Miles Davis – At Carnegie Hall 1961 The Complete Concert (1998)

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.

Born in Alton, Illinois, and raised in East St. Louis, Davis left to study at Juilliard in New York City, before dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker’s bebop quintet from 1944 to 1948.

Shortly after, he recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records but did so haphazardly due to a heroin addiction. After a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records and recorded the album ‘Round About Midnight in 1955. It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers, key members of the sextet he led into the early 1960s. During this period, he alternated between orchestral jazz collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, such as the Spanish music-influenced Sketches of Spain (1960), and band recordings, such as Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959). The latter recording remains one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, having sold over five million copies in the U.S.

Davis made several line-up changes while recording Someday My Prince Will Come (1961), his 1961 Blackhawk concerts, and Seven Steps to Heaven (1963), another mainstream success that introduced bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and drummer Tony Williams. After adding saxophonist Wayne Shorter to his new quintet in 1964, Davis led them on a series of more abstract recordings often composed by the band members, helping pioneer the post-bop genre with albums such as E.S.P (1965) and Miles Smiles (1967), before transitioning into his electric period. During the 1970s, he experimented with rock, funk, African rhythms, emerging electronic music technology, and an ever-changing line-up of musicians, including keyboardist Joe Zawinul, drummer Al Foster, and guitarist John McLaughlin. This period, beginning with Davis’s 1969 studio album In a Silent Way and concluding with the 1975 concert recording Agharta, was the most controversial in his career, alienating and challenging many in jazz.[7] His million-selling 1970 record Bitches Brew helped spark a resurgence in the genre’s commercial popularity with jazz fusion as the decade progressed.

After a five-year retirement due to poor health, Davis resumed his career in the 1980s, employing younger musicians and pop sounds on albums such as The Man with the Horn (1981) and Tutu (1986). Critics were often unreceptive but the decade garnered Davis his highest level of commercial recognition. He performed sold-out concerts worldwide, while branching out into visual arts, film, and television work, before his death in 1991 from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure. In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which recognized him as “one of the key figures in the history of jazz”. Rolling Stone described him as “the most revered jazz trumpeter of all time, not to mention one of the most important musicians of the 20th century,” while Gerald Early called him inarguably one of the most influential and innovative musicians of that period. (wikipedia)

Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall is a live album by American jazz musician Miles Davis. Subtitled The Legendary Performances of May 19, 1961, it was released by Columbia Records as CL 1812 in monaural and CS 8612 as “electronically re-channeled for stereo.”

This live performance features Davis with his regular quintet and also accompanied by Gil Evans and his 21-piece orchestra. The orchestra is heard on several selections drawn from Miles Ahead as well as a complete reading of the adagio movement from Concierto de Aranjuez as recorded on Sketches of Spain.

The concert begins with the orchestra playing the Gil Evans introduction to “So What”, which is performed by the quintet, and then segues directly into the only recording of an Evans arrangement of “Spring is Here”.

A two-disc CD version of the complete concert was released by Sony/Columbia in 1998. This album has the first half of the concert on CD 1 and the second half on CD 2. This is the only CD edition of the album to feature the original mono mix. (wikipedia)

Great free swinging jazz by Mr Davis. Playing at his best soaring off into high note runs playing with confidence and precision and a great deal of emotion a man at the top of his game.

His quintet was also on top form great bass lines from Mr Chambers and all mixing well with Gil Evans and his orchestra also some great two bar challenges between Mr Cobb on drums and Miles.

This is jazz at its finest. (Ian Wells)

In 1998, Columbia/Legacy reissued Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall as a double-disc set that contained all of the music performed at the concert from May 19, 1961. Davis is captured with his transitional small combo featuring Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb, as well as with the Gil Evans Orchestra. It was one of only two concerts Davis and Evans performed together, and that alone makes the album necessary for collectors, but the music itself is terrific. Neither the small group nor large band performances offer any new revelations, but they both showcase a strong, powerful Davis, and the music is quite enjoyable. (by Stephen Thomas Erlewine)

Personnel:

The Miles Davis Quintet:
Paul Chambers (bass)
Jimmy Cobb (drums)
Miles Davis (trumpet)
Wynton Kelly (piano)
Hank Mobley (saxophone)

The Gil Evans Orchestra:
trumpet:
Ernie Royal – Bernie Glow – Johnny Coles – Louis Mucci

trombone:
Jimmy Knepper – Dick Hixon – Frank Rehak

french horns:
Julius Watkins – Paul Ingrahan – Bob Swisshelm

reeds and woodwinds
Romeo Penque – Jerome Richardson – Eddie Caine – Bob Tricarico – Danny Bank

tuba:
Bill Barber

harp:
Janet Putnam

percussion:
Bobby Rosengarden

Tracklist:
CD 1:
01. So What (Davis) 12.00
02. Spring Is Here (Hart/Rodgers) 4.07
03. Teo (Davis) / Walkin’ (Carpenter) 18.35
04. The Meaning Of The Blues / Lament”(Troup/Worth/Johnson) / New Rhumba (Jamal) 8.24

CD 2:
05. Someday My Prince Will Come (Churchill/Morey) 2.47
06. Oleo (Rollins) / No Blues (Davis) 17.58
07. I Thought About You (van Heusen/Mercer) 4.43
08. En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor (Adagio from Concierto de Aranjuez) (Rodrigo) 16.39

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More from Miles Davis:

The official website:

Pic of the day: Oh no …

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Casey Jones And The Governors – Same (1966)

Casey Jones & the Governors were a British beat band of the 1960s.

Brian Casser (21 March 1936, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England – December 25, 2022 in Unna, Germany) was a cook before he founded the band Cass & the Casanovas in 1959. This band initially interpreted folk repertoire, but quickly turned to the more promising beat music. After the break-up of Casser, the remaining band members continued to play as a trio, now under the name The Big Three with a harder sound as “one of the loudest bands on the Mersey”. Guitarist Adrian Barber was later stage manager at the Star Club in Hamburg, drummer Johnny Hutchinson occasionally helped out with the Beatles.

Meanwhile, Cass became “Casey Jones” and his new backing band was now called The Engineers – both allusions to the relatively well-known story in the Anglo-Saxon-speaking world of the American locomotive engineer of the same name. The members at times included musicians like Eric Clapton and Tom McGuinness. After the end of this equally short-lived line-up, Casser’s musical career was put on hold for some time because he was discovered for television and appeared in several Maigret episodes.

When the series was over, Casser looked for new players. The resulting quintet called itself Casey Jones & the Governors and within a very short time gained an excellent reputation as a spirited beat band. The five musicians not only toured successfully through England, but also through Germany and celebrated great successes at the Star Club.

Their recording career, however, lasted little more than a year with recordings in Munich and Frankfurt/Main. Their most famous song Don’t Ha Ha was recorded in Munich in October 1964 and was originally written by Huey “Piano” Smith; with him and his “Clowns” it was still called Don’t You Just Know It (July 1958). The party classic has been covered by Mr. Ed Jumps the Gun (April 1996) and DJ Ötzi (July 2001), among others.

In 1966, the formation changed its name to Gaslight Union, stayed in Germany and got a record deal with Electrola before fading into obscurity in 1968. David Christopher John Colman got a job as an editor and disc jockey at WDR in 1969, where he got his own Dave Colman Show. Casey Jones worked as a DJ in a discotheque in Löhnberg (Hesse) in the mid-1970s. In 1974 he ran his own discotheque in Bassum. He organised various live acts there, including with the Scorpions.

In the course of the oldies boom, Jones performed again (with new musicians) in the 1980s and 1990s. Later Casey Jones lived in Unna/Germany and occasionally performed with the oldies band Here comes Johnny. (wikipedia)

It just doesn’t seem to stop this December 2022, because as we have just been informed, British singer and musician Brian Cassar, better known by his stage name Casey Jones, passed away on Christmas Day at the age of well over eighty (some sources on the net list the year of birth as 1936, some as 1939).

The Englishman from Liverpool founded one of his many bands in 1959 and even had guitarists like Eric Clapton or Tom McGuinness (among others ex-Manfred Mann, ex-The Blues Band) in his employ in the early sixties. Even back then, he had the reputation of not being a particularly sociable contemporary. Possibly the reason why none of his bands stayed together or with him for long.

In 1965 came the big hits with “Don’t Ha Ha”, “Yockomo”, “Jack The Ripper” or “Candy Man”, which brought the Briton to the top of the German charts. Interestingly, Germany was the only country where Jones had success. After two minor hits in the following year 1966, however, the Anglo-Saxon’s star slowly but surely set again.

Rest in peace, Casey, we will not forget you. (rocktimes.info)

And here´s their second album … another example for their high energy Mesey Beat sound …  strongly influenced by the rock n roll of the 50s … and they could also play the Chicago Blues (“My Babe”).

This music is still in 2023 a gift of pure energy …and it´s fun and fun only !

Personnel:
David Coleman (guitar)
Roger Hook (guitar)
Casey Jones (vocals, harmonica)
Jim Redford (bass)
Peter Richards (drums)

Tracklist:
01. Yockomo (Smith/Vincent) 2.35
02.Casey’s New Hand Jive (Jones) 3.29
03. Smoking The Blues (Jones/Coleman) 2.37
04. My Babe (Dixon) 3.37
05. Lucille (Penniman/Collins) 2.33
06. All You Wanna Do (Richards/Hook) 2.55
07. Hall Of The Mountain King (Traditional) 1.42
08. Come On Everybody (Cochran/ Capehart) 1.49
09. Baby Why Did You Say Goodbye (Jones) 2.27
10. Doctor Feel Good (Smith) 1.53
11. All My Sorrows (Jones) 2.50
12. You Got What It Takes (Davis/G.Gordy/B.Gordy)  2.20
13. Beautiful Delilah (Berry) 1.57
14. Guitar Boogie (Berry) 2.17

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More from Casey Jones & the Governos: