Miles Davis’ ‘Birth of the Cool’ is being re-created live in concert in Philly

In 1949 and 1950, Miles Davis and an unusual ensemble laid down a dozen tracks that made history. Birth of the Cool, released in 1957, moved the sound of jazz forward by looking backward to classical.

The album was “relatively laid-back compared to most of the jazz being made at that time — it doesn’t have that ferocity,” says Philadelphia jazz critic Francis Davis. “The lightness of it had a lot in common with French impressionism.”

Birth of the Cool is widely considered among the greatest jazz albums created, and many artists cite it as an influence. On Wednesday, March 29, Orchestra 2001 will present what it believes is the first local performance of the album’s 12 tunes in their entirety.

The album was conceived and recorded in New York. But Philadelphia plays a part in its history.

For years, most of the manuscripts of pieces by saxophonist/composer Gerry Mulligan, pianist/composer John Lewis, trumpeter/composer Johnny Carisi, and others were sitting in a Philadelphia storage facility, their whereabouts possibly unknown to anyone.

The location of the music was a mystery during Davis’ lifetime. Efforts by historians, students, and professional musicians to acquire the parts and scores from Davis for this unusual jazz-classical nonet were met with silence, jazz historian Jeffrey Sultanof has written.

But in 1996, five years after Davis’ death, Sultanof got a call to help out a colleague who was asked to appraise music contained in boxes retrieved from storage in Philadelphia that were part of Davis’ estate.

“We were going through this music, and suddenly, one of the parts from Birth of the Cool shows up. And I had worked with Mulligan, so I recognized his handwriting. And once I saw that, I said, ‘Oh my god, the nonet stuff is here.’”

Not all of it was there, but most was. The music had been in Davis’ possession in New York, and around the time he married actress Cicely Tyson in 1981, many of their belongings were sent to a storage facility somewhere in Philadelphia, according to historians of the jazz trumpeter, composer, and band leader.

Why Philadelphia? It’s not clear. But Mikel Elam thinks he knows just where. The Philadelphia artist was Davis’ assistant toward the end of the musician’s life, and he recalls visiting a storage facility on Germantown Avenue not far from West Hunting Park Avenue.

“It was packed to the brim with stuff,” said Elam. “I remember the elevator was rickety. I got to the floor and it wasn’t organized. It was just boxes and furniture, and African masks. It looked like he moved — or they both moved — and said, ‘Hey, let’s put all this here.’”

Shown a photo of a building that still exists at that location — the former Ira S. Davis Storage Co. — Elam said he is almost certain that was the place.

With instrumental lines that glide together like a school of fish, the dozen tunes on Birth of the Cool are orchestral in texture yet have all the harmonies and spontaneous feel of jazz. This new cool chapter in American music started behind a laundry on New York’s West 55th Street in a room where composer/arranger Gil Evans lived. Evans had been an arranger for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra, a dance band with a rich and varied orchestral palette, and his apartment was known as a kind of musicians’ salon.

A small ensemble formed and Davis became the leader. Musical arrangements were written by Evans and others. And soon the group was getting gigs and making recordings.

“This is a very important piece,” says Adam Lesnick, executive director of Orchestra 2001. “In a lot of ways this piece led to a lot of new directions in jazz and film music and classical.”

Orchestra 2001 seems an unlikely champion of Birth of the Cool (it’s best known for its long relationship with avant-garde classical composer George Crumb), but performing the piece reflects the group’s shift of the past few years into varied genres. The players, who will be joined by vocalist Najwa Parkins in “Darn That Dream,” are a cross-section of Philadelphia’s talent pool.

“Eight of the nine are members of the Philly Pops, so they are regular jazz players,” says Lesnick. “The French horn and tuba won’t be improvising, but they are used to playing big band. So these are the leading players who would play jazzy shows in Philadelphia.”

Faced with Wednesday’s live re-creation of the beloved album, listeners may lose track of whether they’re in a concert hall or a nightclub. And that’s the point. Borders between and among genres and venues are falling away in all of the arts, strongly suggesting that the rest of the world is finally coming around to Birth of the Cool’s way of thinking.

Orchestra 2001 presents trumpeter George Rabbai, sax players Ron Kerber and Mark Allen, French hornist John David Smith, trombonist Paul Arbogast, tuba player Brian Brown, pianist Tom Lawton, bassist Douglas Mapp, drummer Joe Nero, and vocalist Najwa Parkins in “Birth of the Cool,” Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Philadelphia Clef Club, 736 S. Broad St. Tickets are $35, with discounts for students and seniors. orchestra2001.org.