You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - "Someday My Prince Will Come" — Miles Davis

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

There is no more important relationship in this era of music than that of Miles Davis and John Coltrane; two masters ever-present in the musical and cultural landscape. Someday My Prince Will Come marks the last time Coltrane and Davis played together, and it couldn't be more perfect.We dive into how their partnership played out on stage and in the recording studio over the years, and how their dynamic on Someday My Prince Will Come marks a handoff from ’50s jazz to the rock and roll sound of the ’60s, with Coltrane leading the way.And Miles Davis, even more so than a masterful trumpet player or composer, was a tastemaker. From the musicians he picked, to the chord changes, to his choice of album art, we explore how this record brings it all together in one phenomenal package.🟠 Get the YHI newsletter for bonus stories that didn't make the pod.🔵 Start your free Open Studio trial for ALLLLL your jazz lesson needs.

Peter, the music's awfully sad. Are you okay over there? Yeah, I'm fine. Are you sure? You want to talk about it, bud? I really don't want to. Okay, I will. So, you know, I was just on vacation with my family.

We like to go down to the Ozarks and kick it. Yeah, it's magical. And it was fine. We had a great time. But I wanted to do a little special thing. It's the last time with the kids. They grow up so fast. You know that.

They really do, yeah. So I decided, instead of bringing my iPhone 17 plus Max, executive edition, I was going to go old school. You remember a little company called Kodak? Of course. Rochester, New York. Shout out Rochester. And I got an old Instomatic. I pulled it out of the attic.

I was able to find some film. 110. And I shot pictures of the kids playing in the lake. I shot selfies of the wife and me walking by the lake, which is hard with that kind of camera. But we did it. So I collected all these little memories, these little moments, right? I brought them back with me here.

Then I had to find a place to get the film developed. But then the story takes a dark turn. They had to send the film out. And I've been waiting for those little memories, those moments. I've been waiting. It's hard. Yeah, I'm sure. You know, Peter, I'm sure

someday your prince will come. Yeah. Yeah. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear podcast. Music Explored. Explored, brought you today by Open Studio.

Go to Open Studio jazz.com for all. Just a little jazz lesson. A little musical accoutreement. Some noodles happening. Hey, Peter, you know, we got a brand new newsletter. Speaking of, you'll hear it. Read all about it. Podcast.

Yeah. It's called. You'll read it. And it is presented by our very own producer Caleb. And there's a lot of interesting stuff in there. It's good. We just did the Fleetwood Mac album and our audio producer Sam did this whole breakdown of like how they had to crank up the EQs to get the sound they were going for. It's fascinating.

You know what? I wish I'd had that newsletter before we did the episode. That would have been helpful. No, it's definitely worth subscribing to the newsletter. You get a brief email every week talking about some of the inside stuff that happens. here on the podcast. There is a charge for the newsletter. It's zero dollars.

Yeah, it's free 50. But Peter, today, we're going back to a classic. Oh, yes, we are. I love this record. I love it. It's one of my favorite all-time Miles Davis albums. One of my favorite albums of the 1960s. One of my favorite straight-ahead jazz albums of all time.

Would you say this or Giant Steps is your favorite record from the 60s? You know what? I'm going to ignore that because Giant Steps is from 1959-ish. This is Miles Davis' 1961 classic, Someday My Prince Will Come, featuring John Coltrane and Hank Mobley on the tenor saxophones, Winton Kelly on the piano. Paul Chambers on the bass and Jimmy Cobb on the drums. Classic lineup right there.

And everyone, this was a cool thing. You don't see this a lot anymore. Everybody's name is on the cover. All the sidemen, as it were. Yeah. And this is kind of a funny thing. It says Miles Davis sextet. This was not the Miles Davis Sex Ted.

Not at all. The Miles Davis Sex Ted had disbanded a year or so. before when Cannonball utterly left. That's right. The kind of blue group. But I wonder if this wasn't a little bit coming off the success

of Kind of Blue of Columbia records being like Miles Davis' sex. I mean there's six people playing on it. Not at the same time. Not at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, John Coltrane's on two of the tracks.

We're going to get deep into that because that's certainly illustrious, innovative part of this record. But it's basically a quintet record. This was Miles's working quintet in 1961. And I believe even starting in 1960, um, train had officially left the band by this point.

John Coltrane. John Coltrane. John Coltrane. Yeah, old friends. Yeah, old friends. And Miles went through a lot of different tenor players. I mean, he had Sonny Stitt,

Jimmy Heath, I believe Johnny Griffin. I'm not sure about that, but I mean, he had different people. Jimmy Forrest from St. Louis, there's some recordings from him right around that time from right around the corner from here in Gaslight Square.

But, you know, I mean, Coltrane was a huge monumental presence in this group. So was Cannonball Adderly on the alto. Hard to replace either of them, honestly. Yeah. And obviously Miles wasn't satisfied probably until he found George Coleman, right? I think so.

I mean, I think about, you know, Hank Mobley, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, you know, Jimmy Heath, Sunny Stitt, Wayne Schorter. I'm just thinking all the tenor players from the 60s on just an incredible lineup all the way up to like Brand for Marcellus up in the early 80s. Miles loved tenor players. And I mean, I think everything that we think about for the sort of modern jazz quintet sort of came. from that Miles Davis sensibility of trumpet, tenor, sax, piano bass, and drums. And, you know, the trumpet, tenor sax thing is important. But to me, what's so exciting about this album, and we'll talk about this more later, is that there's no more important relationship, I think, in this era of music, possibly, than that of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Whenever Miles

hands off a solo to John Coltrane, it's usually one of the most magical, you know, 30-second period of any recorded music. Yeah. Because these are two masters that are ever present in what's happening and ever contrasting each other. And to me, it's some of the most magical stuff. So some of my favorite things

that, actually my favorite thing that happens on this album, is one of those classic handoffs. One of my favorite things. Forshadowing for sure. Well, it's interesting you say this about culture and miles because there's a lot of stories, a lot of lore, probably some disinformation.

Check out, what Coltrane said about Miles and how he helped him. How would you say working with Miles Davis has influenced you stylistically? Well, it's, it has led me into most of the things that I'm doing now, you know. He made you play the way you do or you got a chance to play like you do. Well, I've been free. I've been so free here, you know, that almost anything I want to try is I'm welcome to do it, you know, so that's the freedom has been. words of John Coltrane and we hear this echo from you know Wayne shorter later on certainly

herbie Hancock uh Jimmy Cobb in interviews and stories over the year about miles um and how he could set the table of a musical situation be it a band for several years with different people coming in and out or performance you see it in the live gigs and stuff and we're going to talk about the black hawk because that was right around the same time yeah you can feel it on these Columbia sessions for sure Columbia sessions are I think my first favorite Miles sessions. But as you mentioned, Miles is, I mean, even more so than maybe a trumpet player or a composer is a taste maker. Like his taste, I think, is what sets him apart. Yeah. And puts him into like the stratosphere level. But look at the, I mean, just look at the entire

thing here. Yeah. The cover is so on point. Yeah. And, you know, and that has a lot to do with Miles. Like Miles making these kinds of pushes towards how things are going to look, how things are going to sound, how things are going to feel, going all the way down to the personnel he picks, the tunes he picks, even as we'll talk about some of the chord changes in some of the standards that he picks. Very intentional. Very intentional. So this album, I believe was the first, it was right around the same time as the Live of the Black Hawk Friday and Saturday night. But when Miles began demanding that his album covers feature African American women, he put his wife, Francis Taylor, the beautiful and extremely talented and legendary ballet dance.

who had her own incredible career before she was married with Miles and after as well with the Dunham dance group and she was you know the Paris ballet and a lot of crazy stuff that she was able to do but Miles said in his autobiography it was my album and I was Francis Francis's prince and and she was also on the cover of the Black Hawk Columbia Records the live from the club in San Francisco and then famously a few years later on ESP right before they broke up. They're both on the cover. That's a great album cover as well. Yeah.

And very tumultuous relationship, especially towards the end, to say the least. I mean, Francis got the short of the stick on this one for sure. Yeah. And we'll talk about this probably later in the Accutumont section. But another thing Miles started doing was demanding or requesting, probably turned into a demand, that there be no liner notes on his records. And for this whole period, there weren't. believed. He said, I never thought there was nothing nobody could say about an album of mine.

He said this in his autobiography. Great autobiography. Miles, controversial. Autobiography. I just wanted people to listen to the music and make up their own mind. So he's really starting to get into that period where let the music speak for itself. If you think about like all the, you know, Blue Note Records, Prestige, Impulse, a lot of stuff before this. And even during this period, there was a real trend towards, you know, Ira Gittler, Nat, hands off these great writers to, to write liner notes. But because of the impact, and look, even when I was coming up

looking at LPs, like you're reading the back of it, right? And so the critics' narrative about the record really had an impact, I think, on how we receive that, you know, how we consumed it. And so I think Miles was very prescient

in his thinking that, you know, beautiful photography, composition, but just let the music speak for itself. You got the legal stuff with the publishing and whatever. the list of the tracks produced by Tio Miserra and that's it. I get it, man.

I mean, I love music journalism in general and it's helped me to discover some things and think about some of my favorite albums in different ways for sure. But there is a limit to what just language can say about music. I think that was the famous quote, writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Like there's just no relation between what we can put into language versus what music actually does to us and how it affects us. And instinctually, I think when you're making it, language seems so cheap to talk about it. I mean, famously, Miles didn't love to talk about the process of making music either with his band. It was very much, I'll show you, let's figure

this out by doing it more than by talking about it. And I think it's a really wise philosophy to take on something that can't be talked about, really. Absolutely. Well, in that spirit of that, let's talk about it for an hour. Let's listen to the first track I was going. gonna say. Here we go. No, we definitely appreciate it, but making it is a whole other thing. Is it enough? Yeah. Whitten Kelly on the piano? Of course. Paul Chambers. Jimmy Cop. Oh.

That Whitton Kelly dance? Whatton Kelly kind of steal this album? A little bit. Extended intro. Precision PC. This is so in the pocket. But it's so beautiful and epic at the same time. It feels absolutely amazing.

And I think you hear Paul Chambers just dot at half, you know, just dot at half notes. That's allowing, you know, Winton Kelly to really jump. Jimmy Cobb just swinging miles, miles with the Harmon mute. I mean, come on. This is the best version of straight ahead jazz. I mean, this is straight ahead mid-20th century jazz at its peak. Man, Winton Kelly's little interjections on this whole album, but especially this trick. And then, you know, Miles' intonation on this is pretty incredible because harmony mutes famously make everything sharp.

Yeah. And trumpet players usually starred sharp anyway. Oh, right here. Check this phrase up. This next phrase here is, this is like the weirdest he gets on this record. Like, that's the weirdest part. Is this a perfect solo? It might be.

Cobbs transition from brushes to sticks. Nobody doesn't like that. Well, everybody copied him. So, I mean, there's that. Hank Mowgli. We're going to talk about Hank. So I got an initial question for you, Adam. Is there a letdown going from Miles' solo?

Not in terms of the rhythm section and the swing and the feel, but like in terms of the intensity of the swing of the soloist and the lyricism from Miles to Hank Mowley. I play some great stuff, though. I think this is a, And I don't think there's anything wrong with what Hank Mobley's doing, and it's not like Hank Mobley's not swinging because it certainly is. Miles has some problems.

I know Miles has some issues. But I think it's artistic. Like there's, they're almost, they're not similar Miles and Hank, but Hank is so relaxed. Yeah. And there's, like, what I was talking about earlier, about Miles and Train is Miles has this relaxed, easy, lyrical, long note phrases style.

And then Train comes in all the time with absolute, fire after a mile solo. And it's just like the most refreshing eye-opening thing. And both of those are great. And so I think when Hank Mobley comes in here after Miles, it's not a letdown, but it's just not as like, especially with this, and it's hard not to be a little bit biased, having listened to this my whole life. Yeah. Especially knowing that the train solo is coming. I know, I know. John Coltrane solo, which is going to be like so incredible is coming. It's just not fair to Hank Mobley to put them next to each other like that. Yeah. You know what I agree?

Especially because the chemistry between Miles and John Colterine is so, I mean, it's the best that ever was. Right. Right. Right. So like, man, how do you compare those to? Right, right. I mean, I think that this, I think Hank Mobley, I would diverge a little bit from your opinion in that I think there is a little bit of a letdown. But I don't think it's like Hank Mobley is perfectly serviceable.

Like he's playing the changes. He's playing nice melody. He's swinging. He just doesn't, and it's not just of Miles, to me, he doesn't have the intensity of the, the groove and the spirit of the music like Winton Kelly. Like Jimmy, I mean, Jimmy Copp is very subtle, like, but it's so skillful. Man, it's so masterful. There's nothing like, he's not going crazy on anything, but like everything's in the right place.

Yeah. Like, holistically, the whole thing works. And I don't think Mobley does anything to mess that up. And I think it's fine. It's not like I get to that I'm like fast forwarding. Yes, of course, if you know that the John Coltrane, which you have to wait until we get a little later to come to that. I want to play just a little bit of Winton Kelly's solo, because.

I mean, classic, Wyton Kelly. You know what you're going to get, and you love it. Oh, that show drive symbol? Man, such a great solo. Whitney Kelly, like, infinitely if transcribable. Like, if you're a beginner pianist, an intermediate pianist, and you want someone to transcribe that's going to teach you how to swing, going to teach you the language, the building blocks of the language of the music,

Witten Kelly's your pianist. I think there's one person that transcribe, at least listen to and copped his stuff, would be Herbie Hancock. 100%. In fact, I want to just jump back a little bit to the introduction again. This is one of the greatest starts for a record. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I... You think, Kirby, maybe... This is the exact voicing, but the thing with this is so... This tune is in B-flat. The rest of the record's an F, by the way, which is insane. Every tune's in F.

This starts on F. All of the songs are in F, except for someday my principal come which is in B-flat, but it starts on an F pedal. It starts on F. It goes to F a lot. Yeah.

But this kind of a... This major seventh, you've got the suspended fourth, and the third at the same time. Yeah, yeah. And then he goes down to the band. These are very much like voices you're going to hear Herbie Hancock

with Miles Davis like a year later. I mean, he had to have been checking it out. He's a young pianist. Miles Davis is the biggest jazz artist there is. I'm sure he's listening to these records and learning stuff. Yeah. So this is what Miles did say about Hank Mobley.

This is Miles saying. This is not me. Okay. This is not a... Miles said, the music was starting to bore me because I didn't like what Hank Mobley was playing in the band. Brutal.

playing with Hank just wasn't fun for me. He didn't stimulate my imagination. I mean, that's pretty much what you were saying. Miles, tell us what you really feel. Don't hold back. Does you think that Hank fit a little bit better on the live at the Black Hawk, which was just a month later? I thought he was killing on that. Yeah.

Yeah. The music is one month later. It has a lot more energy. Yeah. I don't know, but you're, you know, I can see what you're saying here. I think this is one of the, like, if you were to say, what's a perfect jazz record from any time, this would be on my list of, like, top five or top ten. It might even be in top one for like, so like Hank Mobley doesn't detract from this record.

He maybe doesn't add what Miles or a lot of people, you know, what could be. But train is on there. We're going to get to that later. But anyway, yeah, and he's on the Black Hawk. And, yeah, so it's all good. Why don't we go on to, so, yeah, this is B-flat, and then we're getting into track number two, which is old folks. There's some beautiful bow. There's two, there's really three, but there's two.

two in particular standards. Basically, you got three originals and three standards on this record, which is an interesting three. The three originals are all Miles compositions. They're all named after people that were in his life. Francine is for Francis, his wife.

T.O. is for T.O. Miserro, the producer of this record. Shout out Tio on this. And then Drad Dog. We'll talk about that. That's a funny one. But the first standard, of course, was someday my prince will come,

which is the name of the record of what we opened with. This has a very interesting history because of course it was from the Disney movie Snow White. Do you remember this? 1937. A hell of a vibrato she's got.

Right. That's like a 15-year-old singer, Adriana Casolati. Shout out of Italy. Right. She's actually American, Italian American. Okay, so that was that.

This is a crazy story. There was a group actually in a concentration camp in Germany, 1943, that was the first jazz version. Of course, there's no recording of that. There's a lot in the song we can recognize now why this would become a jazz standard, but that was the first version of it.

The name of the group was the ghetto swingers, so we want to acknowledge them. Oh, my God. That was 1943. And then there was a bunch of different versions. There was the Dave Rueback in 57 recorded this. Bill Evans, that was the other one that I kind of knew. Do I have that on here?

From Portrait and Jazz. Yeah, here it is. Yeah, we talked about this in the, when we did the trio. Riverside. Riverside, yeah. Yeah. This is 1959.

That's a great sound. Yeah. So that's, of course, something that, you know, Miles would have heard. I mean, Bill was playing with Miles right before this period as well. So that's probably sort of the genesis of it.

But it was already kind of a jazz standard. And of course, you know, there's some great versions of Keith Jarrett doing this. I heard him do it live at Juan LaPen, the great Antibs Festival, and he did it at the Deerhead Inn, that great live record. It's a really fun tune to play.

Do you play this tune? Yeah, I'll play a little. Yeah, it's my kind of go-to, if we want like a standard in three. Yeah. That's my go-to. Yeah. For sure. I love it.

Okay, so here's the second track. Every one of these tunes on this record, there's six tracks, they all start so well. I always think about, like you talk about perfection in terms of how you're getting into something, how you're getting out of it. The sound is incredible on here. This is old folks, yeah? This is old folks. This is a masterpiece. So this is like the ideal ballad.

Yeah. The ideal miles balance. Kind of textbook stuff for all. It's unbelievable. So it's 1961, Adam. Could you imagine sitting in your living room, maybe in Manhattan, with your mid-century modern furniture? Drinking a Manhattan?

Drinking of Manhattan? Holding this in your hands, that would be all right. That would be all right. Man, can we just talk a little bit about mutes? So you mentioned the harmon mute there. Which is like F on this record. Everything's in F and everything is in a harmon mute. So Miles Davis, obviously, playing the trumpet,

and there are several different kinds of mutes that you can use with a trumpet. So one of the more common ones you might hear, Miles Davis, play a straight mute. This is what a straight mute looks like. Ding. So this is Knight-Denisia, Charlie Parker. And you shove the straight mute and the harm mute

in the bell of the trumpet. The straight mute is a cone. It's a straight cone, and you shove it in. It's made usually, I think, like this is straight music. Yeah. Miles like moot. But you can hear it.

It doesn't have the buzz that the Harmon mute has. It just muted. Was that Disney? I think it's miles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's the straight music and that was very, very common.

I think before the Harmon mute. And then there's a plunger mute is another kind of mute. Which was originally an actual plunger. Clark Terry with a plunger mute. And this gives you the wah-wah sound.

You would hear in a lot of, like, Duke Ellington, Count Basie kind of stuff. It's actually used from a common bathroom plunger. Yeah. Fun fact. People still use the common bathroom plunger. So this has a very vocal quality. And then there's the Harmon Mute, which is what Miles is playing all over this album. Yeah, all the ballets.

And you can hear it's got this buzzy. It's metal. It's metal. There's also a couple pieces. You can put the stem in, which makes it very quiet and soft, or the same. Stem out. A little corny sounding. Miles usually play with stemless.

Stemless. You could also wawa this with your hand if you wanted to. But this is good. The sound gives it that buzzy sound, that power. It's hard for trumpet players now to play these harmon mutes and not be Miles. Miles. Invoking Miles.

That's how iconic he made the Harmon mute. Yeah. And also like the way that you play on the mic, you can play a lot closer on the mic. Yes. They probably weren't in the recording studio. This is shout-out. Columbia 30th Street. Hell yeah.

The church. I mean, the sound on this record. Fred Plout is the engineer. Shout out Fred. Shout out, Fred, man. To me, and I mean, I know we talk about... Prout's got clout. Yeah, man.

Yeah, Fred did... I mean, he did time out. That's a great sound of record. Dave. Some of the biggest records of all... West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein. Never heard of it? That's a great sounding score from that.

And a little record called Kind of Blue. I never heard of. Never heard of. But I think what you see here is. It's like this was a period for miles where like it was, it wasn't necessarily the peak of his fame because later on he stayed famous and maybe even got more famous. But this was the beginning of like because of the success of Kind of Blue.

And we always think of Kind of Blue as being the slow burn to millions of sales, which is true. But it was a huge hit. And this was a time when Columbia Records, and I mean, yes, to a certain degree, you know, prestige, blue note, impulse, you had these great Riverside, great jazz labels that were doing amazing things. But Columbia Records, like, they were able to take the promote, promotional muscle, the accoutrements, right?

The album, the photography, the design, and really lifted up just a few jazz artists up to this superstar status level and to put something like this out. I mean, to me, the sound on this record, the production of it, it kind of brings everything together. Like, if you listen, and this was great stuff, 1958, just two years before, prestige,

from the work and steam and relaxing, and great records. That's Ray Garland on piano. Miles is going to be on Harmon again. And this is great stuff, right? Incredible. I love these records. But I can see how this, for a larger audience,

the stuff on kind of blue and someday my prince will come with the sound of that Columbia sound and everything was a little bit more popular. Well, it sounds better. Oh, sounds better. I think so. Boom, roasted.

There you go. All right, should we go on to the third track? Okay, so now we're getting into, we started out the first track, of course, in three, the waltz, then we got the beautiful old folks ballad. Now we've got a little bit. How do you like your swing? Swinging.

Let's just check out the start of this one more time because to leave in miles through the snaps. What a cool thing. I like this piano sound. The piano is not in tune totally, I like it. It's not perfectly voiced either. Yeah.

Take Mowgli's on point there. Miles was like, you know, we had so much success with Freddie Feeloader, just let Witten Kelly take it. This is so Freddie Frewloader-esque. But if you had Witten Kelly in your band, you'd let him take the first a little on every blues he played, right? Yeah, and then Miles's going to come cut him off as the offer. Set the table, cut him off when you're done. Right.

Yeah, and this kind of swing, it's not like it's the right way to swing, but it's a way. It's the right way to swing. What are you talking about? Of course. That's it. So no mute in here. Open from it for the first time. First time.

With the end of the first A side. I just feel like I shouldn't say this, but I'm going to take this back. Check this out. Winton Kelly's reminding Miles how to swing. Check it out. Wow. That's a bold statement, my friend. So Miles kind of comes and cuts them off.

There's that one and there's another one. Of course, Miles is swinging. But this is a little interjections to me and Kelly. This is a great Miles solo, though. Yeah. I mean, it's... You like it? I love it, man.

I was just thinking, I love this solo on Francing from Miles. It's one of my favorite Miles solos. Yeah. And it's amazing, you know, Miles Davis being arguably the most popular jazz musician, certainly of this era. Yeah.

And somehow the least copied of his own soloing. You know what I mean? His bands are copied. Right. And the players around him are copied a lot. But somehow, I mean, I suppose some trumpet players certainly have made careers, you know, copying them a little bit. But not that part, not that kind of playing. It's really other instrumentalists, well, maybe I'm not reading enough into it.

But for pianist, it's so hard to copy what he's doing. It's so hard to do these like long lyrical passages. Right. On our instrument that has a finite sustain. Right. You know, that's way more finite than what Miles has. that it's, it's kind of amazing. Like, it just makes me want to transcribe some more miles.

Like, I feel like, oh, man, wouldn't it be great to have more of that, less of even the Witten Kelly stuff. Right. In our playing, to have more of the space and just his general attitude and philosophy on improvising and making others sound good with his melodies

and making the audience want to listen to what he's playing. Yeah. They want to listen to it. It's not a bunch of, like, fast note bullshit. There's some of, there's some fast notes. for sure, but it's not, he's not doing anything to impress. In fact, he's kind of anti. He's kind of like, it's almost like punk rock before there was punk rock.

Like he's like, punk attitude. I mean, he plays with Byrd and he's like, okay, I'm bored with this fireworks, these like acrobatics that we can do with bebop. And I'm just going to play these long, beautiful melodies, mostly with arm and mute. It's really something. And then he gets even, he's, and then he turns away from that eventually in the late 60s and 70s. Constely evolving.

And then he turns away from that. It's, it's, that. to me is like the lesson from miles is like he never turns away from the harming if you see the boot on the path kill him like it's an old it's an old buddhist saying right of like once if you realize you found something good yeah turn the other way absolutely right because you probably the spirit of of searching is the is the the goal yeah not what you're actually doing yeah and i think that this very direct lyrical beautiful uh playing with the harmon mute that's the one thing he never turned away from Yeah, even going to like the early 80s time after time.

Even the late 80s, the early 90s. Still playing all that. Decoy. Yeah. Is his Harmon Mutes were purple. Yeah, exactly. As were his seatwind outfits. I mean, the thing is like, too, he talking about, you're talking about bebop and him

sort of turning away from that. I think he was somebody, and I may be reading something in it. I don't have any insider info on this outside of what I hear and the stories that I've heard. And I got my ear on the streets. and I got my I got your nose to the grind zone

you got your ear on the streets yeah no but he was head in the clouds feet on the ground like he knew how to do the stuff that he could do well

and that was this like this record is like textbook stuff that Miles can kill it on yeah key of F harm and mute a lot of ballots

you know I think he could play it on their keys no he could but I'm saying like everything is like within his range and his range

was not small but like playing fast I mean he did that he could do that but it's also like Clifford Brown and Fats Navar and Dizzy Gillespie.

Yeah, yeah. They could do that better. Well, but to play a ballad like this with a harmony mute, no one could do it better. I mean, Freddie Hubbard is about to jump on the same here.

Yeah, he already was. And like, what are you going to do when you hear that? You're like, well, nobody's going to be, you know, better than that, so I've got to do my own thing. And this would totally diminish things to say, like Miles knew his lane because this is a big lane.

But, you know, this really set the template. I mean, think about just a couple years later, a year later, right? Or two years later, he's got Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Ron Carter, who were all students of this rhythm section of Winton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Jimmy Cobb.

You've got George Coleman, then you've got Wayne Short, a couple other saxophone players in there as well. Wayne Shorter also a notorious searcher. Yes. Never staying too long on his laurels. And Herbie, too. I mean, like how much of Wayne and Herbie's and Tony's, I mean, a searcher, you know.

For sure. With what he was going to do. Yeah, how much of that came from Miles. Martin Carter as well. You know. I think that's the spirit was, especially by that time where Miles is now like a significant generation above those guys.

Yeah, exactly. Kind of, what, 10, 15 years ahead? Yeah, like this is more like he's probably five years older than Paul Chambers, I assume, or maybe 10. But like with the next band, he would be like the elder states, exactly. And, I mean, I know it's made me not seem like it has a lot to do with the music, but being a musician, if I was like Herbie and them at that time,

I mean, Miles was like, he had his place on legendary, four-story townhouse on West 77th Street, Upper West Side that was like a converted church or something, this huge house that him and Francis Taylor, after they were married, moved into it that he bought. And what he was like, you know, like Frank Sinatra was going over there and Harry Belafonte and he's having parties. And if you're a young Herbie Hancock going there to rehearse and he's got the intercom system where he's upstairs listening to what they're playing. That was to be some impressive shit. You know, you're rolling up in there, you know, uptown. And so it's like, you know, he was really in his element, I think, during, during the.

this time. I know there was a lot of tumultuous stuff with their marriage and all that fell apart, but this was the beginning of like such a fruitful period for Miles, I think, artistically. Yeah, he was going through some pretty tragic stuff in his personal life during this time, though. I mean, he's struggling with addiction and pain. I didn't even know this, but he had a lot of chronic pain issues that he was, like, medicating with, with prescription pills, but also cocaine and alcohol, admittedly. Yeah. And even Miles said,

while we're on francing, this is probably appropriate, but, you know, he had this turned paranoid during this era. I had turned into something like Phantom of the Opera in that, you know, brownstone. Yep,

and he talks about that in the book. Yeah. Yeah, so it's interesting. Okay, so let's move on. We're going to kind of roll through these quick because we want to get to some categories where we're going to hit some of our most favorite parts of this,

of the music. Just play the beginning of Drad Dog. So Drad Dog, this is like the only thing track on here, I think, that's not played a lot. I know it's like in the real book and stuff, but I never hear anybody playing this. And it's a great Miles Davis ballot kind of based upon some very standard-ass kind of chord changes in the key of F. And it's Goddard Lieberson, who was the Columbia Records president during this whole period, legendary record executive. It's named after him. It's his name backwards.

Goddard. Yeah. Dred Dog. This is another great vehicle for Miles, this beautiful Harmon tone. Man, I can't tell you how... Trying to think of... How impressive Wynton Kelly's. If you're a pianist, it's beautiful to listen to.

His little subtle accompaniment here is. Everybody, of course. That's a counterfeit? It's a little bit of I thought about you. Yeah, it's not exactly. It's not exactly, but it's... Okay, we're going to come back to this later. later because my apex moments actually

keep, it's come along, but I want to get through the whole record because these six tracks, it's got some little parts of I thought about you from Johnny Mercer, of course. Drab Dog's an interesting one. Yeah. It's basically just a vehicle for some beautiful, more ballad play, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is super romantic record. I've always thought of this as you see

100%. Yeah, 100% of romance. Maybe just because when I was listening to this as LP, I'm looking at beautiful women listening to beautiful music and a lot of ballads on it and a cool miles. Look how cool Miles is on the back of that album cover. Yeah. No, this is definitely like akin to kind of blue

And that it's a very romantic album Yeah, it's a very, yeah, like you put this on You know, middle, late October, leaves are fallen, you're walking through Central Park kind of thing. Introspective, nostalgic too, right? Absolutely, yeah. Okay. So this is Tio after Tio Marceo.

Yeah. The producer and Miserro. And Miserro. Compatriot of Miles through this whole period. Oh, Jimmy Cobb. F minor? Yeah. The rhythmic precision here

The syncopation The choices Underrated Miles And he had recorded this, I believe, before this I don't one of those live records Yeah, this is a haunting tune Very simple tune He did this a number of different ways on different records

Man And the recording of the drums on here It feels like Get some good speakers or some good cans or whatever Jimmy Cobb How many more Witten Kelly PC albums

with Miles are there after this? There's the Black Hawk. Yeah, the Black Hawk and Jimmy Cobb. I think that live at Carnegie Hall which must have been right around the same period. But by 62 he starts transitioning.

I think so, yeah. Bill Evans comes back some a little bit. And then Herbie Encock. Victor Feldman, I think. Victor Feldman, I think. Seven Steps of Heaven. So this is,

is very much like the kind of, maybe not necessarily the groove, although it could be coming out of the modality of kind of blue, you know, with the open sections. Yes, this feels like this could have been the, you know, final track on Kind of Blue almost. Or even

Sketches of Spain vibes. Right. You know what I mean? Right. Or, or... And Sketches of Spain was actually the record he recorded right before this. That makes sense. Like that was the release right before this on Columbia. It was a Totally different kind of thing with a larger band and everything.

But yeah, it's coming out of the spirit of that. And then we've got the last track on here. And in a lot of ways, you know, to end on a ballad like this makes a lot of sense. I think it's an interesting bookends, thematically. And it's got one of the great, great, great, great, great, great, great introductions. I want to talk about that first chord. This is a beautiful song. And I thought about you.

is Jimmy Van Houston and Johnny Mercer, I believe. And this is actually my Desert Island track, so this is good. We're going to segue right into our categories. Miles plays it like, I mean, he's singing. Is he the most lyrical trumpet player we have from our tradition? Yes. Yeah, easily. That note.

Oh. Man, when Kelly's accompanying of him is masterful, Miles would have been somebody difficult to accompany. Okay, Herbie stole that voicing. For sure. Yeah. I think Herbie is checking this out, this whole album. So you were saying you had some insights on the beginning, right?

On that intro? Yeah. So I thought about you is a tune by Johnny Mercer and Jimmy Van Husing. So I thought about you, if we do it here in the key of F, traditionally, the first chord is F. And so the changes would be something like F, E7, A7, D. By changes, he means the chords, the harmony. If you look up sort of the original sheet music

and something like that. So Miles doesn't start an F. He starts on a chord a tritone away from F, which is the most dissonant you can be from F. He starts on a B chord. It's mysterious, right? It is.

He starts on a B minor 7, flat 5, B half diminished. So he's still getting the A7 on the third chord, but instead of F, E7, he does... Which gives it a different feel, right? It's like a whole... It's unsettled a little bit. So this is how it would traditionally start,

which feels very much an F, but this is a mile starts it. Same melody. But I thought about you. Is that interesting, though? It's super interesting because, and check it out. That starts on the B. Yeah. But this is all kind of leading somewhere, and Witten Kelly leads to that F.

Right? Like it would be, but it does. It doesn't. It does that. It's just like this is what And they do a minor here Traditionally that would be

Yeah these are like chord substitutions And you might think I don't care about that I'm not a musician But it just gives you a different feel Right as a listener It's like it could be a little bit forlorn It could be a little nestile It could be a little unsettled

And then the payoff is It feels like it's going to go that If it still hasn't gone there To the relative minor We take this stuff for granted now And now is the first time It goes to a settled major to the four-core.

Yeah, but it's not the actual. We take all these little moves for granted, but that whole B-half-dominish to B-flat-7, A-minor instead of A-7, and make it just a little bit like more forlorn, more melancholy. It takes it out of, it wasn't hokey before, but it's like, it's a song written in 1939,

so it felt like the 30s more than it would feel like the 60s, and this brings it into the 60s. And again, we talk about Miles being such a great tastemaker, such a great, you know, almost like he's the host at a dinner party where it's like you're gonna sit there like he's arranging these things he probably didn't he probably heard somebody else

like Ahmad Jamal or Bill Evans or Art Tatum or whatever play that chord on this tune or maybe he came up with it it doesn't really matter like he said it there and like this became the standard in fact a lot of the sheet music and people play it like this a little bit controversially like he did with other tunes

he sort of changed the chords on Thelonis Monks Round Midnight they were really good but he wanted them to be another different kind of way. So he was able to set the table in a way so that he'd still take that original melody and float it over as only he could. But with the harmony that he was very intentional about it.

You hear it on some of the outtakes, not on this record, but on some of the other stuff where he's being very specific, like what he wants Ron Carter to play and, like, Kirby played this voicing. Like, he had a sound that he wanted and the harmony was very much a part of it. So that's my Desert Island track.

Do you approve? I do. My Desert Island track is the title track. Someday My Prince will come. Oh, this one? I love it so much. So you could go to a desert island and just listen to this? I do love it.

I mean, there's... Would you want to hunt for food or just chill? I'd probably just chill. But you'd be dead. I'm listening to this. That's okay. I'm die happy. Oh, Herbie Hancock.

We know where from whence you came. What about apex moments? What's your apex moment? Okay, my apex moment is a little bit off the beaten path, but I want to jump to this part of Drad Dog, Do I have it on here? Yeah, check this out. I just love the tone that Winton Kelly,

his idea is the clarity of it. And then he kind of, check it out. This is the end of Hank Mowgli's solo. A little double-time feel here. Yeah, but he's floating on top. His left hand is super quiet. Man, that's so good. He's kind of playing like as lyrically as Miles has been on the M.

A little Herbie in there too. Very much. Yeah. And then Miles comes in, but it's not over yet. Winton Kelly jumps back in the mix Check it out Oh, subtle groove Polycord

Kelly jumps in That's nice That's a good moment That's a very very good moment He's all up on top of miles But it's like a conversation That's a really Yeah

Oh man's sorry Oh I don't know I think I can want up you on this one That's good though That's good stuff there It's good Witt and Kelly Do we like good or do we like great?

Is that the great? Well, I think think that might be the, for me, the greatest Winton Kelly moment. It could be. And he had so many, because he was the master of just like sitting down and making a moment,

but that one is like, yeah, what do you got? Oh, I got John Coltrane solo on Someday My Prince will come, so I don't know if you've ever heard that, but it's... If you love obvious, great choices. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty incredible.

Oh, look, there's a pink elephant stampeding through the studio. Okay, let's just give a little bit of background on this first. They recorded... Sometime My Prince will come, of course. We listened to this already. Great intro. Miles plays.

He's soul. Polos, Hank Mobley's solos. Yeah, which we talked about might have been a little bit. It might have been a little bit. And then Winton Kelly, great solo. Great solo from Win Kelly. And then they get towards the end of the Winton Kelly solo. Like the train is the last half of his.

And they just have like walking in. He's walking, then he just couldn't find parking. What was going on? I don't know. Like Miles called him. It was like, I think Miles called him because he's like, I don't like what Hank Mowley's playing. Poor Hank. Heck catching strays all over this podcast.

They're in the church, the 30th Street studio. And then they go back to play the melody. Take the tune out. I mean, we're five and a half minutes in. Yeah, tune's over. Coltrane walks in. It's like putting a sporn together. They're recording.

It's one room. This is not like a studio with a bunch of room. It's an old church. So I think Miles is like... I guess because he said... We don't want to improvise too much, but maybe. But then they go back to the intro here. Like they're going to segue out.

But Jimmy Cobb knows training. And in one of the great moments ever. Train looks at the chorus for the first time ever, literally reading it. It becomes so excited. Every one of these, this might be my favorite train entrance. Every time it's like just a sunbeam of truth cuts into the studio. And he's getting weird. Yeah, he is. Because life is weird.

What I'm saying, man, this is right here. Miles is taking these gorgeous lawn lyrical harmonious, harmonious, Harmon mute solos. You got Wynne Kelly, just like Mr. Swing, like Mr. Fun Time Eighth Note, just to have him like turn everything into a party. And then train comes in and it's your, and you're like, oh, the priest has arrived.

Right. And it's time to know. The 60s are here. It's time to start worship service because like the truth comes in the building. Yeah. Spirituality is enlisted and it's just. And then Miles plays the melody again. Play the melody again.

It's great. No, I agree. And it's, I mean, I mean, we might be reading too much into this, but is this also like the 60s are here? But like, yeah, for sure. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? That is, like swing time is over rock and rolls here.

Like, we got to do something. Yeah, fuck. And in fact, so this is 1961. And that might be a little jarring what Coltrane play. I mean, like, in his first little, blah, blah, blah, he played more notes than Miles played on the whole aisle. But in a drawing in a way that someone, like, slaps you on the top of the head and is like, wake up. Slaps you on the top of head with like a beautiful bordeaux from, well, that would hurt. But, you know, it's the greatest part about this, about music, about jazz music, about improvisational.

music is that a player's personality can come in and completely detune whatever situation is happening and like stir up the energy in a way that you're like everybody in the room. You can feel the anticipation of Jimmy Cobb's like, oh, this is going to be good. This is going to be good. You can just feel it in the band, the electricity that's about to happen. What an incredible recorded moment. We're so lucky to have it. Yeah.

And I mean, the fact that he's playing these chords, he's looking at him, playing him for the first time. So my Apex Moment beat through is great. What about bespoke? They're both really good. What about this? Let me just play this, though. This is 1961. So this, like we think about Miles and what he's transitioning to,

Train was kind of already there. This is from his first impulse record. I love this. This is very good. He's got two bass players, Jimmy Garrison, and I think Art Davis, maybe Richard Davis, McCoy Tyner. That's an E.

60s are coming. 60s had a lot more open ease on the base, didn't they? I think it's Elvin. Yeah. Tsunami. So that's what Train is bringing to the party. But remember what Coltrane said about Miles being the one that opened him up to the possibilities, the freedom to go bonkers.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Bespoke playlist. What do you got? Oh, this is silly after hearing that great music. When Jazz Dreams of Disney. I like it. There's a lot of, like, Disney, I actually played on a record back of that.

It was, like, jazzy Disney record. You know, there's always these jazz Disney things. Bruback did. Yeah, so anyway, that's silly. I've got... Yours is better. Harm in heaven. That's good.

It is Harmon heaven. In honor of the Harmon. All right, let's get to quibble this next. This is our chance to complain about something. Now, I will remind you this is a perfect record, so what you got? Well, it's... So no such thing is a perfect record, but it is close. The only thing that I would say could make it better if there was more John Coltrane.

I think that moment is... More Calvahoehl? More Coltrane? You can never have enough John Coltrane. Imagine him playing on old folks. Imagine him playing on... Mancing. Imagine him playing on, I thought about you. I think it makes for a better album. I mean, he's on two tracks. I mean, what we just heard, of course,

Sunday My Prince will come famous solo. And then he's on Tio. He plays a great soul on there, lots of notes, really interesting. I don't know, to me, it's kind of part of the sound of this record, him just jumping at those two different places. You know, don't you want more of that sound? Of course I want more, and I can go hear that on his other records. I don't know. Of course it would be great. It would change the character of this record a lot. If there was no Hank Mobley in all John Coltrane, do you think this is a better album? No.

All right. I don't. Okay. Which is weird because my quibble bit is Hank Mobley. I was going to say, I thought you weren't super into what Hank Mobley was doing on this. But I think holistically, when I look at this record, I think it just all works.

You know what I mean? Sometimes you can't argue with the results. Okay. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, having Hank Mobley, which objectively one could say is a little bit subpar to the other individuals that are on this record, but he's a team player.

I don't know. Maybe he's doing what needs to be done. And then Coltrade, when he comes in, he's a team player. And Miles is like holding this whole thing together. You know, maybe they got lucky. Maybe, you know, Teo produced. I mean, it's all kind of intersection of like luck and great skill and great playing and everything. But yeah, to me, Hank Mubbley's just a small quibble bit in that his playing, there's a little bit of, in terms of the arc of the improvisatory creativity falls in the swing field.

Maybe just a little bit falls off. But it's a great record. Okay. On a scale of 1 to 10, how snobby is this album? Is it one, not very snobby at all, or 10, very, very stombed? Yeah, I would put this at a 5, clearly. Everything's at a 5. No, but this is a perfect example of a 5.

Let's be honest. I think this is a 3. I think this is less snobby. I think just with all the packaging, with the Disney song to Lind that, I think it's a little less snobby than... Okay. Like, say, like, I think, plug nickels like 6. But we love this record.

That always pushes it more towards snobby. We are snobs. let's move on. Okay. Alright. Right? Sorry. Is it better than Kind of Blue? No.

No. Not even close. Oh, very, no. O Contrae, Montreerey, Ma'Fereere. Very close. I don't think it's close. I was about to say yes. I think if Condi Blue is a 9, this is a 7. How can you say it's not even close?

I mean, it's like the same personnel almost. It doesn't have Cannonball Adderley. It doesn't sound as good. It doesn't have Bill Evans. It doesn't have Cannonball Airely. It doesn't have John Coltrane. It doesn't sound as good. It sounds as good.

I don't think it sounds as good. I think they had the piano in better shape, or maybe it was a different piano on Kind of Blue. I mean, you think about the actual piano. Kelly solo on Freddie Freeloader versus Francine? Great solos, but the piano sounded way better on Freddy Freed. Not way better, it sounded a little better.

Okay. Acuchamance. These are special, Akuchamonts. I'm going to go nine. Yeah, I agree. And it could be, so shout out Bob Cato, out of New Orleans. Yeah, yeah.

Cuban, New Orleans individual. Incredible cover. Did so many great covers, the famous Led Zepplin first record, Bob Dylan, the Barbara Streisand on the beach, on Columbia, just great. And a lot of times people could say,

oh, it's just a picture of beautiful woman. That's what makes it. No, there's design to this. Like, look at all this. Look at all this, Adam. Yeah. Look at this. You know what I'm saying?

Incredible design, iconic Bob Cato. Shout out. Well, and shout out to Miles Davis. You mentioned that he started insisting that the labels, his labels put black women on his album covers. And no liner notes. And no liner notes. And so that was a big.

part of the design. That much better. Yeah, yeah. Okay, up next. Up next. I've got live the Black Hawk. They recorded it a month later. Great club, San Francisco.

They did Friday night and Saturday at two different LPs, which you think would be overkill. Yeah. But it's not both of those records are incredible. I'm partial to Saturday night. But Friday night's amazing too. I mean, some of the great Win Kelly playing. Hank Mobley is firing at a higher level than on this record, I think.

Yeah, I got no quibble bits with him on that. It's a great band. Miles is killing. They're playing their best. Yeah. What's cool now is you can listen to that whole weekend, essentially, like right in a row. Yeah. I have John Coltrane's my favorite things as an option.

I also have... That was from 60 maybe? Yeah, it was right around his. 59? Maybe it was good. Same thing. I also wanted to... I would think John Ellis, great tenor saxonist John Ellis, has an album called That's You I Like,

that's the music of Mr. Rogers. And just as we're talking about like our children. Someday my Prince will come, my favorite things. Innocent jazz. Some, yeah, childlike... Non-cocaine jazz. Childlike wonder jazz. But it's a great album.

It's you I like from Incredible Turner Saxon. John Ellis. Yeah. Awesome stuff. You mentioned the newsletter. Folks can go to you'll hearit.com to sign up for you'll read it. That's right. Go to you'll hear it.

Sign up for you'll read it and get a newsletter every week. Some behind-the-scenes stuff. Some announcements. Some announcements. Some announcements. you get articles from Caleb, from Sam, from Liz, from our whole team here making sure. We might even write something someday.

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Actually, no, it's about how to live a musical life. It's what it's really about. And you can learn more if you go to Open StudioJazz.com slash pro. It's our most popular program we've had. It's an amazing community of like-minded folks getting together six days a week for live classes. And I'm so excited about it, inspired

every time I go in there and see our amazing students from around the world. Can we talk about... Over 120 countries now. Can we talk about the game? That's crazy. It's crazy. That's crazy.

And it is really... Name 120 countries right now. Australia. Andorra. We're doing all the years. So what about a gala, Peter? Can I talk to you a little bit about a gala? I don't know about a gala.

So I want to read a couple of ratings and reviews here. So a gala is our gentleman and ladies agreement. We're bringing it back. We're bringing it back. And so we bring you this podcast. Back streets back. All right. The podcast doesn't cost anything, but it does.

It's super expensive. We require you to go on to your Apple podcast or your Spotify podcast or YouTube and leave us a comment or a rating and review. Here's some great ratings that we have from some listeners on our Apple podcast. So five stars, wonderful. I love all the background insights. on these incredible albums, really an excellent show gala. And that's from Wolfrick 16.

Another seven-star gala review. Seven stars out of four. We only take seven-star reviews. That's five. But for those of us mathematically challenged musicians, just know that means greater than you'd hope for with 100% being the best you can hope for. And that was from JBC, 2015-32.

Thank you, JBC. And then one more. Excellence from Boomer Music Lover, right up around. Five stars. My thanks to Peter and Album and Adam for helping me understand my favorite music better and introducing me to more great music. In addition to enjoying your enthusiastic and skillful explanations,

I so enjoy when you all perform covers at the end of the show. Thank you very much, Boomer Music Lover. We love playing for you. In that spirit, that's about what we're going to go do right now. Let's go do it. All right. Until next time, you'll hear it.