Birth of the Cool at 75: A Philadelphia Premiere at the Clef Club

Orchestra 2001
Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts
Birth of the Cool: A Philly Premiere, 75 Years Later
Philadelphia, PA
March 29, 2023

The advanced publicity for this exciting historically-based concert must have hit the pleasure centers of many fans, as it sold out on the second day after tickets became available. Was the rush to the box office the result of the cult-like status of the Birth of the Cool (Capitol, 1957) album, the prominence of the local musicians who recreated it, or both? Or was it something harder to define like a post-COVID longing for a musical jewel from the past? In any case, the auditorium of the Clef Club was jammed with aficionados and a few novices ready for something special. And they got it! Without trying to be a carbon copy of the original, this group of seasoned musicians (see personnel list at end of review), mostly from the (temporarily, we hope, suspended) Philly Pops and some jazz freelancers as well, captured the excitement, spontaneity, and yes, "cool" of the album, while retaining their own trajectories and the full rich sound not present on the 3-minute 78 rpm tracks recorded in the years 1949-50 from which the album was compiled and released on an LP.

The Background

The original album is considered a milestone of jazz history, since it quickly came to symbolize and exemplify the "cool" (laid back, understated, and "legato") music that was gaining a foothold on the West Coast and would soon manifest everywhere in the music of the 1960s, from hard bop and the bossa nova craze to the Modern Jazz Quartet, the Miles Davis/ Gil Evans collaborations, and so on. The implication of the title that the album created (birthed) cool jazz is exaggerated to say the least. But it did provide an opportunity for some of the cool jazz progenitors like Davis, Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, and John Lewis to come together in a nonet ensemble that combined the features of a small ensemble and a big band. In reality, the "cool" music was already being "birthed" in Los Angeles, Detroit, New York and elsewhere, and the inspiration for the recordings came partly from Davis' exposure to the ideas and listening that took place in Evans' basement apartment in Manhattan near the 52nd Street jazz clubs. Davis got others together for the various sessions, which is why he got credit for a recording in which he is not the leader but one of several soloists, composers, and arrangers.

The album was also significant as an outgrowth of and counter-position to bebop in the post-WWII transition from the big dance bands to smaller and more "artistic" kinds of groups, some of which drew from the classical music influence and Gunther Schuller's concept of the "Third Stream." (As a point of fact, Schuller plays French horn in the "Darn that Dream" and a couple of other tracks.) In particular, both Mulligan and Evans were arrangers for the Claude Thornhill big band, and it was Thornhill's openness to new ideas that allowed them to make the innovations that fueled Birth of the Cool and that led to many subsequent incredible contributions at a time when jazz was being reinvented from the ground up.

The RE-Birth Performance

Jazz is by definition a one-of-a-kind experience. When you recreate a jazz album, there's no point in trying to exactly reproduce it because it's impossible to do even a good approximation, especially when the original players are as unique and recognizable as these. In setting up this show, good decisions were made from the outset. Executive Director of Orchestra 2001 Adam Lesnick explained how it was Gunther Schuller who some years ago "planted the idea for me" of doing a Birth of the Cool. The musicians worked from the original charts and the recording, but they eschewed a conductor or music director, and this "no brainer" allowed them to function like a smaller jazz group with the kind of intimacy and imaginative playing it allows.

Sixty plus years later, they had no trouble with the basic "cool" rhythm and sound, but getting the details of sonorities and style took some work. According to pianist Tom Lawton, "We simply played and collectively refined it together. It worked much better without one person overseeing. Most of the thickets were in the horn parts. There were some very user-unfriendly figures for brass, and a bunch of ensemble and balance issues came up. Most of the rehearsing was geared to that. We in the rhythm section were unified for the beat. Most of the score was instantly readable for us, but apparently harder for the horns. The challenge was how it sounded, not the notes. Overall, it wasn't hard for the nine of us to put it together. We didn't think or talk about it a lot. It came together just from playing it."

What these players collectively achieved was to capture the overall feeling of the album without being imitative. The result was a show that made palpable connections to the original, while the individual musicians could do their own thing without sounding intrusive or out of place. One of the great developments of post-cool music was that musicians of vastly different temperaments and styles could create great ensemble effects while each retained his own uniqueness. That's what happened here, and the audience was entranced by the result.

The group kept each number to the roughly three-minute time limit imposed by the original 78 rpm singles. They took the order of the tunes from the Capital, 1972, LP release. So to start the evening they began with Gerry Mulligan's "Jeru," taking it at a faster tempo than the original. Generally speaking, they swung a lot more than the original, which made the experience livelier but in so doing reduced the album's feeling of "protest" against the status quo of bebop's supersonic runs. And Mark Allen's baritone saxophone solo had his own brand of contemporary swing rather than Mulligan's "walk-talk" conversational feel.

On the album, Denzil Best's composition "Move" was arranged by pianist John Lewis, whose parsimonious way of playing cropped up periodically during the album in contrast with the conversational "blowing" of the horns. Once again, there was more swing and less "cool" than the original. Then, as a taste of things to come, a fine solo by George Rabbai captured Davis' unmuted sound of that time, while a brief alto saxophone solo by Ron Kerber was all bluesy and not at all like Lee Konitz. The rhythmic forward-drive implied by the tune's title gave drummer Joe Nero an opportunity to combine real panache with tight precision and kinetic energy.

The group's version of George Wallington's "Godchild" as arranged by Mulligan, captured the in-between space between bebop and cool, the space that quickly became hard bop. Legendary Philly trumpeter George Rabbai delivered a stunning solo that filled the room with shimmering clustering sounds. The Bud Powell tune, "Budo" continued the bebop emphasis. However, John Lewis' arrangement kept it cool and understated. The current contingent recaptured that coolness.

Things seemed to become a bit humdrum, but the group grabbed the Mulligan-composed-and-arranged "Venus de Milo" and ran with it, resulting in a top-notch performance of a terrific arrangement. The set concluded with John Lewis' "Rouge." The piece begins with a waltz phrase and then jolts you into a 4/4 swing. Lawton's well-attuned piano comping would have made Lewis happy, and Lawton's solo stayed within the groove while having the one-of-a-kind originality that Lawton brings to every gig.

Following an intermission, the group emphasized the ensemble sound with Gil Evans' arrangement of "Boplicity," a Miles Davis classic using the pseudonym of "Cleo Henry," his mother's name, which he used so that he wouldn't violate a business contract. The flawless way the group executed Gil Evans' chart highlighted its parallel to the first Davis/Evans collaboration album, Miles Ahead (Columbia, 1957) that was released the same year by a different record label, and a 19-piece orchestra. The group performed it in such a coordinated and sophisticated way, that it was undoubtedly the best expression of the "cool" of the evening. John Carisi's jazz standard, "Israel" similarly captured the group-as-a-whole emphasis. In these arrangements, the exemplary work of John David Smith on French horn and Brian Brown on tuba enlarged the sound and made for additional group cohesion, while bassist Douglas Mapp flawlessly provided the rhythmic pulse and the harmonic underpinning that steadied and framed the music.

"Deception" (Davis; arranged by Mulligan) showed the close connection between bebop, hard bop, and cool, it being virtually an amalgam of the three. By contrast, "Rocker" was totally Mulligan "cool," although Mark Allen's baritone solo had his own more contemporary stamp on it.

Johnny Mercer, who was a record executive at the time, persuaded Capitol records to take a chance on the unusual Birth of the Cool venture. He was also the lyricist for Chummy McGregor's "Moon Dreams." Gil Evans' arrangement of this swing-era classic could have been one of the Thornhill charts that he wrote. Once again, the current group brought out the beautiful ensemble effect that was uniquely Evans' creation. Paradoxically, Kerber's saxophone solo had the romanticism of Johnny Hodges written all over it. And Paul Arbogast took one of several trombone solos with beautiful sound quality and improvising. Arbogast more than made up for the uneventful trombone solos of Mike Zwerin and J.J. Johnson on the album.

Finally, the one unforgettable vocal arrangement of the album, Jimmy van Heusen's "Darn that Dream," was adapted by Mark Allen from Mulligan's arrangement. Originally sung by Kenny Hagood in a cool, understated style, Philly vocalist Najwa Parkins kept the coolness while adding just a touch of heat. Her perfect alignment with the band brought the concert to a beautiful ending.

Personnel

George Rabbai: trumpet; Ron Kerber: alto saxophone; Mark Allen: baritone saxophone; John David smith: French horn; Paul Arbogast: trombone; Brian Brown: tuba; Tom Lawton: piano; Doug Mapp: bass; Joe Nero: drums; Najwa Parkins: vocals

Set List

Jeru (Gerry Mulligan); Move (Denzil Best; arr. John Lewis); Godchild (George Wallington; arr. Gerry Mulligan); Budo (Bud Powell/Miles Davis ;arr. John Lewis); Venus De Milo (Gerry Mulligan); Rouge (John Lewis); Intermission; Boplicity ("Cleo Henry" aka Miles Davis; arr. Gil Evans); Israel (Johnny Carisi); Deception (Miles Davis; arr. Gerry Mulligan); Rocker (Gerry Mulligan); Moon Dreams (Chummy McGregor/Johnny Mercer; arr. Gil Evans); Darn that Dream (vocal; arr. Gerry Mulligan; adapted by Mark Allen).

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