The Score

Was any other revolution in jazz so suave? When Miles Davis led a two-week stand at New York’s fabled Royal Roost in 1948,
the music—composed and arranged for a nonet by Gil Evans,
John Lewis (later of the Modern Jazz Quartet), Gerry
Mulligan, and others—changed jazz forever.

Revolution was already in the air: The sped-up, serpentine lines of
bebop stymied mainstream musicians rooted in swing. Other contemporary
experiments, notably the forays into unscored, chartless, freely
improvised music fathered by Lennie Tristano as well as Stan
Kenton‘s swaggering Innovations Orchestra, stunned and baffled
listeners. But those brave ventures were short-lived.

Davis and his collaborators paved a middle path, smoothing the
frantic, swerving angles and daredevil contortions of bebop with tubas
and French horns. Solos glided instead of galloped; uptempo numbers
never boiled over into frenetic jamming. Sly arrangements
radiated a cool, relaxed sophistication, proving that a small group
could stay nimble while sounding as orchestral as a big band.

With a short-term record contract to fulfill, Davis and his nonet
recorded for Capitol Records, which astutely released the resulting
sessions as 78 rpm singles, an EP, and later as an LP, Birth of
the Cool. Mulligan moved to California, and the Capitol disc
went everywhere, diffusing the Cool vibe into what was dubbed
“West Coast Jazz” and then into movie and TV scores.

Although many of the Cool tunes—such as “Boplicity,”
“Jeru,” and “Israel”—are standards, the arrangements are seldom
played as originally scored. Reviving the music is a natural step
for Seattle trumpeter Jason Parker, a co-instigator of tribute
nights devoted to the music of Charles Mingus and Art
Blakey. For this “Birth of the Cool” (Fri Aug 21, Lucid Lounge,
5241 University Wy, 9:30 pm, free), Parker plays in the Seattle Jazz
Composers’ Ensemble, which includes Reptet’s Nelson Bell (an
elated Parker told me “I found a tuba player!”), alto saxophonist
Cynthia Mullis, Cara Sawyer on French horn, and
codirector/bassist Nate Omdal, who painstakingly converted the
music into individual parts for the band.

“We’re playing the pieces as arranged,” says Omdal, who expresses
amazement at the original scores, published in 2002 after a
half-century of tempting (and thwarting) transcribers. “You hear
incredible pairings of baritone sax, tuba, and bass,” he adds. He also
notes that time—and affection for certain improvised
sections—has blurred the line between composition and
improvisation. “There are some little segues, improvised by Miles and
others, that we’re keeping. They feel inseparable from the music.” True
to the Cool spirit of exploration, the band play new tunes
composed for the ensemble by Omdal, Jim Knodle, Bell, Michael
Catts, SJCE codirector Michael Owcharuk, and Portland
composer Andrew Oliver.