MILES DAVIS
Prestige Profiles Vol. 1
All of the material here was recorded by Miles
Davis for Prestige between 1953 and 1956. After initially
recording some Prestige dates in 1951, Davis cut two recordings
for Blue Note in ’53, then rejoined Prestige, where
he recorded the session that closes this disc in May of
1953. “When Lights Are Low” features Davis with
John Lewis and Percy Heath, and Max Roach on drums. Already
Davis is looking for ways to economize, to only say what
is necessary to say. That can also be heard on the April,
1954 recording of “I’ll Remember April”
featuring a muted Davis playing with alto sax player Davey
Schildkraut, pianist Horace Silver, bassist Heath, and drummer
Kenny Clarke. Both of these tracks can be heard on the Prestige
album Blue Haze, released in 1954.
In ’54, Davis kicked his heroin habit,
as would future jazz superstars Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane
at similar points in their careers. He recorded the landmark
session that gave the world “Walkin’”
, and released it under the moniker Miles Davis All Stars.
The group featured the same rhythm section of Silver, Heath,
and Clarke heard on “April” along with trombonist
J.J. Johnson and tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson. The song
allowed Davis to show his blues influences and roots, and
his debt to trumpet player Clark Terry and others. In 1955
he recorded the album Bags Groove with Sonny Rollins,
and three Rollins compositions are included on this CD (only
two, “Doxy” and “Airegin” feature
Rollins). Rollins’ bright tone and long lines broken
up by rhythmic variations are a nice contrast to Miles’
relaxed trumpet work. It is well known that Miles was interested
in having Rollins in his group, but Rollins, who had not
yet kicked his own heroin habit, was not ready to join.
Instead, Davis ended up with John Coltrane
in the quintet, which also included Red Garland, Paul Chambers,
and Philly Joe Jones. Their output for Prestige has been
collected into a box set recently released by Concord: The
Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions. A previous 8-disc
set, Chronicle: The Complete Prestige Recordings
features the quintet plus Miles’ other considerable
work for the label. This disc barely scratches the surface,
but it does allow one to hear some great Miles playing,
and to understand why some consider this his greatest contribution
to the development of jazz, despite all that he later did.
The bonus disc is a trumpet player’s dream, with Chet
Baker, Kenny Dorham, Art Farmer, and Donald Byrd as well
as Coltrane, Rollins, Red Garland, and the fantastic Gil
Evans track “Jambangle” from Gil Evnas &
Ten.
