Quiet Nights (Miles Davis album)

Quiet Nights
Quiet Nights
Studio album by Miles Davis
Released	December 16, 1963
Recorded	July 27–November 6, 1962; April 17, 1963 (Quintet); October 9–10, 1963 (1997 bonus track)
Studio	Columbia 30th Street (NYC); CBS Columbia Square (Hollywood, LA);
Genre	Jazz, third stream, bossa nova
Length	26:57
Label	Columbia; CL 2106 [mono]; CS 8906;
Producer	Teo Macero; Irving Townsend (1963)
Miles Davis chronology

Quiet Nights is a studio album by the American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, and his fourth album collaboration with arranger and conductor Gil Evans, released in 1963 on Columbia Records, catalogue CL 2106 and CS 8906 in stereo. Recorded mostly at Columbia's 30th Street Studios in Manhattan, it is the final album by Davis and Evans.

Background

Keeping to his standard procedure at Columbia to date of alternating small group records and big band studio projects with Gil Evans, Davis entered the studio with Evans to follow up the latest studio LP by the working quintet, Someday My Prince Will Come.^[2] In 1961, Davis had also released his first live albums, two separate but related albums entitled Friday Night at the Blackhawk and Saturday Night at the Blackhawk—recorded back-to-back—in addition to the studio set. Another live set from 1961, Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall, also with both the quintet and a large ensemble conducted by Evans was issued in 1962.^[3]

The genesis of this Davis/Evans album, however, encountered far greater difficulties than its three predecessors. Bossa nova had recently become a commercial success in 1962 with the single "Desafinado" from the album Jazz Samba by Stan Getz, and Columbia executives may have pressured Davis and Evans to attempt something similar with this album.^[4] Sessions were also protracted over long stretches of time.

Recording

Two songs, "Corcovado" (see: Corcovado) and "Aos pés da cruz" (Portuguese: "At the Foot of the Cross"), were recorded at the first session in July, and released as Columbia singles 4-33059 and 4-4-42583; neither charted.^[5] The pair returned to longer forms for the subsequent sessions, Evans perhaps not given enough time to finish the charts for the earlier session.^[6] The attempt to mix potential hit singles and Evans' writing style for Davis, essentially concertos for jazz trumpeter, may have torpedoed the project.

After three sessions spread over four months, the yield was approximately 20 minutes of usable music, enough for an album side but not an entire album. Evans and Davis never made it back into the studio to complete more recordings, and the project was shelved.^[7] Faced with the expenses from the large ensemble and the studio time, producer Teo Macero added a quartet track from an April 1963 session in Hollywood to complete the album and give the label something to show for its investment, Quiet Nights, released two years after the start of recording.^[8] Davis was furious at the release of what he viewed as an unfinished project, and did not work with Macero again until the October 1966 sessions for Miles Smiles.^[8] The added tune, "Summer Night", was an outtake by Davis' group as recorded for the album Seven Steps to Heaven.

"Time of the Barracudas"—recorded in Hollywood on October 9 and 10, 1963—was written as a commission from Peter Barnes to accompany a production of his play of the same name starring Laurence Harvey and Elaine Stritch. It is unknown whether the music was actually used for its intended purpose. The song was included as a bonus track when the album was reissued on CD by Columbia/Legacy on September 23, 1997.^[9]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	^[10]
DownBeat	^[11]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	^[12]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	^[13]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings	^[14]

In a contemporary review for DownBeat, Leonard Feather called Quiet Nights a "curious and not entirely satisfying album". He felt "Song #2" ended prematurely while the long-meter arrangement of "Wait till You See Her" sounded unusual, but found "Once upon a Summertime" to be brilliantly recorded and "Summer Night" highlighted by Davis and Feldman's "consistent level of lyrical beauty".^[11]

In the Saturday Review, Quiet Nights received praise for Davis' "wonderfully songful trumpet in a Latin-American vein", set against "piercingly lustrous curtains of tone and discreet Caribbean rhythms".^[15]

The New York Times' Loren Schoenberg later called it "a slightly flawed but worthy companion" to other classic Davis–Evans recordings.^[16]

J. D. Considine was less receptive in the Rolling Stone Album Guide (1992), dismissing the record as "halfhearted" bossa nova atypical from their otherwise exceptional work together.^[13]

Track listing

All songs arranged and conducted by Gil Evans, except "Summer Night".

Side one
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Song #2"	Trad., Gil Evans, Miles Davis	1:40
2.	"Once Upon a Summertime"	Johnny Mercer, Michel Legrand Eddie Barclay, Eddy Marnay	3:27
3.	"Aos pés da cruz"	Marino Pinto, José Gonçalves	4:18
4.	"Song No. 1"	Francisco Tárrega, Gil Evans, Miles Davis	4:37

Side two
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Wait till You See Her"	Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart	4:06
2.	"Corcovado"	Antônio Carlos Jobim	2:45
3.	"Summer Night"	Harry Warren, Al Dubin	6:04

Sides one and two were combined as tracks 1–7 on CD reissues.

1997 reissue bonus track
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
8.	"The Time of the Barracudas"	Gil Evans, Miles Davis	12:45

2010 Complete Columbia album Collection bonus tracks
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
9.	"Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)"	Bob Dorough, Miles Davis	2:43
10.	"Devil May Care"	Miles Davis	3:27

Personnel

Musicians

Miles Davis – trumpet
Shorty Baker, Bernie Glow, Louis Mucci, Ernie Royal – trumpets
J.J. Johnson, Frank Rehak – trombones
Ray Alonge, Don Corrado, Julius Watkins – French horns
Bill Barber – tuba
Steve Lacy – soprano saxophone
Albert Block – flute
Ray Beckenstein, Jerome Richardson – woodwinds
Garvin Bushell, Bob Tricarico – bassoons
Janet Putnam – harp
Paul Chambers – bass
Jimmy Cobb – drums
Willie Bobo – bongos
Elvin Jones – percussion

Miles Davis Quintet ("Summer Night")

Miles Davis – trumpet
George Coleman – tenor saxophone
Victor Feldman – piano
Ron Carter – bass
Frank Butler – drums

Additional musicians ("Time of the Barracudas")

Miles Davis – trumpet
Dick Lieb – bass trombone
Bill Hinshaw, Art Maeba, Richard Perissi – French horns
Gene Cipriano, Buddy Collette, Paul Horn – woodwinds
Fred Dutton – bassoon
Marjorie Call – harp
Herbie Hancock – piano
Ron Carter – bass
Tony Williams – drums

Technical personnel

Teo Macero – producer
Irving Townsend – producer on "Time of the Barracudas"
Fred Plaut – engineer
Bob Belden – reissue producer and liner notes
Phil Schaap, Mark Wilder – digital remastering engineer
Seth Rothstein – reissue project coordinator
Howard Fritzson – reissue art direction
Dan Hunstein – photography

References

^ Miles Davis.com
^ Richard Cook. It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-532266-8, p. 123
^ Cook, pp. 139–140
^ Bob Belden. Quiet Nights. Columbia/Legacy CK 65293, 1997, liner notes p. 15.
^ Belden, liner notes p. 16.
^ Belden, liner notes, p. 16.
^ Belden, liner notes, p. 18.
^ ^a ^b Cook, p. 141.
^ Belden, liner notes p. 19.
^ Quiet Nights at AllMusic
^ ^a ^b Alkyer, Frank; Enright, Ed; Koransky, Jason, eds. (2007). The Miles Davis Reader. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 232. ISBN 978-1423430766.
^ Larkin, Colin (2011). "Miles Davis". Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0857125958.
^ ^a ^b Considine, J. D. (1992). "Miles Davis". In DeCurtis, Anthony; Henke, James; George-Warren, Holly (eds.). The Rolling Stone Album Guide (3rd ed.). Random House. pp. 179, 181. ISBN 0-679-73729-4.
^ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 345. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
^ "The Other Side". Saturday Review: 60. 1964.
^ Schoenberg, Loren (1996). "The Meeting of Minds in a Legendary Union". The New York Times. Retrieved July 5, 2016.

External links

Quiet Nights at Discogs (list of releases)

[1] Miles Davis.com

[2] Richard Cook. It's About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-532266-8, p. 123

[3] Cook, pp. 139–140

[4] Bob Belden. Quiet Nights. Columbia/Legacy CK 65293, 1997, liner notes p. 15.

[5] Belden, liner notes p. 16.

[6] Belden, liner notes, p. 16.

[7] Belden, liner notes, p. 18.

[Cook141-8] Cook, p. 141.

[9] Belden, liner notes p. 19.

[10] Quiet Nights at AllMusic

[MD-11] Alkyer, Frank; Enright, Ed; Koransky, Jason, eds. (2007). The Miles Davis Reader. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 232. ISBN 978-1423430766.

[12] Larkin, Colin (2011). "Miles Davis". Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-0857125958.

[Considine-13] Considine, J. D. (1992). "Miles Davis". In DeCurtis, Anthony; Henke, James; George-Warren, Holly (eds.). The Rolling Stone Album Guide (3rd ed.). Random House. pp. 179, 181. ISBN 0-679-73729-4.

[Penguin-14] Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 345. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.

[15] "The Other Side". Saturday Review: 60. 1964.

[16] Schoenberg, Loren (1996). "The Meeting of Minds in a Legendary Union". The New York Times. Retrieved July 5, 2016.

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