Out of the Cool, released in 1960, was the first recording Gil Evans issued after three straight albums with Miles Davis - Sketches of Spain being the final one before this. Evans had learned much from Davis about improvisation, instinct, and space (the trumpeter learned plenty, too, especially about color, texture, and dynamic tension). Listen to Out Of The Cool on Spotify. The Gil Evans Orchestra Album 1996 6 songs. Referencing Out Of The Cool, LP, Album, Ltd, RE, AA 010, A-4 this mastering of Out Of The Cool is the best one out there. I have an original and a test pressing of this, and while the original is great, the Alto Analogue is even better. Since the tape burned up in the 2008 UMG fire, good sounding copies of this album are only going to become.
Among jazzmen, particularly player-writers, Gil Evans is uniquely admired.
“For my taste,” Miles Davis says, “he’s the best. I haven’t heard anything that knocks me out as consistently as he does since I first heard Charlie Parker.”
Coincident with Miles’ recent tribute, Capitol released a few weeks ago the first complete collection of those 1949–’50 Davis combo sides which were to influence deeply one important direction of modern chamber jazz—Birth Of The Cool.
Evans was perhaps the primary background factor in making these sessions happen, and he wrote the arrangements for “Moon Dreams” and “Boplicity.”
“Boplicity” is listed as the work of “Cleo Henry,” a nom-de-date for Davis, who wrote the melody after which Evans scored the written ensembles. “‘Boplicity,’” declares André Hodeir in Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence, “is enough to make Gil Evans qualify as one of jazz’s greatest arranger-composers.”
Despite these and other endorsements from impressive jazz figures, Evans is just a name to most jazz listeners. In the past few years, he has written comparatively little in the jazz field; but his influence on modern jazz writing through the effect of his work for the Claude Thornhill band of the forties and the Davis sides has remained persistent.
“Not many people really heard Gil,” Gerry Mulligan explains. “Those who did, those who came up through the Thornhill band, were tremendously affected, and they in turn affected others.”
Gil has now decided to return to more active jazz participation and is writing all arrangements for a Davis big band Columbia LP to be recorded at the end of April. He’s also become more interested in creating original material, an area he’s largely avoided up to now.
Evans once again is at a crossing point of his career.
He was born Ian Gilmore Green in Toronto, Canada, on May 13, 1912, and took his stepfather’s name. Gil is self-taught and says, “I’ve always learned through practical work. I didn’t learn any theory except through the practical use of it; and in fact, I started in music with a little band that could play the music as soon as I’d write it.”
Evans first learned about music through jazz and popular records and radio broadcasts of bands. Since he had no traditional European background either in studying or listening, he built his style entirely on his pragmatic approach to jazz and pop material.
Gil Evans Albums
Sound itself was his first motivation. “Before I ever attached sound to notes in my mind, sound attracted me,” he says. “When I was a kid, I could tell what kind of car was coming with my back turned.”
Later, “it was the sound of Louis’ horn, the people in Red Nichols’ units, like Jack Teagarden and Benny Goodman, Duke’s band, the McKinney Cotton Pickers, Don Redman. Redman’s Brunswick records ought to be reissued. The band swung, but the voicings also gave the band a compact sound. I also was interested in popular bands. Like the Casa Loma approach to ballads. Gene Gifford broke up the instrumentation more imaginatively than was usual at the time.”
Out of the Cool
I’ve been taking it easy today, attempting to recover from a bout of sickness by loafing about and listening to old records. I don’t know why I haven’t listened to Out of the Cool by the Gil Evans Orchestra for a while, but at least that meant I came back to it relatively fresh.
Gil Evans was one of the few composer/arrangers in Jazz to have successfully blended his own orchestral textures with solo improvisations in such a way that both complement each other; the scored passages he devised are complex and beautiful, but never so rigid that they inhibit the soloist’s imagination. He directed a number of albums that incorporated Jazz solos in classically-inspired orchestral settings, including Sketches of Spain and Porgy and Bess (with Miles Davis). This one is less famous than those, but in my opinion at least as good.
Gil Evans Arrangements
Trumpeter Johnny Coles (no relation) is particularly inspired by the imaginative surroundings constructed by Gil Evans on this album, and he responds by inventing beautiful solo lines on several tracks on this album. But the tonal spectrum he encompasses, his use of dynamics, and his distinctive play with inflection are best illustrated by his feature piece, Sunken Treasure, a mysterious, almost evanescent creation which he fashions out of Evans’ floating harmonies. I think this is the best track off a great album.