Miles Davis’ Birth Of The Cool will see a special new reissue this year in honor of his 100th birthday. The new edition is the latest in a series of celebrations of the legendary trumpeter’s centennial, which include tributes from Jazz at Lincoln Center and Birdland Jazz; a SFJAZZ Gala celebrating both Davis and John Coltrane; and a forthcoming biopic, Miles & Juliette, which will star F1’s Damson Idris as the musician.
Recorded between 1949 and 1950, Birth Of The Cool captures Davis working with a nonet, which included the likes of Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz and Gil Evans. Prior to the recording, Davis had been performing as part of Charlie Parker’s quintet; some of the first music Davis released under his own name were with Parker’s band. Before getting together in the studio, Davis and his band played a limited two-week engagement at New York club Royal Roost in 1948. In the audience was Pete Rugolo, who swiftly signed the group to Capitol and went on the produce Birth Of The Cool.
Although the Birth Of The Cool recordings occurred earlier in his career, the album wasn’t released until 1957, when it landed on Capitol. Back then, each of the recordings was released separately in the 78-RPM format. Today, the album is considered seminal to both cool jazz and post-bebop and has seen many revivals across formats: on compact disc in 1989, as an expanded edition in 1998, and as a remaster from the one and only Rudy Van Gelder in 2001. Live recordings from the money’s Royal Roost shows were also released under the name Cool Boppin in 1991.
The new Birth Of The Cool reissue will arrive through Blue Note Records’ Tone Poet Vinyl Series, led by “Tone Poet” himself Joe Harley and mastered from original analog phono reel master tapes by Kevin Grey. Birth Of The Cool is Davis’ first entry in the series—other jazz age luminaries featured in the collection include Duke Ellington, Wayne Shorter, Hank Mobley, Stanley Turrentine, and Chick Corea.
