Miles Davis: Miles '56: The Prestige Recordings

Let us imagine for the moment that it is a day or two after the Big Spirit Beyond Wonder has separated the wheat from the chafe. The terrible, unwanted wars have ceased. Global climate change is no longer a threat. Autocracy is in the dustbin of history where it rightfully belongs. Illness has passed. The world, as it was in the beginning, is free of the subterfuge and manipulations of humankind.

Now the Big Spirit turns their attention to the greater details of being supreme. The Coolest Human Being Ever. They survey the long, long list. They cross off my name. Yours. Aunt Sadie's. Uncle Herbie. Your neighbor Charlie and his wife Matilda. They scratch out this name, that name, all names except one. All names except who we all at some time in our troubled existence suspected would be the coolest person ever.

That name? Miles Davis. The Big Spirit's Numero Uno piece of undeniable evidence? Miles '56: The Prestige Recordings.

Yes, indeed the Big Spirit beyond wonder is dancing 'round the cloud floor to the feel good grooves on Cookin', Relaxin', Workin', and Steamin', like "Woody 'n' You," "Ahmad's Blues," "Surrey With the Fringe on Top," "'Round Midnight," "Salt Peanuts," "Blues by Five," and "My Funny Valentine." All the good stuff. No filler alternates or previously unreleased material. Just laying down the bedrock for everything that came after.

Craft Recordings continues its centennial celebration of Davis with the 3-CD/4-LP Miles '56: The Prestige Recordings and that unerring quintet of John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. Add in Sonny Rollins, Art Farmer, and the irrepressible Tommy Flanagan, all bopping and a-romping. Stomping and setting the pace at the hallowed studio in Hackensack run by Rudy Van Gelder. All remastered from the original analog recordings with new observations and details from none other than Grammy Award-winning music historian Ashley Kahn. Davis may have thought he was just fulfilling contractual obligations to Bob Weinstock and Prestige before setting sail to greater achievements with Columbia Records, but Miles '56: The Prestige Recordings and the albums it gave rise to, namely Cookin' (1957), Relaxin' (1958), Workin' (1960), and Steamin'  (1961) were four-and five-star manifestations in their day and thus they will they hold their place in eternity.