Miles Davis- June 2, 1951 | Birdland, New York City [REMASTERED]

Atmospheric live broadcast from 52nd Street June 2, 1951 Birdland 1678 Broadway West 52nd Street Manhattan New York City MILES DAVIS SEXTET Miles Davis- trumpet J.J. Johnson- trombone Sonny Rollins- tenor saxophone Kenny Drew- piano Tommy Potter- bass Art Blakey- drums Move (Denzil Best) 00:00 Half Nelson (Miles Davis) 06:34 Down (Miles Davis) 14:24/ Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid [incomplete] (Lester Young) 22:00 closing titles 22:06 WJZ-AM radio broadcast Recorded and transferred to disc by Boris Rose Released on the bootleg LPs _Hooray For Miles Davis Vol. 2_ (Session Disc 102), _Miles Davis, ’Lockjaw’ Davis, Art Blakey_ (Ozone 7), and _Miles Davis At Birdland 1951_ (Beppo BEP 501). Officially released on _Birdland 1951_ (Blue Note 7243 5 41779 2 7). As the 1950s dawned, Miles Davis was heading into a downward spiral. After the highs of 1949, including recording with his ground breaking _Birth Of The Cool_ nonet, appearing before large, rapturous audiences at the Paris Jazz Festival, and falling in love with singer Juliette Gréco, Miles crashed back down on his return to the States- a dwindling club scene, lack of work for the nonet, pining for Gréco, and the constant presence of racism. Having previously dabbled with snorting heroin (and cocaine) he now started injecting. Before long Miles had developed a heroin addiction that further derailed his career, entering a period Davis would later describe as a ’four year horror show’. In his search for drugs, Miles would journey from his Manhattan apartment to Harlem. He also connected with a group of musicians in Harlem’s Sugar Hill neighbourhood: tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, altoist Jackie McLean, pianists Walter Bishop and Kenny Drew, and drummer Art Taylor. These musicians, all one to five years younger than Davis, were influenced not only by the music of Charlie Parker but by his narcotic intake. The scourge of heroin addiction ran through the New York scene, but its effects were not only physical: in early 1950 Rollins was jailed for armed robbery, McLean and Bishop would later both serve time on drugs charges. Miles also had a brush with the law; in September 1950 while touring with a small group lead by Billy Eckstine, he was arrested for possession along with Art Blakey. _Down Beat_ magazine singled the pair out in an editorial and, although he was acquitted on the charges, the damage was done- he found it almost impossible to find work in the NYC jazz clubs. There were also scant opportunities in the studio- after a final nonet recording in 1950 there were a few sideman sessions with Sarah Vaughan, Lee Konitz, and a reunion with Charlie Parker, a Metronome All Stars date, and in January 1951 a recording as leader for Prestige in the company of Rollins that yielded mixed results. Davis found a home at the one club willing to book him, Birdland, the Broadway jazz venue that opened in 1949 at the site of the former Clique club. There were several radio broadcasts made there, recorded by jazz fan and amateur engineer Boris Rose, who pressed up his recordings in various combinations for limited bootleg releases on a variety of his own labels- Ozone, Beppo and Session Disc. His efforts provide valuable documentation of this difficult period. This same line up had broadcast from the club on February 17 and despite not being an regular working sextet the musicians have an obvious rapport, despite their various personal problems. Rollins’ rough, muscular tone is already distinctive and on the opening Move, a title Miles had previously recorded with the nonet, he gives an early glimpse of his brilliant improvisational skills. Miles kicks off his solo with the same phrase he’d used on the 1949 studio recording. Rollins also shines on Half Nelson, Davis’ variation of Tadd Dameron’s Ladybird, as does a buoyant, agile Miles. Davis also sounds in his element on the mid tempo blues groove of Down, a piece recorded at that January Prestige session. There is excellent support throughout from the undervalued Drew and Blakey’s energetic swing boots everything along. Despite this, there is a raggedness to the ensemble passages that points to a lack of preparation. Drugs were taking heir toll on Miles’s music as well as his personal and professional life. In the February 23, 1952 edition of the UK music paper _Melody Maker,_ Leonard Feather wrote ’Miles in the past year has seen his career slip away from him while his imitators have been progressing... It is doubtful whether he worked more than six or seven weeks during 1951. And through his personal and economic problems his playing inevitably suffered.’ That euphemism cloaked a starker reality- Miles’ life was spiralling out of control, days spent nodding out on street corners, pawning his possessions including his trumpet, and resorting to pimping and stealing from friends to make drug money. The four year horror show still had a long way to run.