Topics covered: Gil Evans / Miles Davis collaborations
(Courtesy of Steve Lajoie. Used with permission.)
Instructor: Steve Lajoie (guest speaker)
Due to copyright restrictions, recordings played during class have been removed from the audio lecture. See the following table for details on those recordings.
Recordings and Supplemental Materials
This section gives details about the recordings played during class and other referenced resources.
Recordings
The Miles Davis and Gil Evans recordings played in class were all master takes from the boxed CD set Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings. Columbia/Legacy.
In sequence as played during class:
| Tracks | Compositions | Recording Sources |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "My Ship" (stage version). Maria Friedman, soloist | Lady in the Dark (1997 Original London Cast Recording). Composed by Kurt Weill. Jay Records CDJAY #1278, 1998. |
| 2 | "My Ship" by Gil Evans and Miles Davis. | Complete Columbia Studio Recordings. |
| 3 | "I Don't Want to be Kissed" (original recording). Doris Day, vocals. | Doris Day: It's Magic, 1947-1950 (6-CD boxed set). Recorded on November 30, 1949, in Hollywood CA. Doris Day, soloist; Ray Noble, arranger & conductor. Bear Family Records (Hambergen, Germany) #BCD 15609 FK, 1993. (Contains recordings licensed from Sony). |
| 4 | "I Don't Want to be Kissed" by Amhad Jamal Trio | Amhad Jamal: Chamber Music of the New Jazz. Recorded May 23, 1955, in Chicago IL. GRP/Verve, 2004. (Originally issued in 1955 as Argo LP #602.) |
| 5 | "I Don't Want to be Kissed" by Gil Evans and Miles Davis | Complete Columbia Studio Recordings. |
| 6 | "Gone Gone Gone" by Gil Evans and Miles Davis | Complete Columbia Studio Recordings. |
| 7 | "Gone" by Gil Evans and Miles Davis. | Complete Columbia Studio Recordings. |
Mentioned to students after class: there are also interesting Gil arrangments on a Helen Merrill album called Dream of You. That album was recorded in the 1950s, but Gil and Helen also did a remake of it in the 1980s, which is almost as good, and uses almost all of the same charts (although, in typical Gil fashion, he didn't have the charts anymore, so several musicians transcribed them for the session).
Readings
Primary resouce:
Lajoie, Steve. Gil Evans & Miles Davis: Historic Collaborations: An Analysis of Selected Gil Evans Works 1957 - 1962. Rottenburg, Germany: Advance Music, 2003. ISBN: 9783892210641.
A couple of biographical books have been published about Gil Evans since mine:
Crease, Stephanie Stein. Gil Evans: Out of the Cool: His Life and Music. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 2001. ISBN: 9781556524257. [Preview in Google Books.]
Hicock, Larry. Castles Made of Sound: The Story of Gil Evans. New York, NY: Da Capo Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780306809453.
Neither of these books deals directly with his music, but they do have some interesting information on his personal and business activities, including the stunning revelation that he left unsigned a 1960 offer of a recording contract with Columbia Records, which might have provided him with a measure of greater financial security.