Jazz Articles about Miles Davis

Miles Davis: The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions

by Doug Collette
August 27, 2006

The Miles Davis Quintet The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions Prestige Records 2006 (1955-56)

Adorned by a painting rendered by the man with the horn himself, the elegant understatement of the packaging of The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions is wholly in line with the music it contains. The four-CD set--the latest chapter in the seemingly endless, but well justified, series of homages to Miles Davis--captures the entire output of Davis' mid ...

Miles Davis: The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions

by John Kelman
August 8, 2006

Much has been written about how, by 1955, trumpeter Miles Davis—already fast becoming legendary at the age of 29—had cleaned up his act, kicking his heroin habit cold turkey. Much has also been written about how his solo on Thelonious Monk's “'Round Midnight," with an all-star band at the Newport Jazz Festival, became the stuff of legend. Much has been written, too, about how this one solo—one single performance—was enough to entice Columbia Records to sign Davis to ...

The Miles Davis Quintet: Miles Davis: The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions

by C. Michael Bailey
May 24, 2006

The noted Irish-American author Thomas Cahill has written a series of books called “The Hinges of History" where, instead of concentrating on war, outrage, and catastrophe, the author illuminates stories of grace, great gift-givers and the evolution of our human sensibility. Cahill brings to life those personalities who had the greatest impact on who we are. In the realm of jazz music, we have an artist who regularly installed hinges in the history of American music. He ...

Miles Davis: Miles in Berlin

by Jim Santella
April 1, 2006

Miles Davis Miles in Berlin (Collector's Edition) Columbia 2006 (1964)

Containing a bonus track that wasn't available on the original LP, Columbia's “collector's edition" reissue of this live concert offers a terrific look at Miles Davis and one of his best bands. Recorded on September 25, 1964 at The Berlin Philharmonie, in what was then known as West Berlin, Davis ran his second great quintet through a series of multi-hued interpretations that introduced free ...

Miles Davis: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970

by Andrey Henkin
March 23, 2006

The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 is the eighth box set edition in a series begun in 2004, moving chronologically through the trumpeter's career with John Coltrane and Gil Evans, recorded output for Columbia from 1963-68, and extensive investigations into the sessions that yielded In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew and A Tribute to Jack Johnson. This collection, however, has less to do with this series conceptually than it does with mid to late-'90s releases highlighting live Miles (such as Live ...

Miles Davis: The Complete Concert 1964 / Fred Lonberg-Holm: Other Valentines

by Florence Wetzel
February 5, 2006

Miles Davis The Complete Concert 1964 Sony 2005

On February 12th, 1964, Miles Davis played a benefit concert at Lincoln Center to help register black voters in Louisiana and Mississippi. Davis and his luminous sidemen--George Coleman on tenor sax, Ron Carter on bass, Herbie Hancock on piano and eighteen-year-old Tony Williams on drums--launched into eleven standards and, according to Davis, “We just blew the top off that place that night. It was a motherfucker ...

Miles Davis: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970

by Greg Masters
December 20, 2005

For devotees of Miles Davis's so-called “electric period," the full release of the music recorded live in December 1970 at the Washington, DC club The Cellar Door has long been something of a holy grail. A healthy sampling was released in 1971 on Live-Evil providing evidence that more of this sound existed. The possibility that more from this lineup was in the vault gave hope to at least many of the baby boomers I keep in touch with. With the ...