Jazz Articles about Miles Davis

Miles Davis: The Complete Live at The Plugged Nickel

by C. Michael Bailey
August 10, 2005

Temperamental, passionate, standoffish, reticent... all of these adjectives describe the Miles Davis of the mid-1950s on. Like Beethoven, Davis considered himself an artist to be accepted on his own terms and a servant to no one. This did not endear Davis to his audiences, but that was no matter. Forget that Miles Davis was not the clown-showman Louis Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie were, or the gracious musical host Edward Kennedy Ellington was. Forget that he was not like Bill Basie. ...

Miles Davis: 'Round About Midnight (Legacy Edition)

by John Kelman
August 1, 2005

Given Legacy's ongoing efforts to package and reissue thirty years' worth of Miles Davis material, one has to wonder at the audacity of its latest addition to seemingly endless variations on his extensive catalogue, the Legacy Edition of 'Round About Midnight. Certainly the material on disc one--which includes Miles' entire '57 debut for the label, along with four bonus tracks readily available on both the '00 six-CD box, Miles Davis and John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955-1961, and the ...

Miles Davis: Year-Long Celebration of Five Decades and Many Miles

by Chris M. Slawecki
July 18, 2005

On October 27, 1955, Miles Davis signed with Columbia Records, where the mercurial trumpeter, composer, bandleader and conceptualist remained through most of his career. After 1955, Davis recorded and released nearly all of his greatest music through Columbia. Now part of Sony / Legacy, the label has embarked on a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of that contract signing by releasing a succession of new and newly-remastered titles throughout 2005.

The series began this past January with ...

Miles Davis: My Funny Valentine

by George Harris
June 26, 2005

This justifiably famous 1964 concert by Miles Davis' quintet at the Lincoln Center has been released in many incarnations. Originally it appeared as two single LPs, one consisting of the ballads of the evening, the other including all of the burners; it has also been released as part of last year's seven-CD set Seven Steps, and as a double-CD set that restored the concert to the order of its original program.

I have always preferred to separation into “hot" and ...

Miles Davis: Miles Davis: Round About Midnight (Legacy Edition)

by Doug Collette
June 23, 2005

Miles DavisRound About MidnightColumbia/Legacy2005 (1956)The detail to which Sony Music's Miles Davis reissue series lends itself is a pretty good example of how far ahead of his time the trumpeter/bandleader actually was. Packages such as this Legacy Edition of Round About Midnight suggest we are just beginning to catch up to the late jazz icon. In a career brimming with profound changes, the period surrounding Miles Davis' classic Round About ...

Miles Davis: Miles in Berlin

by Chad Kushins
May 31, 2005

Finally on CD in the United States, Miles in Berlin can be viewed by Davis completists as a Rosetta Stone in his long career. It is the very first recording by what would later be dubbed the second great quintet, capturing the group in a transitional period. Largely considered one of the greatest jazz bands ever, the new quintet consisted of musicians who seemed kindred to each other. And starting at the Berlin Philharmonie on September 25, 1964, listeners of ...

The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis, 1980-1991

by John Kelman
April 19, 2005

George Cole The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis, 1980-1991The University of Michigan PressISBN: 0-472-11501-4 2005 Always a controversial figure, the last decade of Miles Davis' life may, paradoxically, have been the most critically-contested of his career. Gone were the radical shifts of the man who had created such stylistically incongruous albums like Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Instead, replacing the innovations ...