If jazz is “America’s Classical Music,” then Miles Davis’ 1959 album Kind of Blue has to be considered his 9th Symphony. As the only living member of that iconic session, 80 year old drummer Jimmy Cobb has been touring the country the past couple of years giving the world the proper presentation of the original 5 songs that forever changed the way that we listened to jazz. From the opening bass intro of “So What” to the aching Harmon Mute and cymbals that closes the original piece of vinyl, Cobb came to the CSUN Performing Arts Center and with his team treated the music like it was a Beethoven Symphony, and if you think of each song as an Allegro, Adagio and Rondo, etc like a 19th Century piece of music, the organic whole made perfect sense.
Cobb’s patented use of gracefully hammering the ride cymbal created a perfectly timed and yet relentless beat throughout the whole evening, slow to medium during the opening “So What” to a funky groove on “Freddie Freeloader” and going completely Largo-mellow on “Blue in Green.” The band featured instruments and attitudes that fit right into the Davis atmosphere, with Dave Liebman/ts-ss, Vincent Herring/as, Christian Scott/tp, Larry Willis/p and Buster Williams/b giving enough proper respect to the music so as not to diminish its importance, but adding their own musical temperament so as not to be stifled as well.
The deceptively hypnotic “So What” featured penetrating solos by the heartfelt Scott, the explorative Liebman and soulful Herring, creating a mood that made you not wanting the piece to end, almost as if the music were a hint of eternity. “Blue in Green” featured Scott’s agonizing trumpet while “All Blues” had the horns meld together in a gentle tuft of harmonies. Delivering a bit of a variance of ideas, Liebman used his soprano here on his searching solo while Willis threw in a quote from The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” just to show that there are no labels but good and bad music. “Flamenco Sketches” had Scott’s fragile horn serenade the audience, as the 5 movement Opus drew to a close. Two other famous songs from the same era, “The Theme” and a sensuously swinging take of “On Green Dolphin Street,” closed the evening, with Cobb speaking with a mix of humility and pride to present music in a way with such mastery and authority, you’d think he invented it. Hey, wait a minute, HE DID!!!
