Birth of the Cool: Live

An evening centred around Miles Davis's album, Birth of the Cool, and its rich nonet instrumentation. The concert will be rooted in the historicity of the arrangements by Miles and his arranger Gil Evans, now considered seminal, providing attendees the chance to hear this rarely performed music originally recorded in the mid Twentieth Century.

Birth of the Cool is a compilation album of music recorded in the formative part of Davis' career, which for many represents a watershed moment in post-war music and in the history of jazz. This is now known as The Birth of the Cool, with the music that this historic nine piece group created in 1949 and 1950. The group had a number of future jazz heavyweights, including: Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, Max Roach, John Lewis, the arranger Gil Evans, and of course band leader, Miles Davis.

Unlike a big band or a small jazz group, the unconventional line up of instruments - saxophones, trumpet, French horn/flugel, trombone, tuba, and rhythm section - is specifically selected for the warmth of their voices and the depth of timbre that they create together. This music, celebrated in a concert at BJazz, is truly unique, combining bebop with classical techniques, polyphony, and the voices of a rich ensemble. Today these tunes sound as fresh as ever and offer a very rare opportunity to hear this music live.

For their performance at BJazz, arrangements have been carefully collated for the Hertfordshire-based nonet by musical director, Tom Harker, with later collaborations between Miles Davis and Gil Evans also being showcased in adaptations from the albums "Porgy & Bess" and "Miles Ahead". Listeners can expect to hear further exploration of the jazz nonet repertoire in a contrasting context, with additional arrangements by Steve Fishwick, McCoy Tyner, and Abdullah Ibrahim, dotted throughout the sets.

Alto saxophone - Andrew Linham

Baritone Saxophone - Nic Newling

Trumpet/Flugelhorn - Tom Harker (Musical Director)

Trumpet/Flugelhorn - Matt Ward

Trombone - Joe Harker

Tuba - Lee Tsarmaklis

Piano - Ben Harker

Double bass - Debs Spanton

Drums - Dan Wild

Tickets online upto 17:00 on the evening of the concert. They will be available on the door at opening, 19:15.