So What - Tony Williams and the future of Jazz drumming 1959/1964

Tony Williams

In March 1959, when Jimmy Cobb recorded his drum parts for the session that would yield the opening track from Miles' opus recording Kind Of Blue, his playing sounded fresh and modern, with a sparseness and flow that perfectly underpinned the piano of Bill Evans. Yet only twelve months later, saxophonist John Coltrane would push the rhythm section of Cobb, Paul Chambers on double bass and Wynton Kelly (the other Kind Of Blue pianist) to, and perhaps past their limits with the very same tune. Coltrane was pointing towards the future role for rhythm sections in modal jazz and beyond.

Columbia Studios, New York, 2nd March 1959

Davis (tp), Coltrane (ts), Adderley (as), Evans (p), Chambers (b), Cobb (dr)

Jimmy Cobb's ascent to the drum kit in the Miles Davis Sextet came out of necessity as much as choice for Miles. His long-time drummer and close friend 'Philly' Jo Jones was in the midst of heroin addiction. Unpredictable and unreliable, Miles had no alternative but to find a replacement for Jones. After a brief tenure by Art Taylor, Cobb joined in early 1958. Davis’ version of events was laid out in his autobiography:

Art knew I loved the way Philly played. But Art's a real sensitive guy, and I was trying to figure out how to tell him to play certain (things) that would kick the music up a notch or two, without hurting his feelings. I was hinting around, talking about sock cymbals (hi-hat cymbals) trying to let him know what I wanted, and I could see that it was getting on his nerves. Anyway, this went on for a couple of days, and then by the third or fourth night I was losing my patience. The set started, and after I finished my solo I stood right next to Art's sock cymbal, with my trumpet tucked under my arm, listening, like I always did, giving him some suggestions. He wasn't paying me any attention... But I don't care about that... because I want him to play right and not too loud on the sock cymbal like he's been doing. So I say something else to him about the sock and he gives me this "F*** you. Miles, get off my back" look! So I say to him under my breath, "Aw... don't you know how Philly makes that goddamn break!" Art got so mad, he stopped playing right in the middle of the number, got up from the drums, walked off the stage, went into the back, and later, after the set was over, went back and packed up his drums and left. But the next night I had Jimmy Cobb take his place. (Davis, Troupe, 1990, p. 216).

Jimmy Cobb

Miles' unfavourable comparisons between Jones and whoever his drummer was at the time would become a recurring issue until he hired Tony Williams in 1963. Cobb too would feel the wrath of Davis if his playing did not come up to this standard. Cobb had already played on two of Cannonball Adderley's albums and at Adderley's recommendation had sat in on the recording sessions for the album Milestones as standby drummer in case Jones didn't turn up. Once a full time member of the sextet, he quickly established himself as the first call drummer for his band-mates’ solo ventures (including Coltrane's Niama from the classic 1960 Giant Steps album). He was the polar opposite of Jones, dependable and unflamboyant, something that would work for and against Cobb in his five years with Miles.

Contrary to popular myth, the band were already familiar with So What when they came to record it, the tune had been performed live several times prior to the March 2nd session (probably at the Philadelphia Showboat where the sextet played from the 23rd to the 28th of February). In the new modal style which Miles had been introduced to by Gil Evans and George Russell, and had been experimenting with in a small band setting since the recording of the album Milestones, the piece was performed at a relaxed 138 bpm, perfectly suited to Cobb's accurate timekeeping, impeccable feel and minimalist style of comping which further enhanced the sense of space that modal composition offered. In fig:1 we see a demonstration of Cobb's economic style, with the lead in fill to Davis' trumpet solo.

Fig: 1 at 1:19

This pattern is deceptively hard to execute smoothly and is a great example of Cobb's 'less is more' approach, phrasing very much in the blues tradition. Cobb plays the opening head with a brush in his right hand and a stick in his left, swapping them over seamlessly (stick to right hand, brush to left) after the first beat of the third bar in fig:1.

In fig:2 we have an example of Cobb's comping style, in the first B section of Coltrane's first solo chorus. This is Cobb's busiest passage of play in the piece, and the only section where he really interacts with the soloist, instead preferring the occasional syncopated snare or bass drum. He plays an elegant, unbroken swing pattern almost without interruption through the entire track with a consistent two and four on the hi-hat from his left foot, keeping time.

Fig: 2

Cobb's laid back, no-frills playing was ideal for Miles. His music was going through an introspective period, popular with the American intelligentsia of the late 50's. However, the relaxed tempo of So What may, like Cobb's arrival in the band, have come out of necessity as much as by design. In interview, Cannonball Adderley noted that “Miles... thought Jimmy Cobb wasn't as exciting (as Philly Joe) on fast tempo stuff so we did less of those” (Carr, 2006, p.95). This shortcoming in Cobb's playing would be laid bare in front of disgruntled European audiences only twelve months later. It is then perhaps realistic to suggest that more than any other member of the sextet, Kind Of Blue was Jimmy Cobb's zeitgeist moment. He was very much the right man at the right time.

Tivoli Konsertsal, Copenhagen, Denmark, 24th March 1960

Davis (tp), Coltrane (ts), Kelly (p), Chambers (b), Cobb (dr)

Fortunately for scholars and fans alike, much of the now legendary 1960 tour of Europe with the Kind Of Blue line-up was broadcast on FM radio at the time, and as a result recordings of almost every performance from that tour still exist. These recordings provide a unique window into what was happening to the music and the players at the time, and how it influenced their future musical directions. As Ian Carr observed in his biography on Miles “The restrained elegance of Kind Of Blue could be achieved only in the cloister-like atmosphere of the recording studio working with unfamiliar material. In live performances, Miles' groups were too irrepressibly dynamic to function in so restrained a way”. The European tour of 1960 was to be anything but 'cloister-like'. (Carr, 2006, p.107)

Cracks had started to appear in the Kind Of Blue line-up in September 1959 when Cannonball Adderley left the group to pursue a solo career. In early 1960 John Coltrane informed Davis that he too intended to leave. Miles convinced Coltrane to stay on until after the Spring tour of Europe. Coltrane, now free of his addiction to drugs, was in great physical shape, strong and practicing constantly. Coupled with his frustration at playing the same tunes night after night (in fact So What was performed twice every night during the tour) this made for incredible feats of technical virtuosity, power and rage in his solos. However, the audiences who booed Coltrane on several instances (mostly famously on the first night of the tour in Paris) were it seems, no less startled and confused by Coltrane's playing than Miles' own rhythm section. Despite Davis' dissatisfaction with Jimmy Cobb's up-tempo playing, the piece had by now increased dramatically in tempo to around 260 bpm. Twelve months on from the Kind Of Blue sessions, the rhythm section no longer sounded cool and controlled but somewhat out of their depth behind the resurgent Coltrane.

Jimmy Cobb

When the group arrived in Europe in March 1960, it had already performed 28 dates that year, and many of those dates involved two sets. This punishing itinerary became even greater as the band played 21 shows (roughly half of which were two-set shows) crisscrossing the continent, between the 21st of March and the 10th of April. Coltrane's frustrations were borne out onstage during the quintet's final performances together. He felt too constrained by the rigid hard bop they were playing. Inspired by the recordings of Ornette Coleman, Coltrane wanted to explore the freer aspects of jazz. Immediately upon returning to the USA in April 1960 he put together his classic quartet with Mcoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass and most crucially, Elvin Jones on drums. Jones was a far more flexible, intuitive and muscular player than anyone who proceeded him in jazz. By the time of the European tour with Davis, Coltrane had already identified Jones as the ideal drummer for his new quartet. Jones, along with Roy Haynes and later, Tony Williams, was exploring the concepts of four way independence of limbs in a way previous drummers had not. In particular, he was instrumental in freeing up the left foot from merely keeping time on two and four, integrating it as a vehicle for comping equal to the other limbs. While this had already been developed to a certain extent by drummers like Max Roach and Art Blakey, by and large they were only using this intermittently between a standard two and four pattern. Jones gave parity to all the elements of the kit. His pioneering polyrhythmic drumming would be perfect foil to Coltrane's increasingly fast and rhythmically complex phrasing.

For all of Jimmy Cobb's strengths he was no pioneer. His playing was rooted in the traditional, acting as an accompanist rather than engaging in a dialogue with the soloist, very much in the mold of Kenny Clarke. Although his comping behind Coltrane's solo during the performance of So What at the Tivoli in Copenhagen on the 24^th of March is more responsive to the soloist than that on Kind Of Blue, he still relied heavily on 'bombs' (accented individual hits on the snare drum and bass drum, usually syncopated), a style that had been around for fifteen years. Dynamically, his playing varied little and, as can be seen in fig:3, he stuck rigidly to the standard swing ride cymbal pattern and the ubiquitous two and four on the hi-hats throughout Coltrane's solo, regardless of what Coltrane played, and most of Cobb's busier moments are in marking out the form of the piece rather than responding to the soloist.

Fig:3 at 6:36

In Jimmy Cobb's defence, pianist Wynton Kelly had an even more torrid time, dropping out altogether at various moments during Coltrane's solo. What undoubtedly exasperated the situation further for Coltrane was the fact that since Cannonball Adderley had left the group, Coltrane now had to play longer solos, spanning 13 choruses on this version of So What in stark contrast to the two choruses he took on the original recording (although the Tivoli version is almost twice as fast). His band-mates were only too aware of his dissatisfaction. Coltrane would use sly references in his solos to make his point. During this performance of So What, the reference he chooses is the first four notes of The Song Of The Volga Boatmen at 9:38, a well know piece at the time used particularly as background music to depict endless toil. However, it is these tensions that help to enhance the sensation of listening to a band holding back a soloist, highlighting the need for a future, more intuitive rhythm section in jazz. After Coltrane exited the band, it took Miles three years to find a suitable replacement for him, and when he stumbled upon that replacement in 1963 it came not in the form of a saxophonist but as a seventeen year old drummer. That drummer was Tony Williams.

Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, 12th February 1964

Davis (tp), Coleman (ts), Hancock (p), Carter (b), Williams (dr)

Frank Butler

Despite recognising his band's deficiencies, Davis was too devastated by the loss of Coltrane to consider finding a new rhythm section. However, having gone through a succession of saxophonists including Sonny Stitt and Hank Mobley in a vain attempt to replace Coltrane, by 1963 Miles also found himself needing to replace his entire band. Poor health exasperated by cocaine use, and a general lack of motivation and inspiration had caused Miles to do very few shows in 1962 and this forced his rhythm section of Kelly, Chambers and Cobb to seek work elsewhere. So when Miles decided to return to touring at the start of 1963 his first-call players were not available. After briefly hiring Hollywood session drummer Frank Butler, Davis spotted Tony Williams playing at a Jackie McLean show and was instantly impressed with the 17 year old. Following a three day audition, he also hired young guns Herbie Hancock on piano, and Ron Carter on bass to complete the new lineup with Williams and tenor saxophonist George Coleman, who had already been with Miles for a couple of months. Miles' new rhythm section transformed his music, and in turn, jazz. As Ian Carr observed:

Hancock, Carter and Williams seemed to have an inexhaustible variety of ways of creating and releasing tension, expanding and contracting space. The rhythm section was also a continual dialogue with whoever was soloing. In fact, there was no longer the idea of a soloist and rhythm section. When a horn was playing, it was a quartet which was functioning on equal terms. (Carr, 2006, p.135).

Miles had seen John Coltrane as a sparring partner who could push his music forwards. Now re-energised by Williams' virtuosity, creativity and youthful exuberance, Davis had finally found the new sparring partner he had been craving. In fact, Williams was so important to Miles that when told by the drummer that George Coleman was “not hip enough”, Davis dutifully relieved Coleman of his position in the band.

Tony Williams

Williams' creation and release of tension which Ian Carr refers to, involved rhythmic devices such as the superimposition of one time over another, giving the illusion of displacing the pulse. The release comes in returning to the original pulse. This is known as polymetric phrasing, of which Williams was the master. In fact in many ways he took all of the standard rules about jazz drumming and threw them away. Gone was the strict ride cymbal pattern and the two and four on the left foot. Williams' ability to be as spontaneous as the soloists elevated drumming to the equal of other art forms. Like Coltrane before him, Williams took ideas that already existed but developed them in ways previously unimagined. The live recording of So What from the album Four & More is littered with examples of the new drumming vocabulary that Williams introduced. fig: 4 is taken from the first A section of the second chorus of George Coleman's solo and perfectly demonstrates Williams' spontaneity, using whichever part of the kit he desired (there is no left foot at all in the eight bar passage). No two bars are the same, and this is true of the whole piece.

Fig: 4

The sound of Tony Williams drums on Four & More was light years away from Jimmy Cobb's original recording of So What. It was the removal of traditional shackles that had held back not only drummers, but all jazz musicians. In a 'life imitates art' sense, he was releasing the tension that John Coltrane had created in Europe four years previously.

Matt Parker

Bibliography

Carr, I. (1982) Miles Davis A Biography. New York. William Morrow and Company.

Davis, M. & Troupe, Q. (1990) Miles The Autobiography. New York. Simon & Schuster.

Fisher, M. (2010) Tony Williams So What. London. Jazzwise Publications

Porter, L. (1999) John Coltrane His Life and Music. Michigan. The University Of Michigan Press.

Riley, John. (1997) Beyond Bop Drumming. New York. Manhatten Music

Williams, R. (2009) The Blue Moment. London. Faber & Faber

Lackowski, R. (n.d.) 'Drummerworld: Jimmy Cobb – So what' in Drummerworld.com. Available at http://www.drummerworld.com/Drumclinic/jimmycobbsowhat.html. [Accessed 08/01/14]

'Miles Davis Sessions: 1945-1991' (n.d.) in plosin.com. Available at

http://www.plosin.com/milesahead/Sessions.aspx. [Accessed 08/01/14]

Discography

John Coltrane (1998), Giant Steps, John Coltrane (saxophone), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Paul Chamber (bass), Art Taylor (drums), Jimmy Cobb (drums), 4–5th May 1959, 2nd December 1959, Atlantic 8122-72399-2

Miles Davis (2001), Milestones, Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley (alto saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), 'Philly' Joe Jones (drums), Columbia 30th Street Studio New York, 4th February 1958, Columbia CK 85203

Miles Davis (1997), Kind Of Blue, Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor saxophone), Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley (alto saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums), Columbia 30th Street Studio New York 2nd March 1959, Columbia CK 64935

Miles Davis Quintet with John Coltrane (2012), In Copenhagen 1960, Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (saxophone), Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums), Tivoli Konsertsal, Copenhagen, Denmark, 24th March 1960, In Crowd Records 2252001

Miles Davis (2005), 'Four' & More Recorded Live In Concert, Miles Davis (trumpet), George Coleman (saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), Tony Williams (drums), Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, 12th February 1964, Columbia 5195052001