Miles Davis and Milt Jackson Quintet / Sextet

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Miles Davis and Milt Jackson Quintet / Sextet
Studio album by Miles Davis

Publication
(s)

1956

Label (s) Prestige Records / Original Jazz Classics

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

jazz

Title (number)

4th

running time

31:02

occupation

production

Bob Weinstock

Studio (s)

Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack (New Jersey)

chronology
Miles Davis and Horns
(1956) 		Miles Davis and Milt Jackson Quintet / Sextet Collectors' Items
(1956)

Miles Davis and Milt Jackson Quintet / Sextet is a jazz album by Miles Davis . It was recorded on August 5, 1955 in Rudy Van Gelder's studio in Hackensack, New Jersey , and released by Prestige Records . The Quintet / Sextet recordings are considered Miles Davis' last session before the formation of his first Miles Quintet with Coltrane.

The album

In July Miles Davis, after he had recorded the album Blue Moods with Charles Mingus the month before , appeared with his new band in New York's Café Bohemia ; With them were the young saxophonist Sonny Rollins and the rhythm section from Red Garland , Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones , who shortly afterwards were to belong to his first Miles Davis quintet with John Coltrane . In August, however, the trumpeter did not go to the studio with his current working band , but in an “All Star” line-up with vibraphonist Milt Jackson , bassist Percy Heath and drummer Art Taylor . Davis also hired pianist Ray Bryant because he "wanted a bebop sound". With Milt Jackson and Percy Heath, Davis last recorded the 1954 Christmas session with Thelonious Monk ( Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants ). Art Taylor was a kind of “house drummer” for the Prestige label at the time. In addition, instead of Sonny Rollins, there was the young alto saxophonist Jackie McLean , who also contributed the two compositions in which he participated. "Dr. Jackle ”and“ Minor March ”, the only up tempo number of the session. It then appeared in 1959 on his Blue Note album New Soil as "Minor Apprehension".

The piece “Dr. Jackle “shows McLean's connection to the blues as well as Charlie Parker, Miles shows a typically lyrical demeanor, and Ray Bryant plays in a soulful, dance-like manner. “Minor March” has rhythmic breaks and a bridge reminiscent of Bud Powell's “Tempus Fugit”; McLean's cadences and screams anticipate the style of his later Blue Note recordings.

Davis in the mid-1950s

Miles Davis, in his autobiography, expressed himself critically of the saxophonist in his own way:

“ Jackie was so high on that session that he was always afraid he wouldn't be able to play anymore. I don't know what this shit was about, but I never hired Jackie again after that shot. "

- Miles Davis

Nevertheless, the music on this album is “far more straightforward and intense than the album Blue Moods produced four weeks earlier, ” said Davis' biographer Peter Wießmüller of bebop to a closed hardbop concept , where conservative as well as progressive elements are combined; (...) the subtle arrangements of Blue Moods have given way to a certain expressive harshness. "

In the typical Bop topics “Dr. Jackle ”and“ Minor March ”, contributed by McLean, the trumpeter is animated by his accompanists to very long, imaginative solo runs. The short session is animated by "the excellent vibraphone by Milt Jackson and Jackie McLean's extroverted Altphrasierungen that time, more than in his usual, the legacy Birds out to revive the musical scene extraordinary."

It was the last joint session of Miles Davis and Percy Heath and the only one with the rather inconspicuous pianist Ray Bryant, who contributed the composition "Blues Changes", which was called "Changes" here. The piece creates a romantic, contemplative mood; Davis plays the trumpet with a mute. Thad Jones ' composition "Ditty Bitty" illustrates Ray Bryant's origins in blues, gospel and bebop.

Rating of the album

Percy Heath (1977)

The critics Richard Cook & Brian Morton gave the album the second highest rating in the Penguin Guide to Jazz . Scott Yanow , who only gave the album 3 stars in the All Music Guide , noted that the Miles Davis / Milt Jackson session of August 1955 is one of the lesser-known prestige releases; it is nevertheless an enjoyable outing of the trumpeter in All Star manner with his good friends, but - especially in view of its shortness of a good half an hour - it is not very essential in his discography.

The titles

Miles Davis and Milt Jackson Quintet / Sextet (Prestige PRLP 7034)

  1. Dr. Jackle (J. McLean) - 8:52
  2. Bitty Ditty ( Thad Jones ) - 6:34
  3. Minor March (J. McLean) - 8:14
  4. Changes (R. Bryant) - 7:10

The CD was released in 2005. The session is also included in the Miles Davis Chronicle - The Complete Prestige Recordings .

literature

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ The abbreviation for the album that is often encountered is Quintet / Sextet , occasionally Miles Davis and Milt Jackson
  2. ↑ After the first recordings with Coltrane on November 16, 1955 for the prestige album Miles (PRLP 7014), three tracks were recorded with Sonny Rollins, which then appeared on the prestige album Collector's Items (PRLP 7044) , coupled with Davis' recent recordings with Charlie Parker
  3. ↑ Quoted from M. Davis, p. 263.
  4. ^ M. Davis, p. 263.
  5. ↑ Wießmüller, p. 105. It should also be taken into account that Davis probably only recorded the album Blue Moods in order to repay debts with Charles Mingus . The latter album is strongly influenced by the aesthetics of Mingus and Teddy Charles . See Brian Priestley : Mingus: A Critical Biography. London 1985, pp. 75f.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Wießmüller, p. 106.