EPISODE 1: "Listen to What's There"

episode 1

GIL EVANS

"Listen to what's there"

Arranger Gil Evans helped Miles Davis create new sonic worlds. With the help of Evans biographer Larry Hickok, Lawrence searches Evans's life and music for the source of his mesmerizing arrangements and tries to answer the question, "What is a song?"

YOUR HOST:
JOURNALIST AND MUSICIAN
LAWRENCE LANAHAN

REARRANGED considers the meaning we take from songs by examining an underappreciated aspect of their creation: the arrangement.

Produced and distributed by Osiris Media.

SHOW NOTES

In this pilot episode of Rearranged, Lawrence Lanahan explores the life and music of someone who helped Miles Davis create some of his most unforgettable music: arranger Gil Evans. Lanahan uses "Moon Dreams," the Johnny Mercer tune that Evans rearranged into a work of art on Davis's "Birth of the Cool" album, to consider the underappreciated art of arranging…and to investigate the deepest meanings of the human song.

Guest:
Larry Hickok is the author of Castles Made of Sound: The Story of Gil Evans, DaCapo Press, 2002.

Thanks to:

Glenn Askew, author of Johnny Mercer: Southern Songwriter for the World, Professor of History at Georgia State University, and director of the GSU World Heritage Initiative
Kevin S. Fleming, Popular Music and Culture Archivist, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
Andrea Appleton
Bruce Wallace

The theme music and other scoring music for Rearranged was written and recorded by Lawrence Lanahan.

Music discussed:

Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Master and Everyone, Drag City, 2003,
Miles Davis, Birth of the Cool, Capitol/Blue Note, 1957
Martha Tilton, The Capitol Recordings, Capitol, 2000,
Glenn Miller, Army Air Force Band, Capt. Johnny Desmond and the Crew Chiefs, “Moon Dreams,” V-Disc

Research notes:

Much of this episode is drawn from Hickok, Castles Made of Sound.
“Mercer…once said, ‘I fool around on the piano…’”: Gene Lees, Portrait of Johnny: The Life of John Herndon Mercer, Pantheon, 2004: 156.
“Recorded at the very first Capitol Records session”: Robert Kimball, Barry Day, Miles Krueger, and Eric Davis, The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer, Knopf, 2009: 128.
“This one was likely arranged by Weston”: Glenn Askew, personal communication, “That would be my hunch”
Paul Weston and mood music: https://www.spaceagepop.com/weston.htm
Weston as “almost avant-garde”: Lees, 160-161.
“higher standards…Whiting,” Askew, 195-196.
“Pete Rugolo,” Askew, 218.
“Moon Dreams” from Gil Evans memorial service in 1988: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=rt3pK9SXjI8
“Boplicity” from Gil Evans memorial service in 1988: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zenzUq6tn20

Music clearance: Pink Jumpsuit Music