of black music".

Sources: jerryjazzmusician Wiki/ ALLmusic/ JazzTIMES

Année de publication
1961

Styles musicaux
Jazz / Post Bop / Modal