And Speaking Of Diane...

The only other jazz rendition of “Diane” – a 1927 tune by the immortal team of Lew Pollack and Erno Rapee that serves as the title of the Chet Baker-Paul Bley duet album – that I know of is by the Miles Davis Quintet. (Forgive me if I’ve missed any other memorable versions. Not all information penetrates the musty deep of the basement headquarters…See reply.)

Recorded in 1956, “Diane” features the regular members of the Davis ensemble which had coalesced late the year before: Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums, and John Coltrane on tenor saxophone. It’s a fascinating track for a number of reasons. Davis, a pillar of modernism who was born in 1926, didn’t record songs from the 1920’s or earlier with any regularity. Yet renditions that come to mind – “Bye, Bye Blackbird,” “Sweet Sue,” and “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” (published in 1919) – each elicit marvelous playing from him and all involved.

“Diane” is a sweet tune whose opening melody reminds me of the later Disney opus “A Spoonful Of Sugar.” (Admittedly my ear often makes connections that few others agree with – I’ve grown to live with and even enjoy that.) Chambers and Jones groove along with a marvelous mid-tempo gait, no surprise there, these two formed a rhythmic bond that no other bass-drum team could match in that period. The first solo belongs to Davis, who turns in a beautifully constructed improvisation of pure melody, spinning out new variations on this fairly routine tune with an ease and ingenuity that was his trademark. Although firmly in the bop style, Davis’s statement seems to speak of earlier trumpet giants, say Buck Clayton or, yes, Louis Armstrong. In other words, it’s a solo whose beauty lies in its basically conservative nature. Ever the traditionalist, Garland takes a typically amiable, Ahmad Jamal-inspired solo as the last improvisation of the performance. All well and good.

Yet it’s Coltrane’s solo, following the stately Davis spin, that springs this performance into another dimension while also granting us a glimpse into the workings of Davis’s brilliance as an artist and an inspired bandleader. Not that this is such a memorable improvisation by the nearly 30-year-old Coltrane. There’s plenty of heat, but not much compositional warmth.

First, to address the elephant in the room, he makes an unintentional, outrageously blatant reed squeak early in the solo. (Davis’s fine statement, and the express train nature of this session, probably jettisoned a call for an another take.) Coltrane, it’s always good to remember, was only human.

Passionate as ever, the saxophonist bursts into the performance, just chomping at the bit. Gruff arpeggiated phrases come fast and furious, this is bop announcing its next destination. Yet, despite Coltrane’s technical agility and obvious commitment, the urgency disrupts the performance. And that’s exactly what Davis wanted.

While Davis and Garland trade in finesse and lyricism, Coltrane is all bluster and elbowing power. What would have been an affable performance now, due to Coltrane’s effusion, takes on a churning oil-meets-water nature that remains strangely compelling. And it’s this deliberate disruption, taken to different extremes, that Davis would exploit throughout the rest of his career. Throwing in wild cards – be they innovators like Coltrane or later, the drummer Tony Williams and the brilliant saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter and the exploratory keyboardists Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett – Davis kept his music unpredictable and exciting. Utilizing “Diane,” a tune from the 1920s, Davis gives us a glimpse of that future.