Rebirth of Cool

The thing I love most about music is that no matter what the songwriter was thinking when they wrote a piece, it is still left up to the listener to find their own meaning. So what follows are a few facts with some maybe's, could be's and personal opinions thrown in.

Personally I feel that 'Gentlemen' was The Afghan Whigs best album, but this is by far my favorite song. I only say that because even though they've done many songs and covers that I love, I can listen to this one over and over and find myself caught up in it just as I did when I first heard it. And then proceed to hit previous and listen to it again, if I haven't already put it on a loop. Anyway, now that we got that bit of unnecessary information out of the way, on to the song.

This song originally appeared as a hidden track, called "Miles Iz Ded", on the 1992 album 'Congregation'. It was the band's third studio album, but the first in which you could see the true potential and genius of Greg Dulli and crew. It was written and recorded the same day the band heard the news that legendary jazz musician Miles Davis had passed away. The song touched on a few, of the many, issues that surrounded and plagued Davis throughout his life and career. Most notably among these being his musical innovation, drug addiction and alcoholism. The latter obviously giving way to the very memorable and uniquely infectious hook "Don't forget the alcohol ooh baby ooh baby".

Later in 1992, the Whigs released an EP titled 'Uptown Avondale'. It contained four covers from the classic Motown Era of music. Most notable among them is the track "Come See About Me", as made famous by The Supremes. The EP also contained a hidden track, which was a slightly tweaked remix of "Miles Iz Ded". It added a drum loop and some processing to the guitars and vocals. After the band heard the finished track, they referred to it as "Rebirth of The Cool". Purely an opinion, but I can only guess that this was an homage to the "cool jazz" album 'Birth of The Cool' that was released in 1957 by Capitol Records. It was a compilation of 12 tracks taken from session recordings of the Miles Davis Nonet during the years of 1949 and 1950. Even though Davis was just one of the many notable musicians and arrangers/composers that took part in the collective project, he was given top billing because he was said to be the musician that best represented that style of jazz.

So "Miles Iz Ded" and "Rebirth of The Cool" are the same song. Though I will say I am more partial to "Rebirth". Hopefully this will be helpful to someone, if they can just make it all the way through this book I had no intention of writing. I just went back and realized I don't even want to read the whole thing.