Miles Davis, “Ko Ko”, and the Making of a Fallacy

ABSTRACT Recalling his first recording session with Charlie Parker on 26 November 1945, Miles Davis said he was so nervous that Dizzy Gillespie had to step in and play the trumpet solos on “Ko Ko,” the fast final tune of the session. Others present—producer Teddy Reig, pianist Sadik Hakim (aka Argonne Thornton), and Dizzy himself—all verified this story, that it was Gillespie and not Davis who played on “Ko Ko.” Yet despite this straighforward line of testimony, jazz writers and fans have questioned this account since the 1950s. More recently, the serious argument that it was in fact Miles who played the solos, not Dizzy, has appeared in various credible forums, including authoritative websites, Facebook groups involving professional jazz historians, and the magazine JazzTimes. This article examines this revisionist claim and finds it without foundation. In addition to the abundant and unanimous testimony of eyewitnesses, the musical evidence shows that in other solos recorded before and after the 1945 session, Gillespie reprised large portions of the complex “Ko Ko” solos. During a live performance of “Ko Ko” in 1947, he even played a sophisticated variation of the intro, a vanishingly unlikely occurrence had Miles Davis played the original.