Liner Notes

Miles Davis ’ earliest masterpiece Birth Of The Cool gets the royal treatment in celebration of the legendary trumpeter’s Centennial. Following his trial-by-fire tenure in the Charlie Parker Quintet in the mid-1940s, Davis emerged with bolstered confidence and a creative hunger to explore new directions. J.

Johnson , Kai Winding , John Lewis , Max Roach , Kenny Clarke , and others. The nonet featured a unique instrumentation with French horn and tuba to create new textures influenced by impressionist classical music that inspired lyrical improvisations by the band’s soloists on arrangements of pieces by Davis, Evans, Mulligan, Lewis, Denzil Best, Bud Powell, Johnny Mercer, and more.

A regular gathering of like-minded musicians at arranger Gil Evans ’ Manhattan apartment provided the workshop at which the Miles Davis Nonet was born, and in 1949-50 Davis led three seminal sessions for Capitol Records that documented this exciting new music with a cast of collaborators including Gerry Mulligan , Lee Konitz , J.