Tag Archives: Round About Midnight

Origins of Bop: Charlie Parker / Miles Davis, “Ah-Leu-Cha”

Charlie Parker, “Ah-Leu-Cha” (Original 78)

Savoy Records Cat. No. 939 (Side B) | 1948

Personnel:

  • Miles Davis, trumpet
  • Charlie Parker, alto saxophone
  • John Lewis, piano
  • Curley Russell, bass
  • Max Roach, drums

Miles Davis, “Ah-Leu-Cha” (Original LP)

Columbia Records Cat. No. 949 | 1955

Personnel:

  • Miles Davis, trumpet
  • John Coltrane, tenor saxophone
  • Red Garland, piano
  • Paul Chambers, bass
  • Philly Joe Jones, drums
Welcome to Origins of Bop, a new Deep Groove Mono series aiming to explore the lineage of some of my favorite hard bop recordings. I have always been interested in music history, and with jazz, that has meant finding out more about where my favorite compositions came from. This series is therefore intended to provide some backstory for many of the hard bop performances that we as collectors of twelve-inch vinyl LPs have come to love so much. Quite often, these songs date back to the 78-R.P.M. era of shellac disks, and in many cases I will be happy to feature 78s from my own collection.

This first installment features a tune composed by one of the founding fathers of bebop. I was introduced to Charlie Parker’s “Ah-Leu-Cha” back in 2001 through the first jazz LP I ever bought: Miles & Monk at Newport. One rainy afternoon in Albany, New York I had a break between my college classes, so I decided to hop in my car and venture downtown to Last Vestige, a local record shop. With a musical background largely focused on hip hop and rock at the time, my experience with jazz was limited. All I had was a cassette tape from a friend with Kind of Blue on one side and My Favorite Things on the other. But as a DJ, I had been seeing lots of cool covers for jazz albums popping up on the Turntable Lab website, and I had recently gotten interested in Madlib’s new electronic jazz project, Yesterday’s New Quintet. I was also DJing with an R&B cover band, and I befriended the group’s saxophonist, who was a locally-renowned jazz musician and composer.

My first-ever jazz vinyl purchase

This all had an influence on me when I decided to check out the jazz section of that shop for the first time. The copy of Miles & Monk I found was a stereo ‘70s reissue, it costed six dollars, and I pretty much bought it solely on the strength that I had heard of both leaders before. Side 1 was the Miles side. “Ah-Leu-Cha” was the first track, and it wasted no time ripping my face off. Miles liked to play fast live, and this Newport Festival reading was taken at a blistering pace, nearly twice as fast as Parker’s original 1948 recording, which by no coincidence also featured Davis. If I’m being honest, I remember wondering if I would even like jazz if this was what most jazz sounded like! Today I love that recording for its tenacity, high fidelity, and airtight performances. But back then, knowing nothing about jazz and being quite unfamiliar with such high levels of musicianship, I felt utterly confused.

Many years later when I discovered Davis’ classic ‘Round About Midnight, I was pleasantly surprised to find a slower, more accessible version of “Ah-Leu-Cha”. It was recorded three years before the Newport date in 1955 and features Miles’ First Great Quintet. Philly Joe Jones sounds snappy, his patented loose-wrist cymbal work creating an inimitable groove for each soloist to work with. The exceptional fidelity of this recording needs to be noted as well.

Side 1 label for CL 949

Prior to reviewing ‘Round About Midnight for my blog several years ago, I had never noticed Parker as the composer of “Ah-Leu-Cha”, and when I listened to Bird’s version for the first time I was caught off-guard by its syrupy tempo. Recorded for Savoy Records at Apex Studios in New York City (mentioned last week in a blog post here), engineer Harry Smith set the rhythm section back a ways behind a very present front line. This was a standard mixing aesthetic in the 1940s, and it makes jazz recordings from that period unmistakably of-the-era. Max Roach could tear it up like no one else in 1948, but he’s much tamer here. Peppering the backbeat with gentle fills throughout, the drummer manages to quickly trade two half-bar solos with bassist Curley Russell before the track’s closing. As a composition, the counterpoint of Bird and Miles creates exciting harmonic motion that makes my ears smile every time I hear it.

Vinyl Spotlight: Miles Davis, ‘Round About Midnight (Columbia 949) Original Pressing

Collection Favorites >
  • Original 1957 pressing
  • “Six-eye” labels
  • Deep groove on both sides

Personnel:

  • Miles Davis, trumpet
  • John Coltrane, tenor saxophone
  • Red Garland, piano
  • Paul Chambers, bass
  • Philly Joe Jones, drums

All tracks recorded at Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York, NY
“Ah-Leu-Cha” recorded October 26, 1955
“Bye Bye Blackbird”, “Tadd’s Delight”, “Dear Old Stockholm” recorded June 5, 1956
“‘Round Midnight”, “All of You” recorded September 10, 1956
Originally released March 1957

1 ‘Round Midnight
2 Ah-Leu-Cha
3 All Of You
4 Bye Bye Blackbird
5 Tadd’s Delight
6 Dear Old Stockholm

Selections:

“Ah-Leu-Cha” (Parker)

“Bye Bye Blackbird” (Dixon-Henderson)

For Collectors

Technically the third copy of this I’ve owned, my first copy was acquired on eBay, overpriced, and in rough shape. The second wasn’t much better, but this copy, acquired at the WFMU Record Fair in New York City a few years ago for a very reasonable price, is in fantastic condition, as you will hear!

Original pressing all around — I don’t personally get caught up in the matrix code game. For labels like Columbia, a matrix code can be used to identify the stamper and other metal parts used to press a particular copy of an album. The idea is that the quality of these parts deteriorates to some degree as each part is used in the manufacturing process, and thus that copies fashioning lower part numbers in the inner run-out section of each side have the potential to sound better (for more info on the vinyl manufacturing process, check out Deep Groove Mono’s links page).

From the information I’ve gathered, however, this difference will typically be so minuscule that it would be difficult to hear the difference between two records made from different parts (provided both copies were sourced from the same master lacquer disk). This is why I’ve chosen to stay away from the matrix code melee. In any event, for all you stamper geeks out there, this particular copy of Miles Davis’ classic ‘Round About Midnight was made from a “1C” stamper for side 1 and a “1A” stamper for side 2.

For Music Lovers

“The First Great Miles Davis Quintet” would have begun formulating around spring 1955 when pianist Red Garland and drummer Philly Joe Jones first joined the trumpeter for a recording session at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey (The Musings of Miles, Prestige 7014). A few months later, bassist Paul Chambers and the harmonically curious yet ever-precise tenor saxophonist John Coltrane would complete the combo.

In addition to leading his new band, Miles was simultaneously eager to make the move from Prestige to Columbia Records. But the rising star still owed Prestige label head Bob Weinstock four more albums under contract. So before Columbia could release any material under the Davis moniker, Miles would need to fulfill his agreement with Weinstock. What then commenced in 1956 for the newborn quintet was a mash-up of Prestige and Columbia dates, all of which have since been heralded as classics.

‘Round About Midnight, Davis’ Columbia Records debut, was recorded in three sessions between October 1955 and September 1956 at Columbia’s historic 30th Street Studio in New York City. Many of you will already be familiar with the legendary sound of this studio. I find the sound on this particular album to be more immediate and up-front than the roomier sound heard on later Miles albums recorded here (Kind of Blue, for example). Nonetheless, the cathedral-turned-studio’s sonic blueprint is committed to tape here and the results are simply gorgeous.

Columbia Records’ 30th Street Studio

Davis’ inaugural Columbia release is a highly consistent effort. On the album’s second tune, Miles takes Charlie Parker’s “Ah-Leu-Cha” at a faster tempo than the composer did on his own leisurely-paced 1948 recording (yet nowhere near as fast as Davis did at Newport in 1958), and though the leader opts for the bolder sound of an open horn here and on “Tadd’s Delight”, Davis’ signature muted trumpet sound dominates the album and is ultimately immortalized on ‘Round About Midnight. (It’s a shame that the quintet’s version of “Sweet Sue, Just You” didn’t make it to the original album release — a stellar take that could have only been left off as a practical matter of space — though fortunately it does appear on the 2001 Sony Legacy CD reissue.)

No sooner than alto saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley joined the group in early 1958 did Red Garland leave, unable to tolerate the leader’s sky-high standards. Jones would soon follow, and the First Great Quintet’s short reign would come to a close after the recording of Milestones. ‘Round About Midnight is thus one of the few examples of this iconic ensemble’s explosive power, and the album has stood the test of time as a rare combination of brilliance and accessibility equally fitting for attentive listening and unwinding.