Four performances find a home of their own
Birth Of The Blue brings together music that spent decades in the shadow of a more famous album. Miles Davis recorded these four selections on May 26, 1958, more than nine months before the first Kind of Blue session. The connection is immediately recognisable: John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb join Davis. Yet the music rewards attention as a programme in its own right. Three standards and a Davis original bring their separate histories into contact with a newly configured band. The importance of what came later need not explain away the individuality of these performances.
The session took place on Davis’s thirty-second birthday at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York. Housed in a former church, the recording space was known as “The Church”. Cal Lampley produced and Harold Chapman engineered the date. Evans and Cobb had replaced Red Garland and Philly Joe Jones, changing the conditions under which the group worked together. Birth Of The Blue captures that encounter without needing to turn it into a complete rehearsal for Kind of Blue. Its four pieces reveal musicians approaching established material with a shared interest in giving familiar songs a distinctive shape.
A sextet, with one important exception
“On Green Dolphin Street” opens the record, followed by “Fran-Dance”. Davis uses a mute on both performances. The first composition, by Bronisław Kaper and Ned Washington, originated in a film; this recording helped establish its central place in the jazz repertoire. “Fran-Dance”, the session’s only Davis original, is dedicated to Frances Taylor. Both offer a way of following the relationship between an identifiable melody and the freedom of its interpretation. Listen to how the rhythm section sustains a common setting while responding to the individual horn players. The identity of a song extends beyond the statement of its theme.
Cannonball Adderley sits out “Stella By Starlight”. The piece is therefore a quintet performance, despite the six celebrated names associated with the album. The exception is documented by both the session discography and the Miles Davis estate. The released performance also combines two takes, using the opening from take 3 and a later section from take 7; that composite has been confirmed for this edition. “Love For Sale”, by contrast, was completed in a single full take. These differences remind us that a recording date contains separate decisions, and an album’s apparent continuity need not represent an uninterrupted performance.
A long journey through the catalogue
Three of the recordings appeared in 1959 on the second side of Jazz Track. The other side contained Davis’s music for L’Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, recorded in Paris with different personnel. “Love For Sale” was initially left out and did not appear until Black Giants in 1975. Subsequent compilations placed the material in other settings. The Japanese LP 1958 Miles eventually united all four selections, and later CDs and boxed sets returned to the session. The performances were therefore not newly discovered when Analogue Productions gave them this independent title and presentation in 2024.
That history makes the sequence worth considering. This is not a collection of unheard leftovers, but four established recordings presented in their session order: “On Green Dolphin Street”, “Fran-Dance”, “Stella By Starlight” and “Love For Sale”. The programme creates a manageable setting in which to follow the band’s different personalities. Evans’s piano, Chambers’ bass and Cobb’s drums deserve as much attention as the horns. If you previously encountered the selections as additions to a larger release, their relationships can be explored here as a continuous album programme. Additional alternate takes do not extend the running order of this edition.
The 33⅓ RPM LP and its new mix
The edition offered here is AAPJ 172, a single 180-gram LP running at 33⅓ RPM, released by Analogue Productions under Sony/Columbia licence. It is distinct from the two-LP 45 RPM release and the SACD. According to the publisher, Vic Anesini at Battery Studios mixed the original three-track session tapes onto a new quarter-inch stereo tape running at 30 ips. Matthew Lutthans then cut the lacquers from that tape at The Mastering Lab. The new stereo mix is consequently an essential part of this release; its source should not be reduced to an old, completed stereo album master.
The publisher specifies Quality Record Pressings manufacture and a matte-finished Stoughton tip-on gatefold jacket. Ashley Kahn supplies the liner notes, with sleeve design by James Wolf. Numbering is not promised for every copy: the initial numbered black-vinyl run was followed by unnumbered copies, while the blue editions are separate variants. This LP therefore offers an identifiable format and a documented treatment of the 1958 recordings. The familiar corrected-speed issue associated with Kind of Blue concerns different session material and is not transferred to Birth Of The Blue. Michael 45 dispatches orders from Hilden, Germany, so you do not need to arrange your own US import. Please refer to the stated availability and delivery time for this item.
You order from Michael 45 in Germany. We arrange the US import and dispatch from Hilden.
In the magazine: Miles Davis: A History in Records
Also on SACD: Birth Of The Blue
More by Miles Davis: Cookin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet
Artist page: All titles by Miles Davis
Customer question: Buying Analogue Productions records in Europe
Musicians
Documented participants in this recording. Track references correspond to the tracklist.
- Miles Davistrumpet, bandleaderParticipation: Album personnel
- Julian „Cannonball“ Adderleyalto saxophoneParticipation: A1, A2, B2
- John Coltranetenor saxophoneParticipation: Album personnel
- Bill EvanspianoParticipation: Album personnel
- Paul Chambersdouble bassParticipation: Album personnel
- Jimmy CobbdrumsParticipation: Album personnel
Cannonball Adderley sits out B1 “Stella By Starlight”.
How Michael hears this edition
Listening impression · paraphrased from the video
Michael praises the dynamics, punch, clarity, information and soundstage. His copy plays exceptionally quietly. This assessment concerns the edition of Birth of the Blue reviewed at the time and is not transferred to a later 45 or SACD.
🎧 Review video: Miles Davis 'Birth of the Blue': Jazz History Rediscovered by Analogue Productions
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Christian Krueger –
A very relaxed and elegant album, which has paved the way for Kind of Blue has arrived. The sound quality is superb and vinyl pressing as well. This album is of the same musical quality as Kind of Blue, though it is less experimental and surprising.
The highlight of the year.
Thank you Michael.
Philipp –
Ich bin begeistert, dass aus dieser Aufnahmession endlich ein Album auf Vinyl gemacht wurde. Das Cover knüpft an Kind of blue an. Einfach wunderbar. Für jeden Jazzfan ein absolutes must have. Ein großes Lob an Analogue Productions