Kind of Blue article

Blue Lake

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From Lazaro Vega
Blue Lake Public Radio

Interview with Ashley Kahn, author "Kind of Blue, The Making of the Miles
Davis Masterpiece."

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/iviews/akhan.htm
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/iviews/akhan2.htm

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On 8 Nov 2000 05:54:07 GMT, Blue Lake <ra...@bluelake.org> wrote:
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Thank you for yet another sensitive, thoughtful, edifying, vibrationally
apt interview.

--
Ben

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"Blue Lake" <ra...@bluelake.org> wrote in message
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Ashley Kahn, the author of "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis
Masterpiece" (Da Capo Press, 224 pgs.), is Music Editor at VH1, and was the
primary editor of Rolling Stone: The Seventies as well as the primary
contributor to Rolling Stone Jazz and Blues Album Guide. He has contributed
articles to The New York Times, Rolling Stone and Mojo, and lives in Fort
Lee, New Jersey. The forward to "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis
Masterpiece" is by Jimmy Cobb. Kahn spoke from his home in Fort Lee, New
Jersey.

Portions of this interview were broadcast along with music from Miles Davis'
s recordings "Kind of Blue" and "Milestones" over Blue Lake Public Radio's
"Jazz a la Carte" with Lazaro Vega on October 28, 2000.

10-20-00

Lazaro Vega: After reading "Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis
Masterpiece" one of the things I came away with was that this is a great
compendium of information gleaned from Jack Chamber's books, "Milestones 1 &
2," Ian Carr's biography and Miles's autobiography with Quincy Troupe. What
you've done is telescoped much of the information from those sources into
180 pages plus footnotes and index. For people who haven't gone to the
lengths of research on Miles as you have, obviously, and other's have as
well, you've provided a primer on his career that maybe they wouldn't have
had so easily before.

Ashley Kahn: If I might comment on that, I agree with that to a certain
degree. However, there's a lot of primary source material in my book, too. I
not only wanted to rely on the excellent job, of course, that Jack Chambers,
Ian Carr, etcetera, have done in the past, but also to try and do something
that I think biographies, when they give you this deluge of information,
sometimes miss. And that's a flavor and the personality of not just the
person but of the time. So what I attempted to do -- and in the end spoke
with about 50 different people, musicians, producers, and witnesses of that
time in the late fifties when "Kind of Blue" was recorded -- was to try and
use "Kind of Blue" as a window back on to 1959. What was happening with
jazz? What was happening to music in general? Where was Miles? Where was his
head? Where was his reputation at that time? To try and basically give you
the zeitgeist of what 1959 was like.

Vega: Yes. I didn't get a chance to add that the original interviews you did
are fantastic. I really enjoyed reading Jimmy Cobb's comments, and the
statements of the engineers you were able to dig up, and also the Pop
musicians, Donald Fagan, and the jazz musician from Chicago, Warren
Bernhardt.

Kahn: Yes! Well, "Kind of Blue" is one of those rare jazz albums that
totally defy its category. It says, 'No, I'm not just a jazz album; I'm a
music album'. And it shows both in the musicians and the music makers who
have totally embraced this album and allowed it to influence their own
sound, and also the music buying public out there. You do not have to be a
jazz fan; you do not have to be a knowledgeable jazz expert to enter into
this world that "Kind of Blue" presents. That's one of the whole reasons for
doing the book.

Vega: The book will appeal as well to a wide variety of readers because of
that, and because you did dip into the Popular Music world, the world of
studio technology, the world of record-label politics. There are many
different strains going on.

Kahn: In a lot of jazz books, unfortunately, you either get a really dry
academic tone, or you get the usual hit after hit sort of approach to the
biography time-line. So you don't get a feel for whether he's going up hill
here, is he at the top of the hill? Or is this just another moment in his
career?

What I really wanted to do was get a feel for the fact that "Kind of Blue"
is a real pinnacle, an incredible creative statement, and a risk-taking by
Miles. (It's) A turning the corner where by 1959 he was a very established
artist, he could have just rested on his laurels as many jazz artists whose
music I know and love very much have done in the past, and have total
respect of their peers and of the jazz world in general. Miles defied that.
Miles wanted to attempt something new. And the first time he really did
that, and went into the studio and said, 'No, I'm not going to do something
like I've done before, I'm going to try a new style of music, I'm going to
create and compose it as much in the studio as I have done beforehand, and
take that chance' that is "Kind of Blue" and that's what "Kind of Blue" was.
It set the pattern for the way he would approach music making, especially in
the studio, for the rest of his career.

Vega: Herbie Hancock makes that clear in the interview segments that you
used, and I think anyone who's followed his discography would see that
change as well, that it was a defining moment for him. As it was a defining
moment in music as you talked about how different artists in jazz were
restless with the recurring cycle of chords and wanted to break out of the
pop song structure.

Kahn: Exactly. How many times can you do Cole Porter or Gershwin numbers,
which are fantastic numbers to do anyway? But there is a point where jazz
musicians wanted to break out and do their own music. I should add, however,
that we're talking about "Kind of Blue" as a career watershed: in addition
it's an unbelievable musical statement. Again, you do not have to have jazz
knowledge. You don't even have to know any of the jazz lore or the history
of Miles Davis's career to totally embrace and totally dive-in to the music
itself.

Vega: It's very accessible because of its mood. I remember a couple of
stories. At the opening of the book you were saying everybody has story
about "Kind of Blue."

Kahn: (Laughing). It's unbelievable. Everybody really does.

Vega: Years ago I laid a copy of this on a woman who was living in a small
town here in Michigan that I really liked. She was an earth-mother type, a
graduate of Michigan State's horticulture program who had her own garden
service. She was a striking Swedish woman. She knew I was on the radio doing
jazz, so I thought I'd give her an LP copy of "Kind of Blue" to impress her.
She responded, "This is bachelor-pad music." That was her summation of the
whole record. I couldn't get past it.

Kahn: (Laughing). That's so funny. One of my favorite quotes in the book,
and there are so many to choose from and there is only so much room in a
book to put them in, but is from a very established jazz critic whose
approach was always dry and academic but who always hit the mark. I really
love his writing. But it defines a certain style. You really do have to be
part of the jazz cognoscenti, or at least have one foot moving in that
direction to appreciate his writing. He says exactly that. He says the trick
to "Kind of Blue" and Miles at that period, in the late fifties and the
music he was making, is that at low volume it's unbelievable audio wall
paper. It's so sophisticated it's perfect party music, or bachelor-pad music
as your friend said. But turn it up and you get great art. For those who
are willing to do focused listening on the album, it serves both purposes.

Vega: It does. There are many sides to it. And that moment you talked about
on "So What" when Jimmy Cobb hits that cymbal.I always thought that was a
sizzle cymbal he hit, the cymbal with the rivets in it so when it's struck
it has that long beautiful delayed fade-out as the band comes in underneath.
That is one of the most dramatic moments on the record, but it is so subtle.

Kahn: I would venture to say it's one of the most dramatic moments in jazz,
period. On "So What," just as Miles starts his solo. It's the equivalent of
Steve McQueen in "Bullet" clicking his safety belt, his seat belt, and you
know this incredible chase scene is just about to start. Or in a movie
theater when the lights go out. That magic moment is worth the whole price
of admission, just there. Just for that.

Thankfully Jimmy Cobb is around to speak about that. And of course he is so
incredibly humble about it. He said, "Well, we just made a nice jazz
record." It's like Herbie Hancock says in the book, it really makes the
whole album when that cymbal shot happens.

Vega: Jimmy Cobb hooked up with the Yamaha Corporation of America, Band and
Orchestral Division, here in Grand Rapids when he came through in the 1990's
with the Nat Adderley band.

Kahn: Any type of support, corporate or otherwise, for these musicians who
are out there still doing it (is good). Jimmy Cobb, of course, is part of
this landmark masterpiece, but he still has to go out there and gig to put
food on the table. So that's great to hear Yamaha sees the value in putting
their name behind Jimmy.

Vega: The other thing I wanted to let you know about was that when this
Columbia box set came out with the complete Miles Davis and John Coltrane,
including "Kind of Blue," the Wallace Roney band was in Grand Rapids for a
public concert and a private party the next night at a person's house.
Before the party they were relaxing in the basement listening to music on
the stereo. Lenny White, Geri Allen, Charles Fambrough, Wallace Roney and a
tenor player named Steve Hall. Those folks are in this basement library
listening to "So What" and Lennie White is sitting on the arm of a stuffed
leather chair acting like he's holding a tenor saxophone up to play, singing
John Coltrane's solo. Everybody is giving skin and high fives after certain
phrases. They were having a blast.

Kahn: Well, I'm telling you. The way that people quote Bible verse for
verse, it's no kidding that for jazz musicians "Kind of Blue" is the Bible.
And they can sing every solo. That is the primer for every jazz musician,
and still is 41 years later. I challenge anyone to find another album that
has that effect 41 years later.

Vega: One of the things I really enjoyed in your book was the George Russell
thread. George Russell is recognized as a theorist and an intriguing
recording artist who was there with Dizzy on "Cubano Be" "Cubano Bop,"
dealing with Lydian concepts and the formal aspect of modality, theorizing
on that and putting it down on paper. He is very influential and maybe not a
lot of people realize that.

Kahn: He was also the lynchpin between Bill Evans and Miles Davis. "Kind of
Blue" really is, also, the Valentine that came out of the very short period,
only 8 months, when Bill Evans and Miles Davis were working together.

Vega: I appreciate his presence and comments. Also, I learned "Walking'" is
"Weirdo" is Gene Ammons' "Gravy." That was really happy to learn Gene Ammons
recording "Gravy" was "Walking'." I kind of knew "Weirdo" was, I have that
on the Blue Note album. Of course "Sid's Ahead" you mention later. I
appreciated that, and the links you make with his recordings in the back end
of the book, as well.

Kahn: The source notes part is really there for the jazznics, you know? The
front part of the book I really wanted to be inviting and open to any type
of music enthusiast, but I don't want it to get bogged down in detail. So
for those who do appreciate the details like you're describing, it's all in
the footnote section. (Laughing) I'm glad you found it.

Vega: You know, I don't think Miles Davis' autobiography was really
autobiographical at times. You did use a quote from it, on page 38, it's a
quote about "Walking'" where Miles is alleged to have said he wanted to use
Kenny Clarke instead of Art Blakey because Kenny does the brushes thing. I
noticed that when I read the autobiography, too, because Kenny Clarke does
not play brushes on "Walkin'" or "Blue and Boogie." He doesn't play brushes
at all on that session and I don't think Miles would say he did because
Miles was so attuned to musical detail. I doubt he'd just forget. (ED: The
actual dubious quote from Miles autobiography is "Kenny Clarke replaced Art
Blakey on drums because I wanted that brush stroke thing. When it came to
playing soft brush strokes on the drums, nobody could do it better than
Klook [Kenny Clarke]. I was using a mute on that date and I wanted a soft
thing behind me, but a swing soft thing." Davis plays with an open horn
throughout "Walkin'").

Kahn: Yeah, yeah. Here's the thing: unfortunately Miles is not with us
anymore. I think the most important part of it is that he wanted Kenny
Clarke, for a certain reason, whether it was brushes or not. The whole thing
about "Walkin'" was it was the theme of hard bop. That's the ultimate
statement for hard bop of its time: one foot in the blues, one foot in
bebop. That type of bringing Lucky Thompson and Kenny Clarke together with
J.J. Johnson and Horace Silver was exactly what he was trying to do - get a
balance of the bebop veterans with the younger, bluesier roots players. That
was the formula that would later get distilled and turn into "Kind of Blue."

Vega: Also, it's too bad the studio chatter from the Christmas Eve 1954
session isn't available on the CD reissues. Miles said he wanted that on the
original LPs, I've heard that, but it's not on the complete Prestige
Recordings.

Kahn: For your listeners we should say that is an incredible moment in jazz
lore, when Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis got together on Christmas Eve and
recorded an incredible number of tunes such as.when Miles really kicked it
into gear, such as you're suggesting.

Vega: "Bags Groove," "The Man I Love," and "Bemsha Swing" (Ed: Unmentioned
between us and recorded that day one of Davis' first scalar (modal)
compositions, "Swing Spring"). Do you know if Miles 1955 Newport appearance
is available on CD?

Kahn: I did my research and I was told about that being available
audio-wise. Never was able to find it. (Ed: Further research exposed the1994
CD release" Miscellaneous Davis 1955-1957" on Jazz Unlimited JUCD 2050). I
was told that there's some sort of very primitive video of the 1958-Miles
sextet band with Bill Evans in it. That was shot in Philadelphia. Paul Bley
told me about that, and no, I've never been able to find that, either.

Vega: One of the things I thought you did a really good job with is talking
about how Ornette Coleman came to the same place in music where he wanted to
get past the harmonic cycle of chords and not be so responsible to that as
an improvisor, but instead forge his own idea of blues phrase syntax. I
thought you dealt with that well. I was waiting for you to deal with it and
I was glad when I got into the back part of the book, not the foot notes but
the narrative after "Kind of Blue," you really went into that. And you
really covered where jazz was.

But I thought one point you might have elaborated on was that like "Kind of
Blue" Ornette's way of going out was actually going back. He went back to
the blues. The blues as a form before W.C. Handy was very open. A musician
with a guitar would play whatever phrase length he wanted to: 4 bars, 8
bars, 6 bars.

Kahn: 13 and ½.

Vega: You know what I'm saying?

Kahn: Yes.

Vega: And W.C. Handy came along and said, listen, if we're going to play
music together we can't do that.

Kahn: Right.

Vega: So it's 12 or it's 32, or it's -

Kahn: I think what you're referring to here is collective improvisation in
general.

Vega: No, what I was going to say, and it's a point that you did make,
Ornette decided his phrase lengths and syntax would be determined by what he
had to say. And that to me is the blues. He went back to that earlier form
of the blues before W.C. Handy standardized them, and he said that's how I'm
going to make my jazz improvisations, not necessarily by reporting on the
chord changes. I thought you could have tied that in to what Miles' was
doing on "Kind of Blue."

Kahn: You know what, that's a very interesting comment, and there are
interviews that I've read with Ornette where he refers to country blues. He
doesn't refer to any blues men by name, I wish, you know, if he was talking
about Lightning Hopkins or even more, I hate to use the word 'primitive,'
but more un-schooled blues musicians like Robert Pete Williams or someone
like that. I would love to know if Ornette was hip to the very loose
approach to the blues that is all about individual expression.

Vega: I think he is. That was the point I'm making.

Kahn: You know what? Knowing how just all encompassing he is in his taste I
would not be surprised. I totally agree with what you're saying. The point I
think I was really trying to make was in 1959 the jazz world was ready to
explode with change and that Miles was not alone. Miles' approach to change
happened in such an under whelming way. Very influential, unbelievably
influential especially when you consider the effect that the album that was
certainly his watershed album of that period still has 40 years later. I'm
talking about "Kind of Blue."

But the sound of jazz revolution in 1959 it was, I mean, Ornette owned that.
When he came to New York and opened up at the Five Spot in November of 1959
it set the whole jazz world on fire. The coming of free jazz and the fact
that you could make beautiful music as collectively improvised, and really
stretch out the rhythm and melody structure, just break open the structure
of jazz, was Ornette's contribution.

Vega: And Miles, and Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor.

Kahn: Exactly. It's funny, though, because Miles I don't think ever left
behind total -- I mean the way that Ornette and Sun Ra and Cecil did, the
throwing out the baby with the bathwater type of idea. Like we're going to
leave everything behind. Miles never wanted to burn the bridge behind him.
There's a couple of comments that I quote where he seems to be saying from
as late as 1969/1970 when the sound of Ornette has become very established
and people like Albert Ayler and Coltrane's explorations have followed in
Ornette's wake, and Miles makes the comment, "We have to meet in a room, and
that room has to have walls." You know? Blah blah blah. So he never totally
embraced that sort of departure from melodic structure.

Vega: No he didn't. At the same time he dissed Eric Dolphy, but then later
on he had Benny Maupin playing a bass clarinet in his band playing much like
Dolphy did. It was hard to understand him sometimes, or hard to read him
with that later in his career. Many of the things he did seemed to be
influenced by what Trane did later on. It was modal and deeply African.

Kahn: I love that moment that Paul Bley describes where Paul, of course, is
in New York. He was part of the L.A. scene and Ornette and him were in the
same band.

Vega: At the Hillcrest Club.

Kahn: Exactly. There's Paul at the Five Spot (in New York) and Miles walks
in. And Paul describes it as Miles acting as if he just happened to be in
the neighborhood to grab a beer. 'Oh, here's the Five Spot, let me go in
here.' And Miles is listening to Ornette, but he's not even facing the
stage. He's like talking with a bar tender. But of course there's got to be
some listening going on as he's checking out what Ornette is doing.

Although he might have dissed Ornette, dissed Eric Dolphy and the coming of
free jazz publicly and in words, there definitely was an influence. That was
part of Miles's genius, anyway. Is that he would listen to the full gamut of
sound out there and pick and choose different players and styles, etcetera,
and encompass it into his music.

Vega: I really appreciate the work you did to show us what the Columbia 30th
Street Studio was like. I had a friend of mine who made a record there in
the 1970's with Roscoe Mitchell. It's called "The Maze." On Nessa Records.
It's a double LP set and you open it up and there's big gatefold color
picture of the inside of the Columbia 30th Street Studio taken by Chuck's
wife AnnNessa. She went up on scaffolding above so you can see all of these
percussion instruments.

Kahn: Wow, I'm going to have to try and find this.

Vega: Oh yeah, he's in Whitehall, Michigan. E-mail:
ne...@earthlink.net.Chuck is really proud, a proud man to have worked in
that studio because that parkay floor and those vaulted ceilings and those
micro-phones and that equipment made for a very important place in a musical
history of America.

Kahn: That's the type of stuff that really should be enshrined as well,
along with all the biographical detail, say, of what Miles is going through.

What you're describing is exactly what the engineers.Unfortunately when you
put something in print, unless you actually say it, you can't really suggest
the emotional intensity that Quincy Jones still has for that studio. When he
praises the wooden interior and the quality of the reverb that the room
offered, it's almost like he's talking about his first girlfriend. (Laughs).

Vega: It was really an important place, and no other records sound like
those records sound. Joe Morello's drums on "Take Five" sound so good. And
so did the band with Miles anytime he was in there. And so did Horowitz, or
whoever else who might have been in there. They probably had, what, 10 or 15
Steinway pianos to pick from?

Kahn: Well Columbia actually owned Steinway by the early sixties. They had a
very intense and intimate relationship with the company. It was funny
talking to the engineers and having one engineer saying, "Oh yeah we had two
or three to choose from, but there was one that was always the jazz piano.
And that was the one that Dave Brubeck beat the s--- out of, you know?" That
was what Bill Evans played and this piano is still around in New York
somewhere. I love little clues and little detective stories this book
allowed me to follow.

I'll tell you one other story about one of the engineers I talked to. It
turns out he lives five minutes away from me here in New Jersey. He was
amazed that anyone wanted to talk to him, and invited me over. We sat and
talked for a while and he said, 'Hang on, hang on. I'll be right back.' He
disappears and he goes downstairs, and he comes up from the basement. He had
saved one of the knobs from the mixing board. And he had this in a shoebox
with a velvet interior to it, and he brought it up as if it was a holy
relic. I guess for him it was. He offered it to me and let me look at it for
a while and hold it. He goes, "You have no idea how much great music passed
through that knob."

That type of reverence people still have for the technology that made the
preservation of the music possible is really stunning.

Vega: I think if that studio had been in Europe it would still be there.

Kahn: Oh yeah.

Vega: I don't think the economic forces would have made it go away. But they
'll tear down Yankee Stadium someday, so nothing's sacred in America's
commercial individualistic rugged world, but there's still thankfully people
such as yourself who can document it, get it down, and talk to the surviving
cats and let people know on a more general level what it really meant.

I really appreciated your research. I loved the denouement of the book,
putting "Kind of Blue" in historical perspective, the interview with Ray
Manzarek and the whole thing about James Brown's tune "Cold Sweat" and its
relationship to "So What," that was just great, and then all of the people
who have gone on to record the music from "Kind of Blue." I really
appreciated all of that.

Kahn: Its one thing just to say this album was influential and it sells a
lot. You can talk about sales figures. I thought, you know, I want to give
it a different type of scorecard. I want to show people how many different
types of musicians and how many great musicians have come to embrace this
album and make it part of their own repertoire, from Jerry Garcia to Ray
Manzarek to The Police, back to the jazz world with people such as Wes
Montgomery, Grant Green and Joe Henderson, etcetera.

Vega: One of the people influenced by this, too, who doesn't get discussed
often for his work in that period immediately following "Kind of Blue" is
Jackie Mac. Jackie McLean's records like "Omega" and things that really went
modal, he went off into the modal thing and right up to the brink of
freedom, yet he seems to be overlooked a little bit in that discussion. But
he seemed to be one of the cats that really understood where Miles was going
with this.

Kahn: I tried to mention this at the opening is that I was limited by the
musicians and people who were willing to be interviewed and discuss this.
There are many musicians out there who are just burnt out on interviews.
Granted. There are also a lot of musicians who were burnt by Miles. Because
of the way they may have been portrayed, say, in the autobiography they don'
t even want to discuss the subject.

I won't say that's my excuse, but I will say do you think I did not pursue
Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, etcetera, etcetera? Of course I wanted them in
the book and would have loved to have them open doors for me and see how I
could have maneuvered their stories in there, too. Sometimes you have to go
with what you can find.

Vega: Absolutely, and thank you for telling me that because people on the
back end are armchair quarterbacks and there's a reality out there that
anyone faces when they try to make anything happen.

Kahn: I tip my hat to you for knowing that and adding that to one more
unwritten chapter to the book, and to the study for your listeners, because
they should be aware of stuff like that.

Vega: I enjoyed the way you used Lewis Porter to describe John Coltrane,
which really nailed it; the historical perspective on page 183 that relates
Miles music back to the blues was very good. I really didn't think the Miles
Davis Quintet with the Gil Evans Orchestra at Carnegie Hall worked very
well. The quintet sounds like it comes in early, but I may be wrong.

Kahn: I also don't think it was recorded that well, but then the
technological aspect of what it was like, I remember reading in the files,
because I was able to find Teo Macero's files at the Public Library here in
New York. He talks about the problems he was having one, getting permission
to record the Carnegie Hall concert and other concerts, the 1964 concert,
and two, the problems he was having with union rules. Because of the set up
he was in some small little lighting room that was four floors up. So the
sound that you're getting at the very top level of Carnegie Hall, and you're
adjusting the knobs for the mix, is definitely not what you're going to be
hearing, say, in the third row where the acoustics are best. That's why in
any concert nowadays if you're having a problem hearing or you think the mix
is bad, the advice is always go to the mixing board, stand right next to the
sound man because he's mixing for himself. Well, Teo had problems.

I think the Carnegie Hall thing was a symbolic bookend. I could not have
continued my story, the Miles Davis bio time-line beyond a certain point,
otherwise I'm talking about the second great quintet. That's not my purview
anymore.

Vega: I thought the way you handled it going into Miles early history, then
slowing it down the once you get into the "Kind of Blue" sessions, and then
having a denouement with the effect of the music on the world was a
beautiful shape to the book. I think my favorite part of the story is right
after the album was recorded in that time they were together and touring.
That is so exciting to know that band was out on the road and people could
hear it. And describing the people that did hear it in various venues, with
Warren Bernhardt, especially, painting a picture of The Southerland in
Chicago.

Kahn: I've got to tell you, I had chills when I would be doing these
interviews and Warren would remember Chicago, and Gary Burton would remember
French Lick, Indiana. Ron Carter would remember the Toronto Jazz Festival.
He was living in Detroit at the time and drove up into Canada. Shirley Horn
remembering Birdland and running into Stan Getz and them hearing modal jazz
for the first time and saying, "Where's he going with the chords, how come
he's still on that d-minor?" I'm thinking about "So What."

Without even requesting it or trying to find it, all these stories of summer
1959 were coming to me, and it was just, for a researcher and a writer like
myself, I could not have planned it better.

Let me say one other comment. My hope with this book is that, you know there
's an old Zen saying that when I point at the moon look at the moon, not my
finger. Which means let the book be the entrance to the album. And if you
already know the album, let the book add to your enjoyment and appreciation.
And if you don't know the album yet, let the book be your pathway to the
album directly.

Vega: Is this just coming out right now?

Kahn: Yes, it's about two weeks old. It's a baby.

Vega: Well good luck with it.

Kahn: Thank you. Thank you for your enthusiasm and understanding. I have to
say that this is one of the most knowledgeable interviews I've had.

Vega: Oh man.

Kahn: I probably won't call Chuck Nessa just yet, but I am starting to work
on a project where an incredible photo of 30th Street Studio might be of
interest to the people I'm working with. You can imagine I really did dive
into the photo archives over at Sony and they do have a whole loose leaf
binder of slides, contact sheets, etcetera of 30th Street because it was one
of their assets and they had to have a photographic record of it. But I
think it was done at the end of the seventies so you see mixing boards with
the slide faders, etc. I'm like, wrong era. But I did find some photographs,
which are in the book, of course, of the studio circa 1960 with the round
pots.

Vega: Small boards.

Kahn: Six channels. Three track tape with six channels.

Vega: Your whole layout of how "Kind of Blue" was recorded, the channel
assignments, the multi-tracking, were fascinating. I was really perplexed by
all of that. But to see how the instruments were divided up within the six
tracks is hip.

Kahn: Well, you know they weren't so multi-tracking. By multi-tracking I
mean sound on sound. They weren't doing that yet. They were doing stereo,
but it was totally live to tape. It just happened that they had an extra
track. And all they were doing with that extra-track was using it for
isolation purposes, and the advantage of being able to throw on a little bit
of sweetening through the echo room down in the basement.

Vega: I think the best example of their using the echo room was on the
recording they did with Duke Ellington, on "Ellington Uptown," of "The
Mooche." Jimmy Hamilton and Russell Procope play a clarinet duet, and
Russell plays in that reedy New Orleans style. The response from their call
and response comes out of the echo room. It's just the most brilliant use of
that: it's so effective.

Kahn: It's interesting you mention that because it's the same producer,
Irving Townsend. Well, I've learned a lot in this (interview), too: I've got
to tell ya. (Laughing).

Vega: Well good. "Kind of Blue" is a key. I think the once John Coltrane was
introduced to modes from Miles Davis, because he was such a tenacious
musical intellect, that he ran them to their utmost conclusion and that is
any note is possible.

Kahn: Right.

Vega: You combine that with the influence of Albert Ayler who insists on
opening up the realm of sound in music and you end up in 1965. Many people
don't understand how 'Trane got to that, but I think it's very clear if you
know "Kind of Blue" then you can get to "A Love Supreme." And if you know
Albert Ayler and what modality meant to George Russell, then you can get to
1965 and out.

Kahn: It's a tough step to take, though, for many listeners. Because many
listeners don't hear that.

Vega: Well they don't view jazz as an art form. It's more like an
entertainment. And 'Trane viewed it as an art form because he's a musician,
he's like Stravinsky or Webern.

Kahn: The one part of the book I really wanted to expand upon and there just
wasn't enough room was jazz in the fifties. Because that whole elevation not
just from a few but from a real school, a real center of the jazz world that
wanted to elevate this form to an artistic level and demand that type of
respect. There are very few critics writing about it: Nat Hentoff and Martin
Williams. That's about it, you know --

Vega: Leonard Feather.

Kahn: -- that were noticing this change that jazz musicians, just one wave,
a particular school that really were demanding the same type of attention,
respect and reverence as classical music got.

Vega: A. B. Spellman and Amiri Baraka, too.

Kahn: True.

Vega: But you're right: there was a sea change in the music. There was just
a huge difference to what had happened even in the immediate post-war
period. By 1955 and Bird's death there was something there. Musicians were
like, hey, wait a minute.

Kahn: I was fortunate to find that John Lewis quote where Nat interviewed
him, and John Lewis said, and this is like five years afterwards in the
early sixties, and he says five, six years ago there was me, there was
Miles, there was a handful of us, and we were demanding that our jazz be
looked upon as an art form.

Vega: His quote puts it in clear perspective.Isn't Duke Ellington's "Koko"
modal?

Kahn: What is modal jazz? Is the ultimate question. I quote Dick Katz. He
says if you take a simple cadenza, at the very end of a tune where the band
drops out and the soloist stays on a chord for sixteen bars or whatever to
show off his stuff and then, boom! they bring the song to a final close,
that cadenza is an example of modal jazz.

One of my favorite images in the book is that close up of Bill Evans's note
to Cannonball Adderley on "Flamenco Sketches" where he doesn't write 'play
the scales, play the notes in the scale' he says, "Play in the sound of the
scale." What he's saying is this is a suggestion. Play the blue notes, play
off of these scales, and play on the scale: it's up to you. But the idea is,
use this as sort of a foundation.

Modal jazz is not a direct script it's a suggestion. It's up to the
improvisor. I think modal jazz, whereas you have modes, modal jazz is more
about freedom for the improvisor.

Vega: Right, it is not just that you're going to play mixolydian, Dorian,
Phrygian - you're going to use those as a template for what emotional
climate you're trying to convey.

Kahn: Yes, you said it better than I could (laughs).

Vega: I don't know about that. Well Ashley man you better get to your family
dinner or else I'll keep you all night.

Kahn: O.K., we'll stop. But let that be a comment on how I'm enjoying this.

Vega: I appreciate it.

(end)