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Miles Davis: Workin' With the Miles Davis Quintet
by Mark Corroto
1955/56 was an inflection point in the career of Miles Davis. The trumpeter and bandleader went from a promising talent to the high profile face of jazz and popular music. The two marathon sessions, May 11 and October 26, 1956, that created Workin' With the Miles Davis Quintet along with Cookin', Relaxin' and Steamin' might have been written off by Davis as a mere fulfillment of his contract duties for Prestige Records. He had signed a more lucrative contract with ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane: After the Rain
by Geno Thackara
Famously, John Coltrane's liner notes for his definitive work A Love Supreme (Impulse!, 1964) were full of praise for the benevolence that's always there “through the storm and after the rain." The (probable) source of that phrase from the previous year is decidedly less famous, but then, it's the kind of calm moment you have to make space to seek out for yourself. No need for his dazzling technicality or free-skronking atonality here, just a simple reminder that the man's ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane, Dave Liebman and Others
by Jerome Wilson
This vintage episode, from November 2021, features John Coltrane playing with Miles Davis and also Dave Liebman interpreting Coltrane's music. Other musicians heard include Dave Brubeck, Archie Shepp, Al Hibbler, and Anthony Ortega. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings of Henry Threadgill & Air (Mosaic) 00:00 Cyrus Nabipoor “Huckleberry Madness" from Live At The Marigny Opera House (Self-Produced) 00:54 Dave Liebman Expansions “Mr. Day" from Selflessness: ...
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane: Song Of Praise: New York 1965 Revisited
by Mark Corroto
Witness [ wit-nis ] an individual who, being present, personally sees or perceives a thing; a beholder, spectator, or eyewitness. Have you ever considered yourself a witness to history? If you answered in the affirmative, let me posit that it was only after time and reflection that this notion occurred to you. Did the soldiers standing in the mud and muck at the Somme during the Great War in 1916 comprehend the significance of the moment? And more ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis Quintet: 2nd Session 1956 Revisited
by Chris May
Rough round the edges some of the performances might be, but that is part of their real-time, first-take charm. The twelve tracks collected on 2nd Session 1956 Revisited are, nonetheless, arguably the most perfect Miles Davis ever recorded. Over the years they have been issued and reissued, anthologised and repackaged, almost as often as Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Hot Sevens. But never with as much attention to sonic detail as on this album, remastered by the ezz-thetics label's Michael ...
Continue ReadingMiles Davis Quintet: Live Europe 1960 Revisited
by Chris May
A high proportion of the studio albums recorded by Miles Davis from the mid 1950s until Bitches Brew (Columbia) in 1970 are landmark ones, so frequent and so momentous were the occasions on which Davis adjusted his direction. With a few exceptions, notably My Funny Valentine (Columbia, 1964), this is less true of the live albums until the early 1970s, when Davis' live performances increasingly anticipated changes later heard on studio recordings, especially as regards his choices of repertoire.
Continue ReadingJohn Coltrane: Favorites Revisited
by Mark Corroto
Besides “Giant Steps," the songs that every Coltrane fan, er fanatic, has probably committed to memory note-for-note are the three presented here, “Naima," “My Favorite Things" and the four-part suite “A Love Supreme." It is as if those sounds had existed even before John Coltrane penned them. Forgive the hyperbole, but listeners of the great man's music, even newcomers, undoubtedly recognize the treasure these are. Proof certain were the audiences' requests for Coltrane and his quartet of pianist McCoy Tyner, ...
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