The Yale Jazz Ensembles Big Band, Wayne Escoffery, Music Director, will celebrate the centennial of the birth of American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Davis during the 2025-26 academic year. Tonight’s concert will feature world premieres of big band arrangements for the Yale Jazz Ensembles Big Band by Michael Mossman, including Boplicity, Budo, and Deception, from Davis’ pioneering album “Birth of the Cool.”

“Birth of the Cool” is a compilation album of eleven tracks recorded by Davis’ nonet for the label over the course of three sessions during 1949 and 1950. Featuring unusual instrumentation and several notable musicians, the music consists of innovative arrangements influenced by Afro-American music and classical music techniques and marked a major development in post-bebop jazz. As the title suggests, these recordings are considered seminal in the history of “cool jazz.”