What an incredible task the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw set themselves. To revisit the 1960s sound world of Miles Davis, and more specifically, to recreate a concert given by Davis and his quintet in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam on April 9th, 1960.
As part of the Dutch Jazz Heritage series, the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw have toured the Netherlands with new arrangements of music from the legendary 1959 Miles Davis Album A Kind of Blue.
How does this music work arranged for big band as opposed to the original – an agile jazz quintet?
And how do the two contrasting jazz trumpet sounds on offer come together to produce an authentic Miles Davis sound? On one hand, the more direct, confident and even bluesy sound of Ruud Breuls, or instead the more mellow and subdued tone of the young Charlie Philips?
The 1960 concert | April 9th (midnight) in the Concertgebouw
The concert on April 9th, 1960 was the first of two concerts in Amsterdam that year for Miles Davis and his quintet as part of a European tour, which provided a renewed interest in their work.
Sitting on stage in Enschede nearly sixty years later, Dutch journalist, Bert Vuijsje (who attended this very concert in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam on April 9th, 1960 as an eighteen-year-old) joined compere Frank Jochemsen to share his memories. Vuijsje described how liberating this first European tour of 1960 must have been for these American jazz musicians who were subject to so much racial discrimination in their own country. At this time, Davis was recovering from wrongful arrest and charges for assaulting a police officer after escorting a blonde-haired lady to a taxi outside the Birdland Jazz club where he had been performing. An incident which he later admitted made him increasingly bitter and cynical towards the world around him.
Keeping the spirit of Dutch jazz alive
Vuijsje chronicled how the Dutch Jazz Archive, established in 1980 to catalogue and keep the history of Dutch jazz music alive, not only understands how pivotal these concerts in the Concertgebouw were for the development of jazz in The Netherlands, but along with fellow jazz enthusiast Lou van Rees, produced a definitive recordings of the event, all from a cassette tape!
In accompanying notes, Vuijsje recalls how nearly half of the audience walked out of this 1960s concert in protest as they did not understand the ‘new’ musical language of Miles Davis and John Coltrane as found in the ground-breaking recording A Kind of Blue. Recordings of this album had failed to reach the Netherlands in time for the European concerts, so the audience quite rightly expected to hear the 1957-8 sound of Blue Train and Porgy and Bess. It seems that Scheveningen and Amsterdam were not quite ready for the more lyrical and modal style of improvisations found in numbers like So What, If I Were a Bell and All-Blues.
It also seems that John Coltrane’s performance in the Concertgebouw concert was the subject of much discussion at the time – reportedly not of the same high standard as his performance earlier the same day in Scheveningen – leading to thoughts that he may have been either tired, or that he had had enough of playing with Miles!
Notwithstanding the controversy about Coltrane’s playing, most of the Dutch critics remained in awe of Miles Davis as probably the most important leader in modern jazz. The reviewer of the national daily De Volkskrant praised his ‘long melodic lines with extremely refined harmonies’ and called his playing ‘mystical’. Another critic, in the daily De Telegraaf, described him as ‘the trumpet player with the most original style in today’s jazz world’ – an observation which could still be applied today…
Bert Vuijsje (2004)
Vintage recordings of Jazz at the Concertgebouw
A recording of the concert on April 9th, 1960
The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw concert in Enschede | Jan 13th, 2024
Opening the evening with If I Were a Bell immediately rekindled the mood of yesteryear. Pianist Peter Beets, possibly the longest-limbed pianist I have ever seen, was on particularly fine form. Nodding his head and tapping both feet in various syncopated rhythms while providing a equally syncopated accompaniment for a flute solo was hypnotic. And the use of a flute from the big band line up for this first solo, was the first of many breaks from the original performance.
This was to be the theme of the evening – a fusion of old and new as the JOC showed how versatile the music of Davis really can be. The rich, full sound in the fast upbeat numbers featuring tight syncopated rhythms, allowed the band to find their groove while the confident and accomplished trumpet sound of Ruud Breuls, delivered with intense passion and commitment, soared effortlessly.
Contrasting wonderfully, was the more mellow and subdued tone from young talent trumpeter, Charlie Philips, who visibly grew in confidence as the evening progressed. We saw glimmers of that dark, rich and more wistful tone so characteristic of the playing of Miles Davis. At times were transported to a dark and dingy 1960s New York nightclub where artists performed every note as if their life depended on it!
The finale
Bringing the evening to a close, Footprints ensured that the audience would leave on a high. A highly evocative number showcasing the drummer, who found a harsher and more rhythmically driven sound, was an absolute joy. The baritone sax soloist found wonderful and unexpected bass notes, startling even the most sleepy audience members from their slumbers before incredibly high and fast musings from the trombone, left little in doubt as to the depth of talent on stage. A guitar solo in the encore – The Theme – was the final fusion of old and new. Amazing pitch bends and deliciously scrummy chords racing up and down the guitar fretboard, left the audience wanting more.
Saturday’s concert proved that with care and diligence, the music and spirit of these now legendary concerts given by the Miles Davis Quintet, will live on and perhaps inspire a new generation of jazz enthusiasts to find that soulful sound, or even break down barriers just like the man himself.
A recording below of the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw performing So What last year in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
Archive material from the European tour in 1960
Programme notes from the Great Britain concert | Gaumont, Hammersmith, London (now the Hammersmith Apollo)
In an amazing archive of concert notes from the UK leg of the tour later in 1960, New Musical Express (NME) critic, Keith Goodwin paints a picture of Miles Davis as a jazz artist who after a long apprenticeship refining both his technique and his sound, was finding both artistic and commercial success. This lead to an insatiable demand for recordings on both sides of the Atlantic.
Goodwin’s writing is amazing, displaying an uncanny ability to succinctly identify many of the characteristic and unique traits of Davis’ playing as he sought to introduce Davis’ genius to both UK and European audiences.
Features of Miles Davis’ definitive sound and style as defined by NME critic Keith Goodwin in 1960
Keith Goodwin, NME (1960)
- Davis was hypercritical about his playing and might only be satisfied with just eight bars of a performance.
- Davis did not interact verbally with the audience. Instead he expected them to have done their homework – to have listened to his recordings beforehand and to know which tracks he was playing! In addition, it seems that he scorned the idea of showmanship, even refusing at times to acknowledge the applause. He also left the stage when not playing, arguing that there was nothing for him to do on stage.
- Davis’s sound was unique and could not be confused with any other contemporary trumpet recording. He was never a loud or flowery soloist, he instead produced a warm, rounded sound… and concerned himself with the more creative aspect of improvisation rather than with exhibitions of technical brilliance.
- In his early career, Davis had struggled with his intonation which was not always accurate, but he had used this to produce a now legendary full, rich tone especially in the lower register. Improvised melodies are based not on chord progressions with the expectant resolution, but on a series of modal scales which are much more delicate.
- Even in the uptempo numbers, Davis retained an attractive elegance in his playing. The attack in his sound was often hidden by the nostalgic, wistful character of his tone and by the fact that he rarely strayed out of the middle register.
More contemporary reviews of the Miles Davis Quintet in concert
This elegance was also picked up by music critic and jazz saxophonist Benny Green (NME and later The Spectator) who reviewed the 1960 concert at the Gaumont, Hammersmith
Every note he plays is tinged with the disturbing melancholia of a highly sophisticated and sensitive artist. Nowhere is there any trace of the unselfconscious joy at being alive of Louis Armstrong or the irrepressible good spirits of Dizzy Gillespie… He has distilled the tone of the trumpet so that it now possesses a deathly purity. Vibrato has almost disappeared and forgotten is the old avowed attention of the instrument to suggest the overtone of the human voice still apparent in his contempories.
Benny green
Archive review of the 1960 London concert with a detailed description of the definitive Miles Davis sound
Concert reviewed at the Wilminktheater and Muziekcentrum, Enschede, Saturday 13th January, 2024
Further listening: The definitive Miles Davis sound
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