NPRs Between Takes: The 'Kind Of Blue' Sessions

[Gandalfe]

Fascinating stuff.

"Freddie Freeloader (False Start)"

Take 3 of "Freddie Freeloader" makes it through the familiar theme (loosely based on the melody of "Soft Winds") and on into Wynton Kelly's solo. Before the second chorus of the piano ends, Davis whistles off the take.

Miles Davis: Hey, look, Wynton, don't play no chord going into the A-flat ...
​

Three points of interest here: First, even after the third take of "Freddie Freeloader," Davis is still tinkering, making small structural changes after calling off the performance with a whistle rather than a shout (made necessary by the permanent damage he caused his vocal cords in 1955 after getting into a shouting match with a club manager).

Second, despite Davis' general compulsion to simplify harmonic rigidity using a modal approach on most of Kind of Blue, he was still a stickler for structural precision — willing to call off a take as Kelly misses an unusual but significant structural twist during his solo. Davis created "Freddie Freeloader" as 24-bar blues, rather than the standard 12-bar form, and he wanted that form followed.

And third, as a bandleader, Davis gave minimal instruction.
"He never told anyone what to play, but would say, 'Man, you don't need to do that,' " Cannonball Adderley recalled in a 1972 radio interview. "Miles really told everybody what not to do. I heard him and dug it."

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[sideC]

Freddy Freeloader is named for a guy that I used to see around Philly who was called Freddy The Freeloader. Freddy was a bartender who worked the jazz clubs around center city Philly. According to the story I heard, Freddy always bummed cigarettes and other small items, never had his own, so his street name became Freedy the Freeloader. He seemed to be very proud of that fact when we were introduced, back in the early '70s. I guess that I'd be proud too, if Miles named a tune after me.

I also remember a conversation I had many years ago with a man named Maurice Bailey. Maurice's son is an excellent bassist of renown, Victor Bailey, and his brothers are both great jazz drummers, Donald and Dave Bailey. Maurice was said to be a very harmonically advanced tenor player back in the '40s and eary '50's, and was an early influence on John Coltrane. Illness forced him to give up playing, and he was wheelchair bound when I met him over 35 years ago. He was active as a composer and arranger at that time. I worked a lot of r&b recording sessions for him back then. He's still around, still writing.

I was making a rehearsal at Maurice's house, and we were taking a break. So, Maurice was telling me some stories about the old days, telling me about when he would commute to NYC from Philly to do arranging gigs, and if he didn't feel like taking the train back late at night, he would stay at Trane's place at 63rd and Broadway, or somewhere in that area. So on this particular day, Trane asked Maurice if he wanted to go to the studio with him, he was cutting some tracks with Miles. Maurice said ok. So they go in and the first tune is "Round Midnight", and Trane washes and waxes the tune on the first take, takes the classic solo that still amazes us to this day. So while they're rewinding the tape after the playback, Trane comes over to Maurice, all worried and concerned and says, "man, do you think that solo was any good?" "Do you think that they'll keep that?" Maurice told me that it was probably the best, greatest, tenor solo that he had ever heard in his life! It took his breath away to hear Trane play it! But Trane was such a humble person that he didn't think that it was a big deal. Maurice said that Trane was like that, a very down to earth, very country and regular type guy.